Noe Farmers market

Since I think I'm a bit ahead of my budget, I've had an urge to splurge a little. Hey, even a guy on foodstamps can have some fun once in a while, no?

Today I worked from home, and for lunch, I walked over to the Noe Valley branch of the public library to renew some books. It was quite a hike over the Castro hill. On the way, I stopped by Hot Cookie to grab a yummy oatmeal-raisin cookie (I picked one from yesterday, which costs $0.85, instead of a fresh one, which costs $2.50 ). Armed with a delicious cookie, I made the trek over to Jersey & Castro . On the way back, I passed by a sign advertising Mitchell Brothers icecream, and the urge to try out this famous SF icecream got the better of me, and I got a little scoop ($2.75).

Today is the beginning of the "Castro Farmers Market", a weekly farmers market that will be held every Wednesday from 4pm to 8pm. What great luck! It's 2 blocks from where I live, and the ability to pop over for fresh organic produce in the middle of the week is awesome! So I walked over to the market, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to afford much. But then I saw this nice fresh bunch of coriander, and I forked over a buck ($1.00) for it. Alas, that was not the end of it. Then I came across the stall of the Brioche Bakery, and one look at their muffins and I was floored. I simply had to have their "all berry" muffin ($3.00 :( ), which was so fresh, so moist, so delicious that I was digging into it on the way back, and so lost in the bliss that I almost got run over by a car.

So yeah, today was a day for some indulging. On top of that, I ran out of milk for my daily chai and spent another $2.50 on that at the neighborhood store.

Coming back to the experiment at hand: you may have noticed that I haven't made any daal yet, the staple of Indian cooking. Well, yesterday evening I finally decided to make some.

Daal is the main source of protein for most vegetarian Indians. We don't get tofu there, and hence daal + rice makes for a complete protein. Daal can be made from a variety of lentils; I made it with red lentils , aka "Masoor Daal" in Hindi. The variant I made is called "Mallika Masoor" (or, the "Empress Daal" because it is the "queen of daals". I don't know who came up with this title!).

You'll need:

• 1 cup red lentils, washed
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped (increase this amount if you like garlic)
• 2-3 dried red chillies
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp red chilli powder (change the quantity if you like it more/less spicy)
• juice of 1 lemon
• 4 cups of water to start with
• salt to taste

1. Heat up 2-3 tbsp of cooking oil in a saucepan on medium-high heat
2. Add the cumin seeds and the red chillies, and stir them around till the popping slows down
3. Add the turmeric, and stir it around for 10-20 seconds
4. Add the soaked lentils (drain the water before adding them), the garlic, chilli powder and the lemon juice
5. Stir these around for 1-2 minutes; be sure to scrape the bottom as the turmeric tends to stick
6. Add the water, bring the daal to a boil, and then reduce the heat to medium-low
7. Cook, covered, for 30-40 minutes.
8. Periodically, stir and check the water contents. If the daal has soaked all the water, add 1/2 cup at a time. In all, you'll probably need a total of about 5 cups of water