A reprint from The Nation (LK) by Hassina Leelarathna Alarming levels of banned toxic found in substitutes makes local Cinnamon safer and desirable A scientific research study four years in the making and just released in the US spells a major windfall for Sri Lanka’s cinnamon industry. Appearing in the April issue of the prestigious Journal of Agricultural and Food ...
With spring upon us and summer right around the corner, I’m inspired to get outside more, and start hitting the farmers market for fresh produce. It’s also time to start shedding that winter weight and get healthy again, and vegetables are the perfect tonic. Since the south of India is known for its primarily vegetarian diet, and also some ...
I originally made my raw and roasted Sri Lankan curry powder at home and gave it out to friends and family, who were the first to encourage me to actually market my brand. When my book came out, this seemed like a no brainer as most of my recipes called for either a raw or roasted curry powder. Since ...
DC/MD/VA! I’m back at the Hill Center in the nation’s capital, once again, promoting something I truly love, which is Asian food. You thought I was all about rice & curry, but I’m venturing out of my comfort zone a little, and exploring some dishes from China, Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand, which I cook on a daily basis. Ever ...
one of the giants at Ministry of Crab Since ending a brutal 27-year conflict in 2009, Sri Lanka is writing a new chapter in her history, which is seeing the country growing and changing in leaps and bounds. One of the first things I noticed on my latest trip there, after the absence of about a year, was how clean ...
Lunch is served at my Uncle Wilson’s place in Kandy Despite Sri Lanka’s compact size (roughly about the area of West Virginia), there are definite regional variations in its cuisine. The food from the south is said to be spicier and more fish-based, as is exemplified by one of my favorite dishes from that region, fish ambul thiyal; whereas Tamil ...
For all the fuss about restaurants, everyone knows the best meal you can ever eat is at someone’s home—especially if that someone is Leela. If you’ve ever checked out my blog before, or saw the Sri Lanka episode of No Reservations, you’ll be familiar with this diminutive lady, who was my Aunty Dora’s cook for 40-some years. Practically every ...
Whenever I’m in Colombo, a city I’ve eaten my way around quite often, I’m always eager to go off the eaten path and discover a place that I’ve never dined at before. A special favorite of mine is Jaffna food, the spicy Tamil cuisine of the northern part of the island, and when in search of a new spot, ...
On Thursday, April 11th at 6:30pm at Bazaar Spices in Union Market, we welcome author and gastronaut Skiz Fernando as he discusses the practical and health benefits of using spices in your cooking as well as demystifying some of these “exotic” ingredients often found in Sri Lankan cuisine. For your sampling pleasure, he will also offer a demonstration and tasting of ...
on Sunday, March 24 , 2013 from 9 am to 3 pm in the Vihara premises at 5017, 16th Street NW, Washington DC 20011 Proceeds will go to rebuild one of the Buddhist Temples destroyed recently in Bangladesh. For more details, please contact Ven. Maharagama Dhammasiri Nayaka Thero at 202 723 0773
As one of the more popular dishes on any Thai restaurant menu, basil chicken is simple, quick, delicious and healthy–thus a perfect match for Pan Asian. You can make it at home with very little effort and only a few ingredients. The star of the show is, of course, Thai basil, which is a type of sweet basil with narrow ...
When: Sat, 05/04/2013 - 11:00am to 1:00pm Cost: $75 Category: Food and Garden Location: Lorinda “Annie” Hooks Demo Kitchen Skiz Fernando returns to Hill Center to take you on a culinary tour of the Far East without ever leaving the kitchen. In this two-hour, hands-on class, Skiz seeks to demystify Asian ingredients and techniques as he instructs you in the preparation of such simple, delicious and ...
In these food-centric times there is a greater appreciation for regional cuisines than ever before in history. Forget about the fallacy of “Chinese food” or “Indian food”–people are digging deeper into the various regional cuisines that comprise these two well-established food cultures. The internet has a lot to do with that, and travel, as well as the fact that ...
Just the other day, I contacted The New York Times about doing a piece on Sri Lankan food. They passed, despite having listed my cookbook, Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking, as a Times notable cookbook for 2011. Then, I saw that they published the following piece by David Tanis, formerly of the acclaimed Chez Panisse restaurant. ********************************************************************************************** CITY ...
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: 19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 120,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it. Click here to see the complete report.
Only one year ago I opened the New York Times to discover that my humble, little cookbook, Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking, had made that esteemed publication’s list of most notable cookbooks of the year. Such recognition came as icing on the cake, the culmination of a long journey for me as well as the realization of ...
It’s amazing the amount of pure flavor you can render from a fish head. That’s why Asians have prized them for eons, using them in curries as well as soups, where the concentrated flavor of the fish head requires no additional stock. Of course, South Americans also love their fish heads, and that’s why a hearty soup like Sancocho ...
The CIA World’s of Flavor was literally the best place to eat on planet Earth for those three days of the conference as premiere chefs from everywhere were cooking up a storm for the daily World marketplace, which is presented in the video. So I couldn’t leave you folks without some good ole food porn to get your stomach ...
Chefs from across the Arc of Flavor–defined by the conference as the swathe of territory spanning Spain in the West and the Spice Islands of Indonesia in the East–shared their cultures and cuisines during various demo sessions and seminars, which varied in size from an audience of 20 to 500. For our small session on Sri Lankan cuisine, Chef ...
When Chef Koluu and I discovered that we were to take part in the One Pot Meal seminar to be held on the main stage of the conference, we were a bit puzzled about what to do since there are no one pot dishes in Sri Lanka. So we decided to make biriyani–a dish that does not originate in ...
