Sadie Rose's Contribution to Culinary Art

In my life in and out of food work, I've noticed that almost everybody who has cooked for a long time stumbles on some creation that has the potential to spread to kitchens everywhere. Most of those recipes end up trapped in families or small circles of people, but some of them travel. This one should travel.

Last May, after eating a Polish Dog at my son's birthday party, I felt disgusting and wanted to give up meat, something I had done a number of times. From the nutrition books I've read and from watching my lifelong vegetarian mother age with freakish strength and vitality, I'm convinced that we are healthiest when we eat no animals, or virtually no animals. After that birthday party, I knew I wanted to stop eating meat.

I told Sadie that I wasn't going to eat meat anymore, and then she told me she would make me a delicious vegetarian dinner that she came up with when she was broke in college, living with her vegan best friend, and eating tons of lentils.

Sadie is a woman who can walk into a kitchen, scan the ingredients and the environs, and make delicious food every time. It's a skill she's honed from single motherhood and it's very different than the skills you pick up as a professional cook. When you spend years cooking or baking professionally, you scan all of your ingredients that come in your kitchen and send back the ones that aren't perfect. You sharpen your knives to razors. You smell the scallops to make sure they aren't a single day old. You measure in grams. You get picky and precise. It's culinary art for sales and consistency, not culinary art for survival or personal pleasure. My first impression of Sadie's cooking was when she made fish tacos with little crushed tater tots in them, with some sauce and cabbage and I can't remember what else, but they were some of the best fish tacos I had ever had, made with what was in her freezer and small refrigerator. I mean they were killer, really good tacos. Sadie knows she can cook, but she is a way better cook than she thinks she is. She cooks gracefully and totally relaxed, with a big open mind to improvisation.

The lentil dish she prepared was one of the best lentil dishes I have ever tasted, and it was totally created by her. I cooked in an Indian restaurant, have made many lentil dishes for pay and for myself, grew up with a vegetarian mom, am thoroughly familiar with the lentil's prominent standing in vegetarian culture, and this thing that Sadie makes is the best. It is number one. I love it, my kids love it, everybody loves it. And it's so simple. This dish is her contribution to culinary art, it is a creative masterpiece of flavor, balance, and nutrition, and I wonder what other inspired jewels hide in all single-mother's kitchens. Anyway, make this, it is a phenomenal vegetarian meal.    


1C Red Lentils
2C Water
1T Olive Oil
1 Red Onion thinly sliced
1t Red Thai curry paste
3T Braggs liquid aminos
2T Maple syrup

Sourdough Bread (preferably Dave Miller's bread available at the Saturday morning Farmer's Market in Chico) Read about Dave Miller's masterful bread.

If you're gluten-free I'm sorry. Please reconsider unless you are truly, painfully allergic to gluten. Dave Miller is one of the best bakers in the United States and he's right here. And his loaf with some rye in it goes perfectly with this dish.

Rinse your red lentils and combine in a pot with the water. Bring to a boil and lower the heat to the lower end of medium.

Pull out a saute pan and heat the olive oil. Drop the sliced onions. Throw a couple pinches of salt on them and keep them moving in the hot pan until they start to soften and brown. Turn the heat down. You're going to cook these down until they are sweet, soft, and quite brown. Cook them until the lentils are ready.

In 10-15 minutes the red lentils will be done. They go from done to mush quickly. You want them to retain a little bit of themselves so don't over do it.

Season your lentils with the Red Curry, Braggs, and Maple Syrup. Sadie always does this to taste without measuring but I think the quantities above are about right. You can of course adjust how you like, taste as you season.

Serve in bowls topped with caramelized onions and thick slices of lightly toasted sourdough for dipping. If you're plant based like me, drizzle high quality olive oil on your toasted bread. If not, go with ghee.

Thanks for reading. Give this a shot. It's an easy, super healthful and affordable way to feed a lot of people. And it's so delicious you'll think about how good it was and crave it until you make it again.