Oh, and in other cooking news, I have been trying my hand at Near East dishes as promised. Homemade curry paste is not nearly as intimidating as I made it seem. Sure there are a bunch of spices, and at first it's tough to nail down which supplies what part of the flavor palette (I still don't really know what fenugreek does), but you get used to it quickly. And, at least in my experience, it wasn't as much of a trial and error period as it is for other cuisines I learned--it might not be the best curry ever made by man, but they all tasted good.

It's come at a good time because I've started to get into saving scraps to make stocks lately, so I've made a lot of curry soups and stews, which I tend to make heavier on ginger, cumin and chiles. I've been making things like coconut curries and amok, which I make heavier in cinnamon and ginger and add sugar to taste. I'd like to do more exploring with cardamon-heavy curry dishes, but the cardamon I have now is ground grocery store crap. I was tempted to ask for cardamon pods for christmas, but could you think of a lamer gift!

So that's what's going on in my culinary life at the moment. I highly recommend stock-making to the other hobbyists out there. Buying whole chicken and the boney/fatty pork and beef parts and such are much cheaper by the pound, and you can make delicious food that lasts you a week with meat and veggie scraps that you'd otherwise throw away. Soups/stews/rice dishes are like blank canvases that are very fun to work with; you get a good white or dark stock, and you can do anything with it.