Lynn Strong

Cozy fantasy and beyond

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Tag: Shai Madhur

  • Warm comfort: Golden milk and chai

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    This was the second roughest holiday season of my life, and my plans for 3 weeks mostly of writing and editing… the universe said Ha, and kept laughing. I’m… probably not okay. But I need to keep impersonating it, because there isn’t a good alternative. When you grow up undiagnosed autistic with complex trauma and then become a theater major on top of that, are some things you learn about the functional value of masks that keep you together somehow when the show absolutely has to go on.

    I also realized that I made fundamental mistakes trusting WordPress’s defaults 3 years ago. But the amount of time and work needed to correct them is time that won’t go into writing new books.

    So here’s my patch between what I didn’t know about WordPress three years ago and what I can hopefully sustain going forward: the new Recipes section, collected by book, which I hope to add to gradually, reusing content that’s already written in the books and cutting down on the volume of paper needed in paperback editions. (If only in focus photos were not my nemesis!)

    Chai and Cat-tales has the least-intimidating collection of gaps to fill, so I’m going to start there.

    And, really, I’m willing to bet a fair number of folks are in need of some warm and soothing comfort lately.

    Golden Milk and Golden Chai

    Haldi doodh, turmeric milk, is an ancient drink from India. I can’t give you anything resembling a date, though. Every reference I’ve found has said Ayurvedic medicine has used it for “thousands” of years, and while I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it’s in the Manasollasa or Lokopakara manuscripts, I don’t have legible access to either of them.

    So in this case I’m blending history with a twist of modern knowledge: cucurmin’s bioavailability goes up dramatically in the presence of pepper and fat, and cinnamon and ginger and many other spices are potent anti-inflammatories (as well as being delicious). And if you’re adding chai masala as well, the difference between golden milk and golden chai comes down to whether you also simmer in some tea.

    The resemblance between dry chai masala, medieval poudre douce, and pumpkin spice is striking. I have a whole rant about the historical intersections between pumpkin pie spice and chai masala and poudre douce, with tangents through “things women are regularly mocked for enjoying, with or without pepper,” “things megacorporations time-limit and access-control,” and “things I want to enable more people to enjoy for themselves whether or not it is corporate-and-or-patriarchy-approved.” But that rant is not so cozy!

    Personally, it took me a while to warm up to turmeric drinks. In my quest for inflammatory symptom relief that wasn’t NSAIDs, most of the turmeric tisanes I’d tried tasted like I was licking my ochre art pigments. But once I found a concentration I liked, it got easier. And also tastier. 

    I’ve seen modern recipes going from “a pinch” to “a tablespoon” (!) of turmeric per cup of milk. My own balance point hits around a quarter to half teaspoon in my big 24 ounce mug, because on bad days I want to just make it once and sip on it for hours. 

    On a bad day, I’m also not going to be up for freshly hand grinding every spice. So I pregrind my chai masala. Then I use about ½ tsp chai masala to ¼ tsp turmeric, or sometimes half and half when I need extra ouch-fighting power.

    If you’re fond of skim milk or you’re using a fat free nut milk, you’ll likely want to either add a bit of coconut oil to the hot liquid or sip a spoonful of olive oil on the side. 

    I know some people enjoy “bulletproof coffee” with butter in it. And I’ve made and drunk Tibetan tea with butter and salt. But both of those strike my own taste buds as “We’ve crossed the beverage-versus-soup threshold here.” So I don’t suggest blending olive oil into your turmeric and milk, or you may find yourself wondering where the rest of your dal makhani ingredients are.

    Some useful dry chai masala / poudre douce variants 

    Easy mode: Get something already fine ground like pumpkin spice and add extra cardamom and black pepper.

    Easier mode: Use something like the Blue Lotus chai powder mentioned below, though it includes powdered tea so you will get some caffeine.

    Handcrafted for storage:

    • A couple dozen green cardamom pods, cracked and with the black seeds crushed. (Or 1 Tbsp powdered)
    • 3-4 cinnamon sticks, preferably Ceylon cinnamon, bashed up enough to fit in a spice grinder. (Or ½ Tbsp powdered) 
    • 1-2 tsp black peppercorns (or long pepper if you can find it)
    • 1-2 tsp dried ginger (not crystallized or fresh here; powder keeps longer)
    • ¼ to ½ tsp nutmeg, ideally fresh grated
    • If you can find them:
      • ½ tsp grains of paradise
      • A couple chunks of galangal
      • ½ tsp mace

    If they’re already powdered, mix them up.

    If they’re still whole, grind them all up together. 

    If you enjoy the brewing process, it doesn’t need to be ground too fine. 

    If you don’t want to have to strain it, make sure to remove the green hulls from the cardamom pods and extract the seeds before grinding. Then grind all the spices as finely as possible.

    Put the ground spices in an airtight jar and date it so you know how fresh it is. (Best within a few months; it won’t go off, it just won’t be as fragrant or as potent.)

    When you’re ready to drink:
    • 1 or 2 cups hot milk from cows or plants
      • (If skim, add a bit of coconut oil or a sliver of unsalted butter) 
      • (If you want it to be chai rather than hot milk, simmer some CTC black tea like PG Tips or Jivraj in there too)
    • ¼ to ½ tsp turmeric (to taste)
    • ¼ to ½  tsp chai masala / poudre douce above, OR pumpkin spice plus cardamom and pepper (to taste) 
    • 1 to 2 tsp honey, jaggery, or sugar (to taste)

    Simmer for 15 minutes or so, strain if needed, and serve warm.

    Scale up or down based on the size of your mug.

    Ready to drink easy mode: 

    When I’m having a bad day, my super-fast, get-it-done, not-sure-I-won’t-burn-the-milk-today version goes:

    • 1 or 2 cups hot water (not boiling)
    • ¼ to ½ tsp turmeric (to taste)
    • Half a container of Orgain’s vegan vanilla meal shake (brings enough fat for bioavailability, a lot of creaminess, a lot of vitamins, and enough sugar that I don’t add more)
    • Your chai masala / poudre douce equivalent of choice:
      • ¼ tsp your home blend, if you ground it finely enough not to need to strain it
        OR
      • ¼ tsp something like Blue Lotus original chai masala per cup
        OR
      • ¼ tsp pumpkin spice plus ⅛ tsp cardamom and several grinds of pepper per cup

    If I’m out of meal shakes I swap in 1 Tbsp milk powder and 1 tsp sugar per cup.

  • Book Launch and Mouse Party!

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    Whew.

    (If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the Big Parties this time of year, you’re not alone. Here’s a very Small Party for whatever level of ambition you feel like.)

    I’m both delighted by Chai and Cat-tales and also exhausted before the marathon even properly starts.

    I severely underestimated how much small business bureaucracy, research, form filling, and other administration would be involved in not just publishing a book but in fighting my way through at least a dozen sets of “yes this is actually me” autoresponse systems when trying to claim an author identity with a common name. I have not conquered all the paperwork, but I have gotten the essentials through.

    So, it’s available now!

    I am slowly assembling the trappings of a small business professional, also known as social media presence, a contact form, a newsletter, and a wide array of advertising venues that want me to pay them exponentially more money than I have taken in at this point, which, hahahaha oops.

    Someday I’m going to need to break the habit of feeling like I need to post a recipe with every blog post! But that day is apparently not today, because I would also like to squee about how much fun I had making the chapter art for Chai and Cat-tales.

    ETA, I also just found the chef Shai Madhur needs to hire for his tiny mouse festivals. Tiny katori and kadai and thali! Tiny charcoal cook stove! Tiniest fryer for papad and puri! Approximately one tablespoon of dal and a spice container the size of a pillbox.

    I am very weak to tiny adorable things…

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUiFadIWCI

    Since I can’t see well enough to use a pencil anymore, and since the thought of AI art or writing makes my soul break out in hives, my on best bet for art is what I can remember of Photoshop from about 25 years ago, plus a Depositphotos standard license for art that authors and creators are allowed to remix and use professionally. This particular image came from assembling about 5-6 pieces of licensed stock line art over several hours of squinting at previews and careful composite editing.

    A delighted mouse squeaks with enthusiasm for Shai Madhur's mouse-sized feast of rice and treats on a banana leaf with a little walnut shell diya lamp burning.

    In “The Potter’s Dream,” one of the three novellas in Chai and Cat-tales, Shai Madhur is tasked with trying to keep the mice out of the grain, and despite the fact that he lives in the Temple of Bastet, he’s just not good at un-welcoming anything, even the mice. So he prayed over a festival meal for the mice and made a little mandala of grain and pigments to see where they went afterwards.

    The mice, of course, very helpfully left brightly pigment-colored footprints all over the grain sacks once they’d finished receiving his blessings and his festival meal.

    In a different fantasy, the mice would have been obediently willing to go the other direction. But I’ve had a few too many difficulties convincing mice that no they really did not want to be in a house with both me and a cat who grew up wild and still had no qualms at all about mouse-hunting.

    (I had qualms about his mouse-hunting. For many years my cat seemed determined to repeatedly and not-very-patiently teach me, his clearly hunting-impaired provider of dry crunchy cat food, what was necessary to do to turn mice into juicy tasty food. The mice were persistently stupid enough to keep providing my mighty little hunter with educational materials for his hunt-reluctant human.)

    My mighty hunter has since crossed over to hunt the mice in kitty heaven. But I’m still as little inclined as Shai Madhur to hurt the mice myself. (And I adore that mouse in the art beyond all reason.)

    So I’m crossing a couple streams here with the intersection of Japanese furikake and onigiri and Middle Eastern za’atar, because I think the temple mice would approve.

    The Mouse’s Festival

    • Either 3/4 to 1 1/2 cups (1 or 2 rice cooker portions) of uncooked rice, or leftover rice from takeout
    • Shai Nanda’s lemon-rubbed cheese, if she will give you the recipe, or some feta sprinkled with olive oil and lemon juice
    • Any additional protein of your choice (beef, chicken, falafel…)
    • Your choice of any convenient and tasty mezze: hummus, baba ghanoush, tabbouli, dal, olives, dates, dolma, whatever you enjoy
    • Your choice of za’atar, furikake, or mixed herbs
      • If you don’t have pre-made za’atar at hand, but you do have sumac, thyme, oregano, and sesame seeds: Mixing about 1 Tbsp of each of them together and toasting them for a couple minutes in a warm dry pan, then adding a sprinkle of salt, gets you za’atar. But Penzey’s za’atar is also tasty and I like supporting the Resistance.

    Rice:

    • If you want to shape your sushi rice, you’ll want to cook short grain sushi rice fresh. It will hold together in filled balls with ingredients tucked in the middle and/or sprinkles on the outside.
    • If you don’t care about shaping it, you can use long grain jasmine or basmati, or anything leftover from takeout.

    Other ingredients:

    • If you have finger bowls or katori from thali or other cute small containers, plate up your protein and mezze with them. If not, you could use lettuce leaves or nori squares or just dot them wherever you like.

    Time to eat:

    • If you have a banana leaf, set it out.
    • If you don’t, get a fancy plate or bamboo mat or something that makes you feel festive. Small bowls are fun and mouse-friendly too.
    • If you like rice balls filled with tasty stuff, take fresh-cooked sushi rice and tuck your protein in the middle and shape it. (If your hands are heat sensitive, you can get an assist from a quick swipe of olive oil in a teacup, then use the teacup as a mold. If you feel particularly festive, you could use silicone muffin molds or even flowers.)
    • If shaping rice balls is too much fuss, cook or reheat whatever rice you’ve got. You can entertain your inner mouse with teacups of rice covered with assorted nibbles and sprinkles with less hand scorching.
    • Sprinkle your za’atar or furikake on your rice and anything it looks tasty with, for a nod toward the mouse dance party.

    Other delicious stuff to do with za’atar:

    • Sprinkle on Greek yogurt for quick simple and tasty veggie or bread dips
    • Blend with olive oil and toast on pita or saj
    • Sprinkle on pizza (especially when there are olives and grilled onions involved)