Casey's Red Lentils

Dear citchenites,

I am back in Marxist town and, fear not, the hilarious leftist styles are still ablaze. Yesterday, I decided to join them in their style-abyss by wearing my giant hippie/Canuck mountain boots with my skinny black jeans. It was, if I do say so myself, pretty swell. I also saw the super interesting Robert McRuer speak about Bad Education and the intersections between crip theory and queer theory. He is hella cool; you should check him out.

Anyways, now I am cleaning out my email box and thought I would post the following, which the Doctor gracefully sent to me a couple months ago.

In the words of the Dr., 'nuff love,

Prof. Tata

Casey's Red lentils

Here are the basic ingredients

- red lentils

- leeks or onions - a bunch

- lots of peppers, not too important, I like the narrow light green ones that are slightly spicy

- canned chopped tomatoes, or the real thing one or two cans

- garlic

- butter

- some curry powder OR in lieu of that a mix of lots of tumeric, some ground corriander seed, a bit of cumin, a touch of allspice, a some of something hot but not too much of the hot. Some chipotle pepper sauce or a little bit of some dried chipotle peppers could do well as a nice mild smokey hot ingredient. A little salt (careful!) And a healthly amount of fresh pepper.

- maybe a jalipenio or a few little red chillies

- fresh corriander and yogurt at the end

- water or veg or chicken stock

The key with this soup is, as with all soups and foods, is to get the balance of ingredients right.

It all depends on how much you are making in total

Start off with butter (hot but not burning) - a good liberal amount. You don't want to give everyone heart attacks, but this is what is going to make the soup good. Imagine you are me when making this an use my slightly exuberant sense of proportions, all the while keeping one foot in the door of balance and proportion. Fry up those leeks (lots of em and well-washed). This is the essence of the soup.

Good them well, and enjoy the smell.

Add a bunch of peppers and garlic. Then add lentils (a normal amount not too too much you are not making cement here!) and spice. Quickly, before anything starts sticking or burning add the can or two of tomatoes with the juice. Add more spices as required. Be liberal with the tumeric.

Add some water or ideally some great fresh chicken stock or veggie stock (not necessary though), until you get to a consistency where the lentils do not make it way too thick. At the same time, you are not not making water soup here.

Cook for about twenty minutes or until the lentils are well cooked. Bring on lots of chopped coriander leaves and yogurt to put on top to cool it down and green it out. Serve with very good fresh bread heated in the oven with more butter, and red wine in good proportion.

If you are in a meat mood, add a few sausages to this at the frying stage, and depending on the grease factor reduce the amount of butter.

And that's it!

Nuff love,

Casey