Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music... Ad Infinitum

One of the first major changes I noticed in my life after settling in London was my exposure to different kinds of food. With so many cultures painting the British capital in various colours and giving it diverse flavours, it wasn't hard to imagine that my palate would also widen up with time. And widen up it did.

Hot (as in spicy) food was not my cup of tea at the beginning, however. There probably still exists a photo of me and two other Cubans at an Indian restaurant with my then colleagues from the travel agency for which I used to work where my dark features were given a rouge makeover; a consequence of the herbs and spices combination. No amount of milk and/or Naan bread could put out the fire. That curry was hot, my brethren and sisters.

But over the last few years I've become keener on the 'chillier' side of food. And not a day goes by, provided it's my turn to cook at home, when I don't put a dollop of chilli sauce on some stew or hotpot I'm cooking. It shouldn't, then, come as a surprise, that this section has seen the temperature rise (at least, palatewise) in the last few months.

The following recipe (by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) works wonders for a winter's evening meal, or a British summer's afternoon lunch. I tend to serve it with Basmati rice, though, my family prefers to have chapatis.

Chickpea, potato and kale curry

340g dried chickpeas (or 2 400g tins, drained and rinsed)
1 tsp cumin seeds, plus a little ­extra to garnish
1 tsp coriander seeds
½ tsp mustard seeds
1 hot, dried red chilli, crumbled
1 tsp ground turmeric
2.5cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 tbsp groundnut or sunflower oil
1 large onion, peeled, halved and finely sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
700ml chicken or vegetable stock
250g potatoes, peeled and cut into 3cm dice
150g kale (or cabbage), finely shredded
Yogurt, to serve
2 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped

Soak the chickpeas overnight in plenty of cold water. Next day, drain, rinse and simmer them for about an hour and a half in fresh ­water, until tender, then drain. (If using tinned, just drain and rinse.)

Put a dry frying pan over a medium heat and, when hot, toast the cumin, coriander and mustard seeds and the chilli for a couple of minutes ­until they smell ­really fragrant and the mustard starts to pop. Grind to a powder in a coffee grinder, spice mill or with a pestle and mortar, and mix in the turmeric and ginger.

Heat the oil in a large pan over a medium heat, and fry the onion, stirring regularly, until soft and golden brown. Stir in the garlic and spices, leave to cook for a minute or two, and add the stock. Simmer for five minutes, then add the chickpeas and potatoes. Cook until the spuds are tender, then add the kale. Cook for a few minutes, until the greens are tender, then serve with a dollop of thick yogurt on top, along with a ­sprinkling of toasted cumin seeds and some coriander leaves.

The playlist to go with this dish should have a kick to it, too. That's why I open with a classic Ray Charles's track, 'Drown In My Own Tears'. And lacrimal glands are also part of the curry experience. But a cautious note about the clip below. I'm not entirely satisfied with Ms Jones reworking such a heart-felt song. Don't get me wrong, Norah is pitch-perfect in her version, but in order to sing the blues, you have to feel the blues, you have to let rip, man. And I don't think she does. It's not the first time that I've felt short-changed by Ravi Shankar's daughter. It's almost as if the woman has the capability of taking you places, but she'd rather not take the chance to do it. Anyway, it's just my opinion. Rest assured, though, that my curry does have a lot of bluesy soul in it.



A blast from the past. That's all I can say about the next video. Tracey Thorn's voice is as tender as those chickpeas left in cold water overnight. Sizzling.



Carol Welsman comes back to my blog after I uploaded another clip of her duetting with Herbie Hancock some weeks ago. This time she sings with Djavan, a Brazilian music legend in his own right. This is a fabulous concoction, just like my curry. Enjoy.



© 2010

Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be published on Sunday 27th June at 10am (GMT)

Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

'The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.'
'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' by Gil Scott-Heron

No, Gil, you're wrong. The revolution will not only be televised but it will also be brought to you live by the twittering classes, with later re-runs on youtube, showing it wearing its dirty underwear on its head and giving two fingers to the status quo. The revolution will then go off to update its profile on facebook.

The revolution, Gil, will be hard to control.

Will? Did I just write 'will'? No, make that 'has been hard to control'.

The advent of the internet narrowed traditionally geographical boundaries whilst widening the margins of democratic discourse. The appearance on the horizon of social networking sites in the last five or six years has made this conversation even more fluid and immediate (even if that urgency sometimes does more harm than good). The benefits this online revolution has brought are manifold. If not, ask The Guardian, a British newspaper which saw its journalistic integrity under threat last October by the oil trading company Transfigura. The corporation had banned the media outlet from reporting a question asked by the Labour MP Paul Ferrelly about Transfigura's injunction on the publication of a report that alleged the company had commissioned the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast. Within minutes of the news filtering through, Twitter was flooded with messages condemning Transfigura and demanding that the gagging order against The Guardian be lifted. The newspaper won. Revolution 1, Status Quo 0, Gil.

When Jan Moir, a columnist at that rabid tabloid they still call newspaper and which normally goes under the name of Daily Mail, poured scorn and bile on the still warm body of Stephen Gately for his lifestyle (ex-member of boyband Boyzone and who happened to be gay), the Twitterati rose as one and inundated the Daily Mail with complaints forcing Jan to write a half-hearted apology. Online Revolution 2, Status Quo 0.

But away from the - sometimes - comfortable world of western politics, and into the realm of totalitarian regimes, we see that the digital revolution I've so much eulogised above, is a murkier issue. This is a world full of ups and downs where writing a post disagreeing with the government can cost someone his or her freedom or even their life. We saw it with the Burmese monks challenging the junta with digi-cams a couple of years ago. We witnessed it again with the fracas between the Mukhabarat government in Egypt and activists. And who can forget the most famous photograph in the last twelve months? That of Neda Agha Soltan, the Iranian woman whose bloodied face became the biggest indictment of Ayatollah Ali ­Khamenei's regime. Within minutes of her murder, the image had gone viral and various media outlets around the world reproduced it, thus making the public aware of what was happening on the streets of Tehran.

This cyber-dissent is welcome news. It shows that from Russia to Cuba a new community has been active in the last lustrum. Flash mobs, which started life as juvenile pranks (I saw one at Liverpool Street station many years ago and it was hilarious, it was a gigantic dance wave), have evolved into peaceful insurgency acts. Gandhi would have been proud. Social networking sites have become cheap tools of communication. And since video gadgets are ubiquitous (on mobiles, mp3s, iPods), bloody crackdowns by government forces are not as frequent as before. Also, new technology enthuses people who would often not want to get involved in politics. Call it peer pressure, but of the facebook variety.

Yet, these advantages must be equally measured against the disadvantages. Totalitarian regimes have become quite adept at second-guessing its opponents. Last year Yoani Sánchez, the highest-profile Cuban blogger, still living in Cuba, was beaten by state security agents. The 'great firewall of China' became a reality earlier this year when that country's authorities clashed with Google over censorship issues. Cyber-attacks are launched, not only by dreadlocked anti-capitalists, but also by Russian nationalists. Even western democracies don't escape Big Brother's omnipresent eye. If not, ask Paul Chambers, who posted a joke on Twitter in January and got slapped with a one-thousand-pound fine this week.

My position on this online revolution is pragmatic. By all means, if you care about digital democracy, make sure that you check and double-check (and even triple-check!) that the tools you use against despotic governments are not used against you in return. Social neworking sites were not primarily created to fight against Putin, however privacy should be at the core of its ethos. Let's make the task of finding activists a bit harder for authoritarian regimes. Moreover, many grassroots dissidents don't have access to computers. One of my long-standing disagreements with the Cuban community abroad is the whole rigmarole about access to internet in Cuba. I'm all for it, let's be clear about that, but it is not a priority.To me, more attention should be paid to reaching those right-thinking people who want to bring the radical democratic reforms we so badly need. Let's create a platform for them and give them a voice outside Cuba no matter if it's through Twitter or any other tool. The revolution is here, Gil, and whether we call it cyber or not, it will be Tweetlevised.

© 2010



Next Post: 'Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music, Ad Infinitum...', to be published on Tuesday 18th May at 11:59pm (GMT)