On lentils and holiness.

Once, when Jo and I were contemplating the academic life, our adviser told us tales of his days as a starving student in London, wandering from library to library, speaking to no human being beside his local bartender and the occasional hobo, and surviving, as had his forebearers the early-medieval desert hermit, on boiled lentils with maybe a vegetable or two in. Also he made his own yogurt. I think this was meant to be a cautionary tale, but what I learned from this was that lentils are cheap, delicious, and awesome. They are also kind of the stone soup of legumes because you can just throw things at them until it turns into an excellent stew. I like them with curry-esque spices.

Anyway, today I made this curried lentil stew with sweet potatoes and chard, and it might be my new favorite. Kind of ugly, though! All I’ll say is you can fudge your own garam masala by googling it if you, say, live in an outer borough where they haven’t heard of such things. The lime and cilantro at the end might be a bit much – you could cut down either the lime juice or the zest, I think – but they make the whole thing much lighter and less overpoweringly dense than it could otherwise be. This dish is great also because it doesn’t really need accompaniment – it’s protein, starch, and green veggies all at once.

And for reference, here is my now second-favorite recipe for Lentils With Stuff In: Ethiopian spicy tomato lentil stew. I usually make this without 4-3 of the ingredients due to not having them on hand, but I’d say the peas are really non-negotiable. Mysteriously enough, they make the dish. I guess some other kind of sweet green would work as well, though.