Homemade Indian in Morningside Heights
GRILLED CHEESE, PLEASE! is a series that explores dinnertime by looking at an eclectic group of families. A home-cooked meal? Great! Take-out? No problem! Pull up a chair and join us as we discuss everything from favorite food memories to never-fail dinner options.
Meet Sam, Renu and Aditya. Sam, a noted Director of Photography, runs Iron Eye Productions and specializes in food television. Having shot everything from Spain…on the road Again to Kimchi Chronicles, Sam’s lens has brought some of the world’s best food onto all of our screens. He lives in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan with his wife, Renu, and their son Aditya who will be eleven in just a couple of weeks!
1. What’s for dinner?
Roti (made with whole wheat flour, water and salt and cooked in ghee), cauliflower with fried onions and tomatoes, kadhi (hot yogurt thickened with chickpea flour and cooked with fragrant spices) and rice. And a few chocolates for dessert.
2. What’s the usual dinner routine?
RENU: We almost always eat at home and it’s always strictly vegetarian. I cook dinner probably four times a week and sometimes we have takeout. We rarely go out, maybe twice a month at the most. Aditya and I eat together every night and Sam joins us if he’s not working. I am the only chef.
SAM: I can help assemble a taco and I am the king of heating things up. I can add flame to anything.
3. What are Aditya’s favorite dinners?
ADITYA: I love tacos and chana (chickpeas) and japchae (a Korean noodle dish). And I lovvvvve queso fundido with huitlacoche [a.k.a. corn smut] at Café Frida on the Upper West Side.
4. Does Aditya ever cook?
ADITYA: I like to make roti!
5. Did you grow up eating dinner with your families?
RENU: Yes, I definitely did. I grew up in the Midwest but my parents had come straight from India and my family is from Rajasthan and the surrounding areas. We ate together every night around seven. My favorite dish growing up was dal dhokli, noodles made from the same dough you make roti with that are cooked in lentils. I used to ask for it on my birthday every year. I also really loved Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (which I only had when I went to my friends’ houses).
SAM: It was hit or miss with my dad because of his work, but I always ate with my mother and my brother. It’s funny how we replicate our parents’ lives. We only ate Korean food at home that my mom always made. Except when I was about twelve, she started taking these cooking classes so all of a sudden we were eating homemade Chinese food. She also got a fryer and there was a lot of Korean fried chicken. When she went back to work, she stopped cooking. I was heartbroken. I went to boarding school for high school, so dinners at that point were decent institutional food. I actually loved school food because it was the only time I got to eat American food (meatloaf, spaghetti, pizza, etc.). My favorite dish growing up though was kimchi jjigae (a kimchi stew). As my father says, as long as you have rice and kimchi, everything else is a bonus.
