Full Gastronomic Tilt

Nikki was housesitting for a family that lives the sort of life I dream about. They live way up on top of a mountain, in a two-story wood paneled house. With a jacuzzi and a greenhouse. And a pond. With a water slide. There is hardwood and tile throughout, with floor to ceiling glass windows and doors opening to a wraparound deck.

They have alpacas, due solely to a month long trip to Ecuador taken a few years ago. They came back to the States and thought, “Hey! We’ll raise alpacas!” And now they are.

That wistful sigh you hear is mine.

There are three females, three or four males and two baby alpacas, called crias.

And two cantankerous guard llamas, because alpacas don’t defend themselves. Llamas do. Llamas get mean and haughty. They kick and spit. Alpacas just scamper and play, act shy, then curious.

Occasionally, they also spit.

When I arrived, Nikki brought me up to help herd the alpacas into the barn for dinner.

How do you herd alpacas, you ask? Simply get behind them. They will run the other direction. See now why they need a guard llama?

We ran up the hillside and shooed the alpacas into the barn. Except they weren’t ready to come in yet, so there was a bit of dodging and teasing on the part of the alpacas. Eventually all were in and fed, and it was time for our dinner.

We pooled our resources (one eggplant, garlic, green peppers, tofu and several potatoes) and set out to make curry in this unfamiliar, but incredibly well-stocked kitchen. There was a walk-through pantry, labeled indiscriminately by region (Mexico, Asia) or type of preparation (baking, cake making). A sort of organization that most certainly was not my own was evident. Mismatched mason jars filled with different grains covered one shelf while four or five different types of flour were rolled closed and stacked atop one another in a corner. Ingredients I had never heard of (see: fufu flour), likely acquired during some exotic adventure, jostled for a place next to Cheetos and melba toast.

“Leigh, they have 14 boxes of matzoh but no ice cream.”
It was fantastic.

We managed to find coconut cream (no coconut milk), Vindaloo as well as Korma curry paste.

It was a Vindaloo kind of night. We cubed the tofu and the vegetables, drank some wine and talked of dreams.

I mixed up the curry, tasting for heat while Nikki sauteed the vegetables in the largest cast-iron skillet I had ever seen. We simmered the curry for about 20 minutes and made basmati rice. The end result was flavorful and filling. I do not see anything wrong with using jarred curry paste, as long as it is a high quality. For example, I always use Mae Ploy brand when I make Thai red curry, because it really is good. I know I’d just frustrate myself if I tried to mix the paste from scratch. Perhaps on a rainy Saturday.

It is true. You can make curry out of anything you have on hand. But there is something special about eggplant and green peppers mixed together. Sweet onion would have been perfect in the curry as well. The coconut cream perfectly balanced the heat of the Vindaloo. I discovered that the main difference between coconut cream and coconut milk is that coconut cream is thicker and more concentrated. Mm, tasty.