Lockdown Day 45: From Anson Mills in South Carolina to my kitchen in Shanghai
Sunday morning, family Zoom time! Last night I put in the last of my Trader Joe’s steel cut oats into the Xiaomi instant pot last night, along with flaxseed and chia. I think this canister of steel cut oats I brought back from the US in either November or December 2019! I added maple syrup to the bowl, and made some 大紅 tea to have afterwards.
After Zoom, then I made my Sea Island Red Peas. These I had bought in San Diego back in April 2020! The story is that back in 2020, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, everyone wanted to bake at home, but there was no flour to be found. I searched high and low, and found that Anson Mills, a brand that I always associated with grits, had flour for sale. They certainly a very high-end brand, really emphasizing freshness, and how their flour and grits are freshly ground.
Now, get up to the minimum order quantity, I not only ordered flour - “Fine Cloth-Bolted Pastry Flour” and “Red Fife Bread Flour” to be precise -, I also ordered the corn that I knew them for in the form of “Antebellum Fine Yellow Cornmeal” and “Colonial Coarse Pencil Cob Grits,” and just for fun, “Sea Island Red Peas.” This little 14oz. bag of Red Peas was $5.95. You cans see on the bag that they say to store this in the freezer, and so I did. In fact, this bag has been in the freezer in San Diego since April 2020, and stayed there until I took it on my trip to San Francisco, and then Shanghai quarantine, and then into my apartment.
I was surprised when I opened the bag, that these beans were so multi-colored! In the picture on the website, they looked all the same color, cooked. Would cooking change this? There was a slight musty smell, but I took out a few beans that looked spotty, and then washed these, and then they actually smelled like fresh beans after that.
I soaked them for 2 days in the chicken broth that I made from the Tyson chicken, and then I threw the whole lot into the Xiaomi instant pot. Following the recipe on the Anson Mills website, I added 1 tsp of curry powder and a bay leaf, and set the mixture to cook for 20 minutes at pressure. I chopped up carrot, celery, and red onion, and then added that to the pot after the 20 minutes. I had originally planned on putting this under pressure again, but actually the beans were already perfect! I just transferred the mixture to the regular pot to simmer on the stove with the vegetables, added some pepper flakes, and pureed a bit of the beans.
I think I pureed the beans too much, but I absolutely loved this dish! It was bold and earthy, and that curry flavor kept me going back for more. I would definitely love to make this again, in the same way.
After lunch, I had a bowl of watermelon.
This afternoon, I also roasted my remaining stash of sweet potato, to keep around for a sweet snack this week. Well, I even ate a small sweet potato and half of a large one for a snack today! These are really delicious. It’s great to have these handy for snacking.
After roasting, I took a nap, did laundry, did my antigen test, and then had another video chat with a colleague and friend. Lots of catching up today!
For dinner, I spruced up some of a jar of Classico pasta sauce with sautéing the same mixture as for the peas (carrot, celery, and red onion) along with garlic, and cooked them in the Xiaomi for about 6 or 10 minutes under pressure. I also fried up some cabbage, and then added tuna to the pasta sauce. It was a simple, but tasty meal. And I used this delicate carrot green that I grew, for garnish!
I had more watermelon for dessert. I think I’m going to finish this first watermelon quickly!
Tonight, I still have to do my antigen test.
Today, there was a lot of chatter set off by this announcement from the Shanghai government about opening up businesses. Well, this seems to magically coincide with the expiration of our mysterious “静默“ silent period today. But just as we actually should have been out of lockdown since last Monday, but for this strange silent period, and just as the official media has been communicating for a while that we’re getting back to normal when we most definitely have only gone backwards to lockdown in the past week, I’m going to take a “wait and see” attitude towards this. They might say things are opening up, but let’s just see when the front gates of our community will have the padlock taken off.
