One of the great things about going home to the States was eating familiar American food. Everyone knows I’ll try anything, and I mean ANYTHING, and probably enjoy it, but just prior to the trip had been craving Philly food like cheesesteaks, hoagies, and burgers. Consequently, I spent a lot of time eating that stuff as well as any rare beef I could get my hands on. I don’t like the beef here so I was scarfing it up in Jersey at every opportunity.

Now that we are back, I have decided we need to eat less meat so I got a copy of Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian and am now trying my hand at some vegetarian meals. So far, so good. Last night I made a really nice Moroccan stew with pumpkin, zucchini, chickpeas, raisins and tomatoes and served it on a bed of couscous with some hot chili sauce. Delicious. Really had a lot of zing. Tonight I am making lentils topped with gingery spinach and yogurt and crispy pieces of fried onions. It’s fun trying something new. This cookbook has hundreds of recipes, tons of which I cannot wait to try.