Chicken Biryani

Portland, September 13, 2010—

SOMETIMES THINGS SEEM to me to get too complicated. Take last night, for example: nine or ten of us at table, so the girls decide to make an Indian meal. Simon cut up two chickens — beautifully, I might add, with help from an online explanation. Grace cut up a few melons with a melon baller bought for the occasion. Lindsey and Giovanna ground the spices and seeds, cooked the rice, shredded cabbage, cooked dal, and did countless other things.



(A cartoon from The New Yorker hangs on Giovanna's kitchen wall: guests with Martinis in hand peeking into a messy kitchen, woman digging into the refrigerator, lobster walking away from the scene, caption: "So this is where the magic happens." It seems appropriate.)

Well, the results were undoubtedly worth the effort: everyone ate almost everything. I especially liked the dessert, melon balls in a watermelon-and-rose-water purée.

Insolia-Grecanico blend, "Ramì," Azienda Agricola Cos, 2007; Cerasuolo di Vittoria, "Pithos" (also from Cos), 2006
(These are wines we encountered a few months ago in Sicily, complex and extremely interesting, also very tasty.)