The Fuzzy Chef & Friends

Oh, you say, making fresh pasta is so much work.  I couldn't possibly do it myself at home.  Especially not on a weeknight.  And there's no difference from dried pasta and/or supermarket pasta anyway, is there?

Foolish person!  Making your own fresh pasta is easy, and it's fast.  All you need to have is a few ingredients and $400 worth of kitchen countertop machinery.  And it's much tastier than anything you can buy in a store.

Now that we have our rice, it's time to assemble some ingredients (really, you should be prepping these while the rice is cooking and cooling).  Essential to this are of course the sushi rice and nori.  I suggest buying your nori in a 10-pack of pre-toasted sheets, medium crispy ("2" on the helpful 1-3 scale on some brands).  Don't worry, 10 is plenty unless you're doing a wedding.

Wow, don't sushi chefs look expert? And so fast. And very Japanese. There's no way you could do that yourself. Takes years of training. Right?

Nah, don't let them fool you. Making superb sushi takes training, as does making a roll every 45 seconds. But making pretty good nori rolls (rolled sushi with the seaweed on the outside) when you have the whole afternoon is something that anyone with halfway decent knife skills can do. More importantly, sushi you just made tastes better that yesterday's fridge sushi from the market, and will really impress your friends. So let's do it!

The battle of the titans!

In the left corner, we have Sri Chinmoy! This recently deceased quasi-Indian cult leader, marathon runner and flautist, through his restaurants such as Ananda Fuara in San Francisco, brings us the Neatloaf, a popular savory main dish of mysterious ingredients!

In the opposite corner we have Prabhupadha! The late founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, otherwise known as Hare Krishna, brought Vishnavism and surprisingly good Indian food to millions of people worldwide via his empire of temple-restaurants and three cookbooks. Today he brings us the Nutloaf!

Two bald Indian former cult leaders. Two 1970's-style vegetarian meat-substitute main dishes. Two hours to cook. Two heavily greased baking pans. Which one will win? Click and find out.

For the non-Americans reading this, Thanksgiving is the food bonanza of US holidays. There's really nothing to the holiday except a big meal with family, and I love it, because it gives me a chance to cook things which would be far too much effort for just about any other meal.

Now, most people know Thanksgiving as "Turkey Day" and the whole meal centers around 15 pounds of roasted or deep-fried bird. However, I don't like meat, and my in-laws have never cared much for turkey. So for the last 5 years I've been preparing very non-standard Thanksgiving dinners. Since my wife gave me a couple of Paula Wolfert cookbooks this year, my theme was "near eastern cooking" and I plunged in with my mother-in-law as sous chef and my wife on dessert.