Cooking for Two: The Mango Lassi Experiment

Since our mutually-enjoyed pasttimes clearly involved the consumption of foodstuffs, I decided to try to cook for my new husband. Now this may not sound like a very big deal to you, but I had given up cooking long, long ago, due to the fact that nobody ever did anything but criticize anything I made ("WHAT is the green part in this?" "Do we HAVE to eat that?" and, one of my favorites, "Well, the only thing I can find to criticize about this dinner is the color palette"), not to mention that as a single mom working full-time and going to graduate school, I just didn't have time for it. And my kids had gotten big enough to make their own salads and pop their own Pop-tarts in the toaster.

But with all the kids off at college, the workload cut back, and graduate school reduced to a manageable internship, I had some time on my hands. So I decided to make Mango Lassis. This may not seem like cooking to you, since no heat--or sharp utensils--are involved. But it was cooking to me, for it involved a recipe and ingredients and my time, and it could be criticized. I chose Mango Lassis because they are my husband's favorite Indian drink, sort of a mango smoothie, and because we had a can of "mango pulp" from India in our pantry, a gift from my husband's good friend Hirin's father, who owns a mango farm in India. So I got online to find a recipe.

There were a dozen different recipes for Mango Lassis! Some involved yogurt and milk, some left out the milk, some required only fresh mango, others insisted that the acid in fresh mangos would ruin the drink and that only canned pulp should be used. None of the recipes used the same proportions. Every other recipe included a spice called cardamom, which sounded so cool I decided I would definitely use some of that. And there was even a jar of it in the pantry (what on earth had my husband used it for?) After studying all of the recipes carefully, I fixed upon one that contained the mango pulp and cardamom I had on hand, as well as yogurt (NOT FAT-FREE, it advised in bold letters) and ice, in proportions that were fairly equal and would be easy to remember.

Mango Lassi

2 cups mango pulp (I used Taj brand)

2 cups whole milk plain yogurt (I had to go to a health-food store to find this!)

2 teaspoons sugar

1-2 teaspoons cardamom (I only used one teaspoon the first time because I was chicken, but will use two teaspoons from now on. For one thing, that makes all the ingredients 2 of something.)

2 cups ice

Puree all ingredients in a blender and serve chilled.

Makes 4 one-cup servings (who are we kidding, it barely made two glasses of deliciousness for me and my husband)

Sounds easy, right? It was easy! But I was still sweating bullets as I poured it out into a glass for my husband and he took his first sip. "This is good," he said, and then I took a sip. It WAS good--creamy-rich and smooth and sweet, but not too sweet. The cardamom had the flavor of India itself. It was so good that I had a Mango Lassi for lunch every day until we ran out of mango pulp!

Now that my confidence is up, it's on to my next project: DINNER! I'm starting simple. Soup. I'll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I'm thinking of getting this t-shirt from http://www.turbaninc.com/:

The Love Diet

I told my husband the other day that my stress level had gone down to about zero since I married him, which I thought was a big bonus. And then I thought to myself, and I actually told my husband, too, because I can tell him anything, that one of the big reasons my stress had decreased was because I had given up dieting once I met him. Because he loved me no matter what!

Since we met in January, we have enjoyed introducing each other to our favorite restaurants and feeding each other our favorite things and just being Foodies together indiscriminately. We ate Key Lime cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory, New Orleans Beignets (with three sauces!) at the Grand Lux, and sushi at every sushi place in town. We chowed down on Chinese food in Des Moines, Thai food in Houston, Italian food in Hot Springs, Indian food in Dallas, and barbecued beef in Texarkana. We had popcorn and Cokes at every movie, and sometimes even movie dogs with the works, too. We indulged in the ice cream of our choice with our home movies--Mango, Passion Fruit, Chocolate, and Dulce de Leche. And we didn't eat that ice cream out of a bowl, oh no, we ate it right out of the CARTON--our OWN carton.

I watched the pounds pack on almost like a scientist conducting an experiment, and I observed my condition in a bemused way, as if I were gaining weight purposefully for a big movie role like what's-her-name did for Bridget Jones (not that she ever actually got FAT) or Robert DeNiro for Raging Bull. I would pull on a pair of pants and laugh at how they no longer fit, ha ha ha, and throw them in the stack of Clothes That No Longer Fit, and grab something else from the other side of my closet, which is stocked fairly well with three different sizes of clothes, due to all of the afore-mentioned dieting. I would giggle when my husband played with my "love handles" and tell him there was more of me to love. I would consciously be aware of how most parts of my body felt like they were encased in a thick cake-layer frosting of lard. I laughed and felt loved.

And then I weighed myself. O. M. G. And, OK, this is the truth, I have never weighed this much before in my LIFE. Well, unless you count the time I had my third child. I did weigh this much after I had her. But I think pregnancy is a much better excuse than being in love. Although, I have to say that the being in love part prevents me from wanting to practically kill myself like I did back when I weighed this much about 19 years ago.

I did tell hubby that I'm going on a diet. He chuckled, amused at me. "That's OK," he said. "Go ahead and lose some weight. I can put it right back on you."

Ha! Let the dieting begin. Man, I feel stressed already.