Home cooking hiatus

Besides oatmeal and a fish slurpee soup, the burners have remained cold for the last month. I haven’t cooked that much at home since the internship at America’s Test Kitchen began four weeks ago. For the most part, I’ve lived off the leftovers (i.e.  deep-dish pizza, chicken and dumplings, cassoulet). A man at the Celebrate Recovery group brings meals each week that his wife prepares, a truly generous gesture. She made a great fried rice. This doesn’t count the times going out or ordering take-out, or the day when Jay, one of my three roommates, bought the ingredients for a whole-wheat chicken pesto pizza with sun-dried tomatoes. Roommate Daniel and I were fortunate recipients of that meal.

Daniel, Jay and I went to Parish Cafe and Bar on Boylston Street Sunday night. For me, it was a return trip. We switched tables to have a better television viewing angle for the Lakers-Magic NBA Finals game. I enjoyed a glass of Rex Goliath Pinot Noir and the nicoise salad ($12.75), a seared tuna steak on a bed of mixed greens with tomato and egg wedges, olives, crisp, cooked green beans and diced cucumbers. A creamy, white, thin mayonnaise-like wasabi aioli dressing topped the tuna. The dressing’s taste was pleasing, when mixed with lemon juice in the salad, but there was a bit too much aioli.

We ordered food from Halal Indian Cuisine on Huntington Avenue another night. I ordered the chicken tandoori ($7.95), with basmati rice and a salad of thin-sliced onions with cilantro. The bone-in chicken, marinated in a special tandoori masala and yogurt for 24 hours, then baked on skewers in a traditional tandoori oven, was bright red-orange. I would have liked an accompanying sauce. The meal needed some moisture. Rice was cooked ideally and I saved some of the onions to cook days later for a sandwich.

Parish Cafe and Bar

361 Boylston St.

Boston, MA 02116

Phone: (617) 247-4777

Fax: (617) 247-3210

Halal Indian Cuisine

736 Huntington Ave.

Boston, MA 02115

Phone: (617) 232-5000

Fax: (617) 232-6000