Dirty Sugar Cookies Meets Mint Tapioca

When Ayun Halliday asked me to host a stop on her virtual book tour, I had to accept.  I loved the idea of a virtual book tour.  Could I do a virtual cookbook tour? Shit, I'm sure someone has already beat me to it.   I was also intrigued to read Halliday's new book, Dirty Sugar Cookies.   She mentioned something about hating pasta in an email to me, so I knew this book would be interesting considering I have dreams about the fresh, soft sausage filled tortellini we had while staying in Modena a few years ago.   Pasta is one of my favorite things.  Ever.  I needed to find out how such a tragedy could occur!

But it was far from a tragedy.  In fact, I enjoyed some of the family and food related stories Ayun tells in Dirty Sugar Cookies.  I can't forget about the story of her mother making crazy gourmet food on a nightly basis for her and not always appreciating it.   I always get a lot of crap from my coworkers who sit and openly laugh about when I will become a Dad and give my kids fancy fussy meals all the time (a joke about foie gras in a launch bag sent them into laughter.  Losers).  But the crazy Aussie woman I work with thinks it will be even funnier to envision me opening a can of Chef Boy R-Sandra Lee for a screaming kid. (Now that's not gonna happen).

Ayun's book stirred many food thoughts from my past and made me think about them for the first time in a long time.  But her editor had her leave out a now mysterious chapter based on why she hates pasta.  This is indeed very intriguing to me.  I would love to know why - send me this chapter, Ayun!

So in tribute to the launch of Ayun Halliday's Dirty Sugar Cookies, I'll re-post an old dish from the archives that is not a pasta, yet possibly an interesting substitute.  This dish is curry seared scallops with mint tapioca and green onion sauce.

You can pick up Dirty Sugar Cookies here.

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[Sonia Rose]

Haute cuisine celebrity chef w/proven track record and $$$ seeks foodie as partner/investor for Manhattan upper eastside restaurant venture near completion. jburger3@nyc.rr.com