Dead Until Fried Buckwheat Paddies

I wandered around Waterstone's today pretending to just aimlessly look for nothing special, holding securely in my hand some Tolstoy, just to prove my literary superiority. Then, thinking someone might think I hadn't read Anna Karenina before (which I of course have), I decided to exchange it to something by Iris Murdoch.

In fact, I was on a determined search for the True Blood books by Charlaine Harris. It was almost as if I was pretending even to myself that I was actually there to get something by, let's say, Iris Murdoch, and then, oh, just by accident, sort of slipping in a Dead Until Dark just for some silly fun on the side.

I can only remember doing something similar when buying condoms those first times, and sort of hiding them between a toothbrush, some news magazine and a chocolate bar. When buying condoms, I remember being achingly aware to not get at the same time anything that would create a story. Like I could not get condoms and lipstick. Or condoms and tampons. Or condoms and even things like hair spray. I didn't want the person at the cashier to think Oh, what a slut! She must really want it, buying condoms and lipstick and hairspray and all...

I was not going to ask for those books. That would be too embarrassing. So I walked around with this la-la-la-lala face for some time, just hoping to stumble upon those guilty pleasure books somewhere. But even when I carefully went over the fiction A-Z/H section for the third time, I could not detect Charlaine anywhere. It dawned on me then, that they might not be under fiction at all, but under Horror. I sighed in relief. And so I sailed, slowly, unsuspiciously, along the long cashier counter where three handsome young men were working, hoping they wouldn't notice me, and if they did, that they would please see the Murdoch books in my hand.

But, weirdly, there were no Charlaine to be found in the horror section either. I sat down then and opened instead Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea. I couldn't manage to read even one sentence without wanting to strangle myself rather than to continue reading. And so I ran up to the cashier and pleaded for someone to please show me where the hell they were hiding the True Blood books. He pointed me in the direction of Horror repeating (sensing my urgency) To the left, the Left...

And, finally, there they were. All glossy and shiny and lined up one after the other. I couldn't believe I had missed them before. And so I had to put down The Sea, The Sea in order to stack my seven True Blood books. Ahum. And then I sort of just forgot it there, among Lovecraft and Stephen King...

Dead Until Fried Buckwheat paddies with basil yoghurt

3 dl cooked buckwheat

handful of basil leaves

a few capers

sun-dried tomatoes

a pile of grated parmesan

samlal oelek

vegan stock

pinch of salt

Mix (with a handmixer) in a bowl the buckwheat, basil leaves, capers, sliced sun-dried tomatoes and sambal oelek, a minute until roughly 'chopped'. Then add the rest (the parmesan, a teaspoon of stock and salt) and mix to a nice dough.

Make nice paddies and cover them in a mix of black and white sesame seeds and poppy seeds. Fry in a pan until hard on both sides.

Yoghurt: Mix together goats yoghurt with a 2 cm piece of ginger, 1 clove of garlic, basil leaves, and a pinch of salt. Make some avocado dip too so you have some range...