cooking achievements

My kitchen, and therefore most of my apartment, smells like broiled steak (tonight's dinner) and basmati rice (part of this week's lunch). This is a very happy thing. Another happy thing: the fact that I actually remembered that I'd forgotten to turn off the burner under the rice. And I remembered that before it scorched.

I put 1 tsp of whole cumin seeds, six whole cloves, and half a tsp of dried lemon peel in with the rice. I'm trying to come up with whatever combination of spices the Indian place in the Super 88 food court puts in their rice, and I know I've seen cumin and cloves and orange zest in it at various times. I don't have any oranges, hence the lemon peel.

I'm finally getting back to being able to cook to please myself. I don't know if anyone else would like my off-the-cuff inventions, but I mostly do.