CHECK OUT MY NEW VIDEO: If You Give a Cook a $20

Before Covid, we had this idea to launch a video series called “If You Give a Cook a $20.” The gist is that Daniel would find someone interesting, hand them $20, have them shop wherever they want, cook whatever they want, and see what happens. The “subjects” could be food people or not: chefs, cooks, tamale ladies, writers, artists, musicians, actors, elected officials, activists, grandmas, grandpas, moms, dads, whoever. The thought was that if it might be fun or compelling or unexpected or illuminating or educational or entertaining or horizon-expanding to cook with you, we’re interested.

We figured we’d use me as a guinea pig for the first episode and then go from there. We did the guinea pig part (check it out) which was totally fun, but then pressed pause while we wait for shooting non-essential videos out in the world to be a thing again. We can’t wait to pick it back up, hopefully with some guests that are far more exciting than me.

But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this first installment. We shot it up at my house and at the nearby farmer’s market. I bought fish, and then used vegetables that I already had at my house (it’s a farm, after all). Maybe that’s cheating, but as Daniel says in the video, following rules isn’t really the point. We ended up making a curry with potatoes, carrots, onions, sand shark, and homemade coconut milk. The coconut milk thing is super easy, delicious and cheap; I run through the whole process (which is literally two steps) in the video. I served the curry with brown rice that had some cardamom pods in it, and black beans (done in the pressure cooker) with chile and garlic. I could eat some variation of this (maybe no fish, just vegetables) every single day and be quite happy. I’d also be happy if someone handed me $20 every day to shop for lunch, but I’ll take what I can get.

—Mark