I've found that authentic ethnic cuisine takes a lot more steps to prepare than what most people want to do on an average weekday or busy weekend. Here are a couple of simple recipes that I make quite often that are simplified ethnic dishes: CHICKEN DELICIOUS 4 chicken breasts 2 T. butter or margarine 1/4 C. yellow mustard 1/2 C. honey 1 t. salt 1 t. sweet (not spicy) curry powder Melt margarine in a small pan. Add remaining ingredients and cook on medium heat until thickened. Place chicken in a baking dish and pour sauce over chicken. Bake at 375 until the chicken is cooked through (approximately 45-60 minutes depending on the thickness of the chicken). Serve with rice. PICANTE CHICKEN 4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts 1 jar of Pace mild picante sauce 3 T. brown sugar 1 T. dijon mustard Wash & rinse chicken. Put in 8x8 baking dish. Mix picante sauce, brown sugar and mustard in a small bowl. Pour over chicken. Bake at 375 for 30-35 min, or until chicken is done. Serve with rice. DAL from JessyF 1.5 Cups Orange Lentils 'Masoor dal' 3 Cups water 1 onion - chopped 1 Tablespoon Garam Masala 1 teaspoon fresh minced ginger or jarred 1 cut up tomato Handful cilantro Cook onion in a bit of oil until brown, not dark. Add lentils and cook three minutes. Add water, bring to boil, stirring. Add garam masala, ginger, cut up tomato Cook until lentils are soft (the split ones 'melt'), stirring occassionally. Garnish with cilantro and hide from the rest of the family. GINGERED BARBEQUED CHICKEN BREASTS from my Mom 1/2 C. ketchup 3 T. worcestershire sauce 2 T. peanut oil 1 T. honey 1-1/2 t. grated fresh ginger 1/2 t. dry mustard 1/2 t. chili powder 3 chicken breasts, approximately 1 pound If baking in an oven: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wisk all the ingredients together. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Brush half the sauce on top of the chicken. Bake for 20 minutes. Brush remaining ingredients, bake for 20 more minutes. Also excellent on the grill. CAJUN MEATLOAF by Paul Prudhomme This one takes a little more prep time but it is worth it and will make 8 nice slices of meatloaf which can be freezed if you don't eat them all at once: Seasoning Mix: 2 bay leaves 1/2 t. salt 1 t. cayenne pepper (more or less to taste) 1 t. black pepper 1/2 t. white pepper 1/2 t. ground cumin 1/2 t. ground nutmeg Meatloaf Mix: 4 T. unsalted butter 3/4 C. onions, finely chopped 1/2 C. celery, finely chopped 1/2 C. green bell pepper, finely chopped 1/4 C. green onion, finely chopped 2 t. minced garlic 1 T. tabasco sauce (more or less to taste) 1 T. Worcestershire sauce 1/2 C. evaporated milk 1/2 C. ketchup 1-1/2 lb. ground beef 1/2 lb. ground pork 2 eggs, lightly beaten 1 C. fine dry bread crumbs Combine seasonings in small bowl. Melt butter in 1 qt. saucepan; add onion, celery, peppers, green onions, garlic, tabasco, worcestershire and seasoning mix. Saute until mixture sticks excessively, about 6 min., stirring occasionally and scraping pan bottom. Stir in milk and ketchup, continue cooking about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Place ground meat in ungreased 13" x 9" baking pan. Add eggs, cooked vegetable mixture and bread crumbs. Mix by hand until thoroughly combined. Shape into loaf pproximately 1-1/2" high, 6" wide and 12" long. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 25 minutes,then raise heat to 400 and continue to cook until done, about 35 minutes. Two tips: I put very little hot seasoning in this recipe and serve it with a bottle of tobasco sauce so everyone can season it to their liking. Also, if the cooked mixture is too hot to handle, I use latex gloves to mix it all together. I've substituted 1/2 turkey and Eggbeaters with no problems. Good luck finding flavorful recipes! Kari

As usual, I find Rachelellen's post full of wisdom. It gives me some of the guidance I want. Cooking the same cuisine (not the same dishes) for one week straight would be no hardship at all for me. When I returned from a one week trip to Italy I cooked nothing but northern Italian food for at least three weeks. There was nothing monotonous about it. That experience has faded. I need another trip to Italy for a refresher course. I don't see the need to limit the experiment to a single cookbook, although that could be an effective way to do it, given the right book. Books I would recommend are: Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji The Key to Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni The Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy These books are similar in approach and format although about different cuisines and by different authors. They provide a solid foundation for cooking each cuisine. Again, I say that switching to another ethnic cuisine for an extended period of time is a fine idea. Those for whom that is their native cuisine eat it daily year after year don't they? Jim

I have been preparing Indian food for years now, and have quite a few cookbooks. The first one I got was a terrific introduction...Betty Crocker's Indian Home Cooking (believe it or not) with recipes by Raghavan Iyer. It isn't all Vegetarian, but there are plenty of vegetarian recipes. I have found that ordering used books from Amazon.com is a wonderful alternative to buying books full price. I have never had a problem with any of the sellers or gotten a book that was in poor condition. For example, the list price of the book I just mentioned is $25.95, but under the title on the web page, there are two sections...one says "Buy New" and the Amazon price is $17.13, but next to that it says "47 New and Used from $7.93". If you click on that, the list of vendors selling the book at a discount appears. Naturally, you do have to pay postage, but being that you're getting the book so inexpensively, that's not such a big deal. Another wonderful book that is completely vegetarian is "Dakshin-Vegetarian Cuisine from South India". South Indian cuisine is quite different and delicious and I believe this book is quite authentic, considering the amount of chili peppers in the recipes...unless you have an asbestos mouth, I would cut the recommended amounts considerably. Amazon has a copy of that one for $9...this is the webpage for it, I can't figure out how to provide two direct links in this forum. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b/103-6920553-8739867?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Dakshin-vegetarian+cuisine +from+south+india&x=0amp;y=0 Here is a link that might be useful: Amazon Link for Betty Crocker's Indian

I read both fiction and non-fiction. usually have one or two of ech type going at the same time. Often a fiction book will get me to go into more depth of a subject-- ie i read a bio of jos. banks while reading patrick o'brian's sea-adventures that master and commander movie was based on. just one to many references to banks, made me dig up a bio to fit him into the books i was reading-- that lead to reading the botany of desire. right now i'm working on wincheseter's book about the 1906 san fransisco earthquake that i came a cross while looking thru the 'new non-fiction' section at our library. I read the horatio hornblower novels to compary to obrian's and edded up reading a book about tamenny (sp)hall in new york which caused me to read a bio of john adams, and because we were going to washington a read a history of 'clover' adams too. strange on how books will lead you on a thread of reading. I'm finishing peter tremayne's mystery series of sister fidelma in 7th cent ireland, no idea where that will take me, but it prompted me to pick-up books on celtic knotwork. so i read and read and read, obscure references lead me from place to place. diggerb