Laurie Endicott Thomas, Author at Where Do Gorillas Get Their Protein?

Quick Cauliflower and Potato Curry, Jasmine Rice, Apple and Fennel Salad

This is a quick and easy recipe for entertaining. The extra turmeric is good for you, and it gives the potatoes and cauliflower an appealing yellow color, which looked good with the red tomatoes. I served it with white rice and some parsley for garnish. For the salad, I had some fennel left over from the day before. The feathery greens from the fennel bulb dressed up the salad, and were tasty. I also had some carrot cake left over from the day before for dessert.

Quick Cauliflower and Potato Curry
2 onions, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
About 3 medium potatoes, diced
Nearly half a head of cauliflower, cut into florets
1 can diced tomatoes
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp turmeric
Parsley or kale for garnish

Stir-fry the diced onions in a dry skillet (no oil) until they are very brown. You can add a little bit of water from time to time if they start to stick. Add the minced garlic and fry that for about 30 seconds. Then add about 3 cups of water and the potatoes, cauliflower, and diced tomatoes. Add the spices. Cover and simmer until the potatoes and cauliflower are tender. Serve with rice. Garnish with parsley or kale.

It’s hard to give an exact quantity for the potatoes and cauliflower, because their sizes vary, and some skillets are bigger than others. If I fill my skillet with vegetables, it yields about 6 servings.

Rice
Because we had company, I wanted to serve a particularly tasty kind of rice, so I made white jasmine rice according to the package directions. I made more than I needed, because I would be eating the leftovers for lunch the following day. Jasmine rice is a naturally fragrant rice variety from Thailand. I didn’t have any brown jasmine rice, so I used white. Basmati rice, brown or white, would also have worked well.

Apple and Fennel Salad
Fresh lettuce, washed and torn into bite-sized pieces
1 sweet red apple, cored and diced
1 carrot, peeled and shredded
1 stalk of fennel, diced
Fennel greens for garnish
Dressing made from roughly equal proportions of balsamic vinegar, honey, and prepared mustard, sprinkled with thyme

Roasted Autumn Vegetables with Mushroom Gravy, Apple Salad, and Carrot Cake

I put this meal together because the roasted vegetables and the carrot cake are both baked at 350 degrees. I prepare the vegetables and put them in the oven, then make the carrot cake. While the carrot cake is baking, I have time to make the mushroom gravy and the salad. Then I have time to tidy up the kitchen and set a nice table.

I don’t give measurements here, because the vegetables vary in size anyway. I just keep chopping up vegetables until I have a big serving for each person. I used about half of the bulb of fennel, so I’d have some left over for salads over the following few days. I also saved all the feathery leafy bits of the fennel for use in garnishing salads.

Roasted autumn vegetables
1 bulb of fennel
Potatoes with nice skin, scrubbed
Parsnips, peeled
Several cloves of garlic, peeled
1 red onion, peeled
1 c water or vegetable stock
Rosemary
Thyme
Parsley

Cut up the vegetables into small chunks and place them in a baking dish. Mix the herbs into about half a cup of water or stock, with about a tablespoonful of balsamic vinegar. Pour over the vegetables. Put it in on the bottom rack of the oven and turn the oven on and set it to 350 degrees.

Carrot cake
After you put the vegetables in the oven, make the carrot cake. I used Mary McDougall’s recipe for raisin carrot cake (http://www.drmcdougall.com/newsletter/nov_dec6.html), except that I added a half teaspoon of cardamom and I substituted a gluten-free all-purpose flour for the whole-wheat flour. Put the cake in the oven on the middle rack. When you put the carrot cake in the oven, stir the vegetables and add the rest of the water and herbs.

Apple salad
While the vegetables and cake are baking, chop up a very sweet red apple, some celery, and some raw Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), if you have them. Toss them with a raspberry-flavored vinegar and serve on a bed of lettuce. The vinegar keeps the apples and sunchokes from turning dark before you serve them. If your apples aren’t overly sweet, you could add a little bit of the sweetener of your choice to the vinegar before mixing it with the apples.

Mushroom gravy
Stir-fry a chopped onion over medium heat in a dry pan until the onion is very brown. Then add two cloves of minced garlic and fry for another minute or so. Then add 2 cups of water and ½ chopped fresh mushrooms or a handful of dried mushrooms. Let it simmer slowly until you are about ready to serve the vegetables. Then combine ¼ cup of cornstarch with another cup of water. Mix thoroughly, then stir it into the boiling mushrooms. Keep stirring until it is thickened. You can adjust the amount of water and cornstarch until you get the desired volume and consistency. Serve the gravy over the roasted vegetables.

Wild Gorillas Eat Better Than We Do

Really.

“With the exception of sodium, gorillas ate diets that exceeded human nutrient requirements.”

http://pages.nycep.org/rothman/12Oecologia.pdf

What Do Gorillas Eat?

Lots of Salad!

Gorillas eat plants, mainly leaves. “There is a virtual absence of foods of animal origin.”

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/reprint/127/10/2000

How Strong Are Gorillas?

Gorillas Are Enormously Strong!

Take it from someone who knows:

No one knows [how strong gorillas are], because you can’t take a gorilla down to your local gym, obviously, and if you did it would be at your own peril and the other gym members’ peril. We don’t know, but scientists estimate it to be about 10 times stronger than a full-grown man. And certainly some of the things I’ve seen here at the zoo, 10 times stronger is probably fairly correct. For example, when I’m moving things around inside their enclosure, there might be very large logs which I’m literally unable to move, so I might call a couple of other keepers over, and between the three of us, we will slowly manhandle it, perhaps a few inches across the enclosure. Bobby then will come in and then just with one hand will be able to swipe that same log a good few feet without any effort.

—Daniel Simmonds, Gorilla Keeper, ZSL London Zoo