Dinner

* Basmati or Patna rice is a particularly flavorful and long-grained ricefrom India or Pakistan. Any Indian store and many ‘natural foods’ storescarry it. It is well worth the premium price (about $1.10 a pound);‘Texmati’ is apparently the same strain grown in Texas, but does not haveanything like the same taste. Inspect and clean it before using, there areoften unhusked grains and occasionally pebbles mixed in. Then rinse in twochanges of water and drain thoroughly. If you cannot get Basmati, use agood-quality unconverted long-grain rice (Alma, Carolina, but NOT UncleBen’s!).* Red lentils are about half the diameter of ordinary brown lentils. Donot substitute brown lentils, which will probably not cook fast enough. Redlentils are available in Indian, Middle Eastern and some ‘natural foods’stores. They often contain largish pebbles, so inspect them carefully.Rinse to get rid of dust, and drain. Red lentils are also very good bythemselves, simply boiled with a few spices and served with butter.* Sour cherries (in the Middle East, v/w i s/sh n e/a/ino: GreekVissino, Slavic and Turkish Vishnea, Arabic Wishna) are available fresh forabout one week a year. Most sour cherries go into cherry syrups, pies andpreserves. Canned sour cherries are quite good. You will usually findthem in the home pie-making section of your market, near the cannedblueberries and baker’s supplies, or with the canned fruits. There areoccasional stones. (That is, pits, not rocks!) Middle Eastern stores willoften have sour cherry preserves, which are too sweet for this recipe.* Almost any stock or broth will work in this recipe. Chicken or lamb ismost appropriate, in the latter case, used rather dilute. This is one ofthe few recipes where you can actually get away with canned chicken broth,but watch the salt.http://www.cookreceipts.com/vegetable/lentil/pilaf-with-sour-cherries-and-lentils.html