A staple of Andean diets for thousands of years, quinoa (KEEN-wah) has been touted as a superfood recently for its high protein content and potential to solve hunger crises. It’s represented by the usual celebrities: Kate Moss, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston … and David Lynch. Oh yes, have you not tried David Lynch’s quinoa recipe? Well, you must. If you’ve remained unswayed by the glitterati, perhaps this very Lynchian of pitches will turn you on to the grain. Watch the first part of Lynch’s video recipe above, part two below. It opens at peak Lynch: pulsing ominous music, garish lighting, and the obsessive kind of patience for the slow build that may be David Lynch’s alone.
By Part Two of Lynch’s video recipe, we are fully immersed in a place seemingly far away from quinoa, a place of the portentous topography of David Lynch’s inner life. Everyday objects take on a mysterious glowing resonance. Small ritualistic exchanges stand in for global shifts of consciousness.
So in a way, maybe we’re still close to the magic of quinoa. Lynch made the short video as an extra for the 2006 Inland Empire DVD. As Dangerous Minds points out, its current YouTube iteration “looks like crap” and “there’s at least a couple of minutes missing… it’s still worth a look.”
If you don’t have David Lynch’s patience but do have his taste for quinoa, read the full recipe below. It’s likewise full of delightful asides and digressions.
Yield: 1 bowl
Cooking Time: 17 minutes
Ingredients:
1/2 cup quinoa
1 1/2 cups organic broccoli (chilled, from bag)
1 cube vegetable bullion
Braggs Liquid Aminos
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Preparation:
* Fill medium saucepan with about an inch of fresh water.
* Set pan on stove, light a nice hot flame add several dashes of sea salt.
* Look at the quinoa. It’s like sand, this quinoa. It’s real real tight little grains, but it’s going to puff up.
* Unwrap bullion cube, bust it up with a small knife, and let it wait there. It’ll be happy waiting right there.
* When water comes to a boil, add quinoa and cover pan with lid. Reduce heat and simmer for 8 minutes.
* Meanwhile, retrieve broccoli from refrigerator and set aside, then fill a fine crystal wine glass—one given to you by Agnes and Maya from Lódz, Poland—with red wine, ‘cause this is what you do when you’re making quinoa. Go outside, sit, take a smoke and think about all the little quinoas bubbling away in the pan.
* Add broccoli, cover and let cook for an additional 7 minutes.
* Meanwhile, go back outside and tell the story about the train with the coal-burning engine that stopped in a barren, dust-filled landscape on a moonless Yugoslavian night in 1965. The story about the frog moths and the small copper coin that became one room-temperature bottle of violet sugar water, six ice-cold Coca-colas, and handfuls and handfuls of silver coins.
* Turn off heat, add bullion to quinoa and stir with the tip of the small knife you used to bust up the bullion.
* Scoop quinoa into bowl using a spoon. Drizzle with liquid amino acids and olive oil. Serve and enjoy.
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Related Content:
How to Make Instant Ramen Compliments of Japanese Animation Director Hayao Miyzaki
David Lynch Explains How Meditation Enhances Our Creativity
David Lynch Lists His Favorite Films & Directors, Including Fellini, Wilder, Tati & Hitchcock
Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
Excellent stuff!nnWhat a contrast to the cooking video of another genius director, Hayao Miyazaki: nnhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BPTNdmdJSc
It just so happens that we has a post about that video too: http://www.openculture.com/2013/06/how_to_make_instant_ramen_compliments_of_japanese_animation_director_hayao_miyzaki_.html
nice video! but there’s so much salt!
Quinoa might solve a hunger crisis – but not for the locals where it is grown – they can’t afford it any more because of the alu-hatted hipster organic freaks now buying it all.
let the salt flow freely my friends!!!
Dear David,
I’m sure you’ve heard about this whole new thing called lighting! I’ve heard that there may be something on the horizon called color too. Should make shooting food a lot more appetizing.
Love / Harry
This is what Lot’s wife ate on the day she looked back. But I’ll definitely try cooking with bullion instead of bouillon, playing the Goldfinger theme on the microwave of course.
Boy, sometimes when men discover the kitchen it is like they think are the very first people to ever venture into that space. He has a pot. His sink released water! He doesn’t know yet that measuring cups come in different sizes but perhaps that is in the next video?
By the way, what is the opposite of fresh water? Stale water?