It’s officially the holiday season—not because the calendar says so, but because I found myself shivering in a thirty-degree supermarket that smelled faintly like a Hong Kong night market, soaking wet in 
what I’m pretty sure was fish soup. Meanwhile, every shopper around me looked dressed for an Olympic-level sledding adventure in Big Bear Lake, not for picking out a Thanksgiving turkey. But listen, if there’s anything I’m good at, it’s rolling with life’s absurdities… even the ones involving airborne lobsters.
This is exactly why I thrift-shop. If I can survive the fluorescent misadventures of secondhand fashion, I can certainly survive being sloshed with crustacean runoff at a Korean supermarket at 9 a.m.
My little seafood safari in Orange County quickly escalated from errand to full-contact water sport. Buying live lobsters and crabs from an ethnic market in Koreatown is not for the faint of heart. The fishmonger climbed a set of rickety stairs like some kind of lobster Olympic judge, hauled out the biggest lobster I have ever seen in my life, and launched it toward me with a plastic bag as the only safety protocol. Lobster water everywhere. Dripping. Splashing. Possibly in my mouth. Exactly what you want at 9 a.m. of a 36-hour Manic Monday fast. 
And just when I thought the chaos was over, I got approached by three different people asking for money while I loaded the crustaceans into my Jeep. I had just bought an amazing loaf of Cheesy Jalapeño Bread from Old Town Baking Co. in Rancho Cucamonga and figured I’d offer them each a few slices. Two yelled at me. One kindly declined. The polite older man on the bike and I had a civil little chat—though the conservative in me was screaming you left your Third World Country and now everything here is expensive for everyone, why is this my problem?! Meanwhile, I’m working 40 to 50 hours a week running my small business just to afford lobsters big enough to double as emotional support animals.
Cranberries Meet Kerala: My Anglo-Indian Holiday Chutney Chaos
Back home in Big Bear Lake, we’ve decided to fully reject traditional Thanksgiving. (Except my traditional turkey hat. Obviously, that stays.) This year will be an Anglo-Indian Thanksgiving featuring Kerala Crab Curry and Tandoori-Marinated Lobsters. But one thing I refuse to compromise on is my holiday-famous Cranberry Ginger Indian Spiced Chutney—because if it’s cranberry season, I’m going all in.
Chutney—chatni in Hindi—originates from the Indian subcontinent and dates back thousands of years. It began as a way to preserve seasonal ingredients using salt, spices, and sometimes oil. Every region of India has its own signature chutneys:
South India: Coconut chutney, tomato chutney, onion chutney—usually served with dosa and idli.
North India: Mint chutney, tamarind chutney, coriander chutney—your classic “with samosas” trio.
East India: Mustard-based chutneys and sweet mango chutneys.
West India: Garlic chutneys, peanut chutneys, fiery red chili chutneys.
Colonial Brits loved chutney so much they tried to recreate it in England—cue the birth of “Major Grey’s Chutney,” which real Indians absolutely do not claim. (but that mango-inspired chutney is my secret ingredient in my amazing Curried Mango Chicken Salad.)
Indian chutneys range from fresh and bright to slow-cooked and syrupy. This Cranberry Ginger version sits closest to the “sweet-sour-spiced fruit chutney” tradition found in parts of West and North India. It’s not so much culturally off-base—I’m simply swapping mango or plum for the most New England fruit imaginable.
I did recently make the grave mistake of trying Trader Joe’s Cranberry Chutney. Bless them, but it tasted like someone soaked cranberries in straight garlic and called it festive. Where was the ginger? The cardamom? The slightest whiff of anything that remotely screams India? No, thank you.
Now, would my Bombay-born mother-in-law approve of cranberries in chutney? Ab
solutely not. Cranberries are a very Nantucket-meets-WASPy-Thanksgiving situation—not an eight-thousand-miles-east-from-here-in-India situation. But honestly, I’m convinced RFK Jr. would serve this at his Kennedy Compound Christmas dinner if I swapped in beef tallow for the coconut oil. (Relax, I would never—I’m not trying to make chutney that tastes like a Big Mac.)
Cranberry Ginger Indian Spiced Chutney
1 teaspoon coconut oil
1/2 a bag of fresh cranberries, about 1 1/2 cups
zest of 1 orange
1 cinnamon stick
1 shallot, sliced thin
2-4 red Chinese chiles, depending on how spicy you like it
2 teaspoons grated raw ginger
8 cardamom pods
6 cloves
6 teaspoons of honey
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/8 cup malt vinegar
1/2 cup water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup raisins
In a pan, roast the chilies in the ghee. Add the shallot slices and cook for five minutes. Add the ginger and let it fry just a bit until not raw. Add the shallots and chilies to a nutri-bullet along with the vinegar. Blen
d well. Add the shallots to the saucepan. Rinse out the NutriBullet with that 1/2 cup of water so you don’t lose any bits of the shallots and add that into the saucepan along with the sugar or honey, whole cranberries, cloves, cardamom seeds, peppercorns, mustard seeds, and cinnamon stick. Let simmer and reduce for thirty minutes on low, stirring every five minutes or so so it does not stick. Mix in the raisins and the salt. Let it cook for an additional five minutes until the sauce has thickened and reduced.
