The A-list

My list so far has been

1) Fried Shrimp
2) Fried Pomfret
3) Pomfret Curry
4) Shrimp Curry
5) Punjabi Samosa
6) Aamras
7) Kanda Bhaji ( Onion Fritters)
8) Pohe
9) Black Currant Cake
10) Kharvas ( Best milk pudding ever)

And this has been devoured in just about 24 hours since my flight landed...A special thanks to my Mom, Maternal Aunts and Bro( he got me the cake, the rest of the stuff was cooked by the ladies)!

Potluck Fun

This post is a bit late but about 2 weeks back , we had a potluck party at a friend's place. We were a group of 7 and cooked ample food that succeeded in us belching well after we were done eating. The party was fun, and we all had a good time.

The menu for the party was as follows : ( Am not going to divulge recipes as the cooks might sue me for plagiarism :P) 

APPETIZERS

Veg Puffs : A sumptuous filling of potatoes and peas wrapped in pastry sheets and then baked till golden brown in color, courtesy my dear friend S. You can figure out how good they were just by looking at the picture since by the time we clicked the picture we had just one left.

Stuffed Chillies: These chillies made by the AD-PD sister duo ( who were also our hosts) , an Indian version of Chilli Relleno, where the hotness of chillies was complemented really well by the cooling effect of the stuffing of gram flour and Indian spices.

Fish Amritsari: Small chunks of tilapia marinated and deep fried in gram flour batter and were cooked by me and A. They came out good though could have been better with some more spice and zing to it. 

Here is the link to the recipe which I referred to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Q1bTgNp-o

MAIN COURSE

Shrimp Masala ( Kolambi Fry) : S's other half R came up with this dish which had shrimps sautéed in onions and spices that played with our palates. The shrimp were cooked to perfection and melted away as you ate them. It was reminiscent of my mom's version of sautéed shrimp in a dry masala.

Chicken Curry: This succulent chicken curry was an AD-PD creation and was cooked in an array of spices , topped with coconut milk and cooked just right till the meat was tender and juicy. It was finger licking good and made as an awesome entrée.

We had the two entrées with chapatis ( indian pancakes) and white rice.

We were all full by the end of the main course and though we contemplated about going out for having desserts, it was going to be tough to leave the chair and head out. We made up for it the next weekend, but that is another story which might find its way to this blog sometime. All in all, we had a great night over food and drinks and it was wonderful to catch up with friends and share our culinary adventures.

Books about the land where I come from....

I have finally succumbed to my temptation and bought 2 more books ( I was going to wait a while after my last purchase in the last week of December 2009)- A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth and Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra. I had begun reading ' A Suitable Boy'  on Google Books and though it had a limited preview with missing pages, my hours at work (read : no work) would pass off amazingly well reading through Seth's story. I then realized it had some 1400 odd pages and with my dry eye problem, I realized I wasnt going to be able to enjoy it as much as I could with its book version. So last week, I logged onto Amazon and moved the book into my shopping cart. At around 14 $ , it was going to be a good buy ( If you decided to get quantitive then its almost 1$ per 100 pages which is pretty economical right?) and worth the read since the characters Seth has woven his story around are so well defined, you feel like you are living amongst them.

So having added the book to my cart, I was looking for something else to make the total to 25 and avail free shipping. I can sometimes be thrifty and try to save money on things but eventually land up spending more. I think thats precisely what smart marketing personnel take advantage of and lure us into devilish ideas like Free Shipping!!! So instead of spending those $4 on shipping, I went ahead and bought another book roughly worth the same price but thereby allowing me the free shipping catch that I had so fallen for. But thinking retrospectively, I dont think I have wasted my money, though I agree I fell for the trap ( You must be wondering by now why such a melodrama over a small thing like Free Shipping...but then where I come from melodrama sells like hot cakes and can earn you some real good publicity) . I had landed up buying Sacred Games - a book by the author Vikram Chandra whose past books have been about my city Mumbai and that is probably a big reason why I decided to buy the book. My earlier experience of reading Shantaram by Gregory Roberts( I havent finished it as yet... ) and Maximum City by Suketu Mehta , the former with Mumbai as a backdrop for a major part of the story while the latter exposing the dark underbelly of this megacity, have been awesome mainly because the writing in both stories paints the real city that Mumbai is.

So it wasnt an irony when I decided to read Sacred Games before A Suitable Boy when I received the shipment yesterday. Although the book is a work of fiction, the curiosity to revisit Mumbai through the tale was difficult to subdue. I did not get to read a lot but I was charmed with the first few pages and I am ready to devor the 1000 pages that remain. I now have two books that are big enough to keep me occupied for a couple of months and I am really looking forward to flipping through the pages of stories about families post-partition of India and the intertwining lives of police-gangsters in Mumbai. And that too when I have yet to finish Shashi Tharoor's book on India as an emerging power , " The Elephant, The Tiger, and the Cell Phone". So looks like am in total love with my country and city and am missing them a lot. Its obvious when you havent seen your land, your parents and your younger brother for 2 long years!

A comeback into the new year?

I dint blog for the last couple of months. If you would ask why, I have no idea what the reason was! I guess I just forgot about my blog or I dint have much to write about. This was until today , when a couple of friends asked me the link for my earlier blog which now I dont write on and has been closed for readers too. So I thought of making a quick update on this one.

I would have expected 2010 to start on a good note, especially after a not-so-good 2009 but an eye allergy that started just a week prior to Christmas continues to bother me even a month later ( Though the allergy has reduced, long hours infront of a TFT screen monitor has probably lead to Dry eyes). I usually do not freak if a part of me starts aching or isnt doing well but eyes seem to make me super frantic and the thought of losing my vision scares the shit out of me. The main reason being I can no longer be at the computer for long hours and that kind of feels like being handicapped.

So the point being, an eye problem is not the best way to usher in the new year, especially when you are "LOOKING OUT" for something good to happen! Anyways, the doc said I wont go blind, and though I still get scared, its much better than being paranoid and rushing to the restroom every half an hour to check if I got the vampire look on! Its more in the mind than the eye.

Also , 2 weeks into the new year and I hear about a possible early termination of contract at work, not too early but a month before what it initially was scheduled to be. Its kind of shocking when your manager who doesnt even acknowledge/talk to you during on-call staff meetings, suddenly says " Some of you temps will get an extension beyond Jan." and all you know is you were scheduled for end of Feb. You then kind of start doubting if its your ear that has a problem or the manager goofed up on the month or she was talking about someone else since she never really even knows if you are on the meeting. For a week, I thought it was the third option , until the time 2 of my colleagues were told about their last date to be 1/28. Luckily I have been spared the axe and I get one more month to sit idly , stare at the computer, do some knowledge gaining excercises on wiki and take home the paycheck.

I should therefore be not complaining about my new year. Its not as bad as it looks but then I have a bad eye and the picture is still a bit smudgy for me to figure out how its going to be for the rest of the year.

Why are we like this???

If you are wondering , if swine flu has been the reason for my disappearing act after those 2 posts on flu , let me tell you that its not the case and I am doing perfectly fine. Though my sneezes still do attract some " Bless You" s at work, the frequency of receiving the good wishes has gone down. Work volume has been increasing and for the last couple of days, I have been swamped with work. Not that I am complaining, but in fact I am glad there is work to keep me occupied and away from surfing the net or staring blankly at my monitor. So amidst this sudden lull when I have nothing to do , I am going to write this post.

Its amazing how some people watch out for their own interests and dont really care about if they are dealing with other people in a fair manner. They are either completely oblivious by this fact or they do not give a damn. I think its more of the latter. I mean looking out for yourself in this big bad world is justified and I buy that argument, but that doesnt not mean you start being insensitive and a total jerk. As Dexter says " He lives by the code", I think these people should too. Being sweet to someone when you need their help and then just shoo them away when you dont want to entertain them, borrow money and keep delaying its return after saying words like " Ill definitely do that tomorrow when Ill rush to the bank and do the transfer" or like some total arrogant SOBs who just order around as if they are the King/Queen of England and every one else is a butler at their disposal. Dont they ever look into the mirror and see the real picture or is it so that even the mirror is morphed like their own souls???

You may wonder the reason for my sudden outburst but apart from having dealt with such people, I find it hilarious to observe them as a third person. Their ideas about life, the way to lead it and get ahead are so superficial that they are only concerned about the next step. They do not really care if they can arrange for food for the whole month. They would be fine if they can manage it for lunch time. They will work towards that, not towards the big picture. But then there are some, who manage to avoid that and do get ahead in life, climbing up by stepping on someone else.

The problem is not dealing with such people, it is identifying him. And while trying to do that, you invariably land up suspecting on innocent people who are actually trying to be nice. Such has the world become! If you are one of the persons whom I am talking about, you would probably pass this article off with a few swear words, and if you are one like me, you would probably swear on the veracity of this article. I am not trying to judge or make a statement, its just an observation about people I come across ....

Flu Blues...!

I am back. Back as in not on the blog but back to being myself. The last few days, as I also mentioned in my last blog, were not so good with me nursing a bad cold that refused to part itself without making sure I underwent the ordeal of loud sneezes and a dripping nose. My head had gone numb and countless cups of tea at work dint really help. On top of that, there wasnt much work and that made me realize time and again that I have a bad cold and headaches. But the dozens of " Bless You" s that I wrote about earlier seemed to have bore fruit and I feel much better today. The body aches are minimal, the sneezes have disappeared and the drips have pretty much dried up. I can now smell a bit better and taste food too which helps since two days back, all that I tasted felt like rubber- be it chapati or grilled chicken! But neways, now that I am feeling better I shouldnt complain.

But all through these 2-3 days and especially yesterday, I couldnt get over the hysteria that I might be having the seasonal flu or even H1N1. I was paranoid and while idle at work, researched a lot about common cold, flu and H1N1. The symptoms for all are pretty similar except for one distinct one is that the latter two come with a fever, and the good part was I dint have one. But the bodyaches were a sign I might be catching one and that kind of made me uneasy. Somehow I managed to find 2-3 articles on the internet which gave me the confidence that I am going to get over this common cold of mine. And I believe I have almost done that by now ( touchwood). I also came across the fact that H1N1 is not one of those deadly viruses that they show in Hollywood movies like the Transporter or Mission Impossible. Its not going to cause big boils on your skin and make you melt. But nevertheless, the lack of vaccine( which we now have) made it lethal that time but now with the vaccine out , we should be fine. I hope they can make the vaccine available through most parts of the world soon and people in the high risk categories get immunized first.

Having said all this, I still am a bit paranoid about the virus. A bottle of Purell at home and office explains that ( though I also like using Purell for that smell that alcohol gives when it evaporates). It has definitely made me spray my room a couple of times more with those anti-bacterial sprays and make sure the restroom is clean and sprayed more than often. It is just my way of calming my mind down and stop it from being in the hysterical swine flu syndrome mode which am sure is what you guys have on your mind too.

And I hope you guys are taking precautions too. So keep your hands away from your nose and mouth and sanitize more often.

When every sneeze counts....

"Swine Flu is making sure every Sneeze counts!" - I think I made this one up myself.

Off late I have been down with some cold. Credit that to a new place or mad changing weather but I have been nursing a running nose for quite a few weeks now. And dont know why, but my nose decides to be at its worst when am at work. So here I am, typing out some stuff on my work computer and there comes a loud " Aaaaakchoooo!" . I go looking for my tissues while still recovering from the big jerk that resonated my nasal passages when I hear a dozen " Bless You" s bombarded at me from all sides. Not that I am complaining about people wishing for my good, but the recent bouts of Swine Flu springing up here and there makes me think otherwise.

I wouldn't have thought in this manner an year ago when swine flu was still restricted to pigs and hadn't founds its way into we humans but now the 'Bless You' s I feel have a different connotation. Its my interpretation but now people not only wish well for you when they say ' Bless You' but also they have this ' Swine Flu' scare syndrome hovering in their head. So along with the goodness in their hearts, the fear in their minds plays a part in wishing you. Deep inside they wish that you dont have Swine Flu and that you dont hand them that as a freebie. So its more about ' Bless him so that we dont catch the Flu he might be carrying .... more specifically Swine Flu!' than 'Bless You and may you feel better'.

Thats when I have realized how every sneeze counts, how every sneeze of yours attracts instant attention though with a hint of skepticism, and how every sneeze can earn you someones good wishes even if they wish more good for themselves than you! And there I go again, " Aaaackchoooo!!" .... 'Bless Me' too!