Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Duality

A weird thought provoked my idle brain today for a moment- Duality of matter. A morally sound person can differentiate good from bad, truth from lie, moral from immoral, black from white,hot from cold, congruence and incongruity. So someone who hasn't been exposed to morality of thought or the fundamental and metaphoric 'other side of the coin', will always consider himself to be morally perfect. Someone who has never seen truth will assume the lie to be the truth, someone who has been shown wrong to be right will always think wrong is the right way. The banality of this thought is as profound as the air we breathe, yet is an enlightening thought to ponder. The ignorance of what lies yonder engenders assumption of absence of duality making matter axiomatic and absolute. Of course, I am not trying to implant morality and truthfulness by imposing as the moral police or a bigoted imbecile. I am just intrigued by its influence on our mundanity.

Monday, March 30, 2009

A pre-Dinner Conversation

crumpledpapers: Dude, lets go out for lunch!
buddy IYER: Ummm sure. What do you want to eat?
M R: I'm ok with anything.
crumpledpapers: Me too.
buddy IYER: Me too.
crumpledpapers: Italian?
buddy IYER: fine.
M R: too far!
crumpledpapers: not Mexican! I've had too much of it lately.
buddy IYER: damn! Every time I want to go to Q'doba you don't want to go. Ok. Anything but Chinese.
M R: Why not Chinese?
crumpledpapers: buddy doesn't like Chinese. He thinks they're stealing credit for Rice in the world! LOL!!
*LAUGHTER TRACK*

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

When does my life start?

I dreamt of a swanky car.
I dreamt of a fancy job.
I dreamt of a cozy house.
I dreamt of an Italian Dinner.
I dreamt of a dry wine to go with it.
I dreamt of my love to have it with.
I dreamt of a success story to inspire.

My life has been postponed...
And I'm waiting for it to begin...
When it does,I'm not letting it go.
You'll see. You'll all see. *A Phoebe Buffay moment*

Friday, March 13, 2009

Kylie takes bollywood by storm


I have to put this on my blog. I have never dreamt of this happening. Kylie recorded and shot for the video sometime last week. The song is for the supposed biggest Bollywood movie ever and it is called "BLUE". It stars Akshay Kumar in the lead. It has some high profile action scenes directed from acclaimed hollywood action men and a promising soundtrack by A R Rahman. Can't wait to see Kylie grooving in a Bollywood movie!!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Mango Caramel Pudding

I am on a food spree!! I don't know why I haven't done this before! If I would have kept on posting recipes on my blog, there wouldn't have been such big time warps in the blog. This is one of my favorite desserts ever!! If you like sweets, you'll love this! It is very easy to make as well! This will serve 4 in one sitting but you are so gonna love this, you better double the measurements. I made this in a 1.5 ltr tall pressure cooker with subsequent sized steaming stainless steel pots. You get the picture, right?

Ingredients
1 jumbo egg
2/3 slices of bread, edges removed.
225 ml(1 cup) whole milk
2/3 tablespoon store bought mango pulp(be generous)
1 tsp vanilla essence to cover up the eggy smell.
4-5 teaspoons of sugar

for caramel:
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Preparation
Break an egg into a mixer/blender jar. Whip blend the egg till it becomes a lighter yellow.Add everything other than bread into the jar now. Mix well. Add the bread and run the mixer again till you see a uniform mixture.
Now prepare the caramel in a non stick pan by adding sugar and half that quantity of water and lemon juice. It helps if the pan is previously greased with a teaspoon of butter. When you see the nutty brown color appearing up, turn the gas off and keep stirring with a spoon all the while to avoid the vessel from being ruined. Caramels are famous for that. Pour an ample amount of this caramel at the base of the pot you are going to be steaming. Pour your pudding mixture over it gently so as not to push the caramel all on one side. I usually add butter roasted cashews and walnuts on the top but that is optional. Steam it well with the whistle on for about 10-13 minutes. Some precautions you have to take while making a pudding is that you shouldn't add too much of milk to the mixture. Else it will take a long time to cook and it will leave some liquid behind.

Serve with chunks of alphonso mango on the side.
Enjoy! Let me know how this turns out!

Pasta Italiano!

This is in response to a new blog I came across wherein I bumped into my favorite thing to eat any time of the day - Pasta. If you know me, you already know of my love for pasta-eating and making alike. Considering this blog is called Dinner Conversations, food was bound to end up here sooner or later. This is much later than what I would have expected from myself.(read: I looovee FOOD!)

So I thought I'd jot down some things I randomly put in the pasta I enjoy.


Ingredients:
1/4 lb your favorite pasta. I like Linguine.
4 cloves Garlic
4-5 fresh basil chopped haphazardly
2 fresh red chillies seeded and chopped coarsely
2 tsp finely chopped parsley for garnish
2 tsp of coarsely crushed roasted pine nuts for garnish
hint of freshly ground black pepper
5-6 slices of zucchini
2 stems of asparagus cut into 1 inch portions
4-5 medium sized florets of broccoli
7-8 long strips of Red/orange/yellow bell peppers(went for non green because too much of green happening with zucchini, asparagus and broccoli)
2 shitaki or oyster mushrooms sliced.
half a chicken breast for non-vegetarians cut into bite size strips
Olive oil/vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter
parmesan cheese to finish
some chili flakes if you enjoy it hot
(dare I forget) Salt to taste.


Preparation:
Boil the linguine with enough excess water and a teaspoonful or more of salt for 10 minutes(I don't exactly like al dente). A trick I learned from somewhere(food network ahem...) is to have 2 teaspoons of oil in the boiling pot of pasta to avoid it from boiling over (basic science). After checking for done-ness of pasta, drain it, rinse under cold water and coat it with a teaspoon of olive oil and mix it well so that the pasta doesn't stick together.

Steam/boil the veggies together. Do not cook completely. You will like them a little crunchy. keep the stock for a soup or a gravy. If you intend to use it as a stock, boil the veggies with a few peppercorns, cinnamon and a star anise. Remove them afterward. It gives them a fantastic aroma and the gravy or the soup from the stock will be delightful.

For the sauce:
Heat a pan and add about 2-3 tsp of oil. Do not add butter now. If you're adding chicken, the butter will make it tough and rubbery. Add the chicken and keep tossing it till you see that the chicken is about to be cooked. Do not wait for it to cook thoroughly, otherwise on addition of veggies and cooking further, the meat will toughen up and become thready. Add the chuck of butter now. Add the bell peppers and musrooms. Let them cook a little. Then add garlic and chillies. Toss them in the pan till you smell the aroma. Do not wait till the garlic turns brown. That is the reason we did not add garlic before the chicken. Then add the steamed veggies and the basil. Be generous with the basil. Toss the veggies in the pan a little till they lose their steamed look and get a glaze. Add the salt, pepper to taste. Toss the pasta in with some(1 tbsp) water. This water will stop the cooking process and help bind the veggies and flavors to the pasta. Turn the stove off and add the parsley and half the Parmesan. Transfer the whole thing to a bowl or a plate. Finish with a splash of extra virgin olive oil, few chili flakes, crushed pine nuts and a generous dusting of freshly grated Parmesan.

Enjoy!
My mouth is already watering.
If you happen to try out, please post a picture and let me know how it turned out.

Cheers!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Bring me to life...


How deep is this pit I'm falling in?
Will it hurt bad when I hit the bottom?
Light at the top looks like a distant star.
I don't know if I can make that jump.
Stories of hope sound like illusions of grandeur.
Am I still naive enough to believe in the tales.
Or have I lost my innocence in despair?

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Rahman is Spinning Around!!


I'm sure you've all seen the Oscars this time(well, if not seen, at least not ignorant about it. P.S. its a naked(controversial) golden statuette).
I was so happy to see Rahman win 2 Oscars. I've only been so happy the day Kylie Minogue won the Grammy!!!

And tailing that news that has made ecstatic is that, Kylie will be collaborating with A R Rahman for a bollywood song!!
Can you imagine how much that song is going to be played on my iPod!!!!!!!!

Wow!!

Cheers!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

System.Out.println("All cliched ways of proclaiming majestic return.") ; ergo..."I'm Back!"

It has been a very long hiatus. I guess if I would have continued to write, all I would've write about would be the abysmal depression I found myself every time I contemplated life. Today I found a new hope, if not my way out of the depression.
Since the last time I posted, a lot has happened and nothing has happened elsewhere.
Have discovered some nuances about myself, adding character if not make me less likable. Have grown personally, professionally and seen the deepest pits of disappointment as well.

“The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.”