Weekenders

This weekend started with a trip to the movies with Yennai Arindhal. Ajith and Trisha look very good and Arun Vijay is brilliant, that's about the best thing I can say about the movie. Also the fact that the sight of some watercolors in the movie, inspired me to learn a new technique of painting yesterday. I figure that Gautam Menon has a serious case of writer's block. While I am with him on the idea of making trilogies and cop movies, I cannot presume to understand why he chooses to tell the same story in the same fashion over and over again. I can only say I am glad that I watched it at a discounted ticket price.

'Single Wife' - I finished reading this book yesterday morning. Thanks to my recent reading habits, Scribd app chose to recommend this book to me. Grace is a creative, intelligent woman who is very satisfied with her lot in life. Things change when her husband walks out of the house one day. Initially she suspects that it is like one of his usual disappearances, when he returns after a few days of being incommunicado. Each time he goes missing, based on his reaction on returning, she keeps whittling down the people she informs about his being MIA. This time, she distances herself from the occurrence and refuses to talk about it to her friends and family, still pretending like he is around. She begins secretly investigating his life, discovering things that she did not expect and does not want to know. On the other hand, she misses all the information about her husband on the media and therefore remains puzzled by certain gifts and surprises that she receives. The novel is about her choices and how she decides to proceed with her life.

Did some baking experiments over the weekend. Baked 4 cookies a batch to get a feel for my oven as they call it. Ended up with some burnt, some crisp, some perfect and some soft. I made nan khathai biscuits this Saturday.  Nan Khathais are considered an Afghani/ Iranian invention- nan obviously meaning bread like the butter naans we eat. Khathai is debatable, some people believe it stands for Cathay- meaning China. The best thing about this cookie is its unique taste and texture. Unique taste- because of the cardamom, ghee and yoghurt and texture because it is crunchy out and melty inside.

To make these Indian Shortbreads as Jamie Oliver calls them you will need:
1/2 cup ghee or 1/2 cup soft butter- I used ghee
3/4 cup  powdered sugar
1.5 cups maida
1/4 cup gram flour
1/4 tsp cardamom powder & 1/4 tsp nutmeg powder or 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp of yoghurt
1-2 tsp of milk/water
chopped pista nuts (optional)

The method:
Cream together the sugar and ghee to a smooth paste.
Once it is mixed thoroughly and the sugar has dissolved, add maida, gram flour, cardamom powder and baking soda and knead together.
Add the yoghurt to bring together.
Add water/milk only if the dough appears too dry.
Refrigerate for a couple of hours to make rolling easy.
Roll medium sized balls of dough between your palms
Arrange at a decent distance from each other on an ungreased baking tray. Decent distance because we will press them down and they will expand when baked. Ungreased because we don't want it to burn from the bottom.
Press down criss cross patterns with a fork and slightly flatten the balls.
Top with some chopped pista nuts.
Bake in a pre heated oven at 190 degrees celsius for abt 10-15 minutes. They shouldn't brown on top. Just allow them to brown along the edges. I had to watch these like a hawk.
When you take them out of the oven, they will be soft. Leave them to cool on the tray for a couple of minutes before transferring them to the rack.
They will eventually cool and harden completely.

I spent the first part of Sunday lazing in Om Made Cafe eating their yummy brunch- I really liked their spaghetti and their roasted corn spread. Actually, all the tapenades and bruschettas were really tasty and refreshing as was my blueberry lemonade. They allow you to lounge there from 12 pm -4 pm. It's a good spread and a relaxing place to hang out. The latter part of the day was  used for my watercolor and charcoal experiments mentioned in the first paragraph. I finally figured how to use my watercolors instead of going over them with a heavy hand, I never knew that you had to do a coat of plain water before putting in the colors until yesterday.

Here are some of the results:

Food Rhapsodies- All things food this week

2015 Reading Challenge: I'd Sooner Starve

I enjoy books about food, restaurants and the cooking experience. In fact one of the books I have written about at length on this blog is As Always Julia- a series of letters written by Julia Child to Avis de Voto. I read Julie and Julia at a stretch like it was an un-putdown-able mystery novel. I am not the biggest fan of Madhur Jaffrey's anglicized Indian recipes, but I love her book ' Climbing the Mango Trees'. As it promises, it conjures up those memories of childhood memories in India, of the endless summers, the long vacations and stolen fruit. But most important of all the great homemade meals that cooks, aunts, grandmothers and mothers rustled up to feed the huge hoards in the joint families of those days.

Anyway, I'm more of a personal memoir reader rather than a restaurant experience reader. Case in point, it took me some effort to get through Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain and this other book Cooking Dirty: a story of life, sex, love and death in the kitchen. They are both written in a wry dry fashion which is generally my style. But when it comes to cooking memoirs I would always pick a fat round jolly chef than a cynical one. :)  So anyway, the book that I read now was neither here nor there.

I'd Sooner Starve is a book written by a man who owns a restaurant after years of working in a PR firm. He also doubles up as one of the chefs and a "floorwalker". This is a rollicking read of all the experiences he has with his stubborn diners and crazy deli customers. He encounters people who want to get broken olive oil bottles replaced for free, pensioners who think free Wifi is a biscuit and who frustrate him with their attempts to get into fully booked restaurants with the promise of buying a lot of wine.

It is a hilarious book filled with funny incidents with the author admitting his own culpability in several of them. There are some which are downright disgusting, filled with patronizing cliches from the customer. The chronicles of the food wasters, the single coffee orders and the annoyances of scaling up your business and ending up with disillusionment finally. The book is probably a great guide as to how not to behave in a restaurant, it ends on a sober note but is chock a block with laugh out loud cases.

Starting Salads:

Armed with a packet of cherry tomatoes, that were finally stocked at the hypermart near my house, and a strong new year resolution to go on a diet and eat healthier, I started inventing and eating salads this week. I have discovered a whole new appreciation for my taste tolerance. I have managed to incorporate fruits, seeds, sour, sweet and spicy, raw and cooked all in the same salad and still end up eating it.

So my first invention went something like this:

1. 3/4 of a green apple chopped up

2. 7-8 halved cherry tomatoes sauted in olive oil and italian dried herbs

3. 2 slices of chopped bread- also sauted with 2 if u wish

4. 3-4 pieces of roast garlic

5. Fistful of sunflower seeds

6. A drizzle of olive oil 

7. Salt and pepper ground onto the mixture

8. 1/2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar

Second one involved store bought ingredients:

1. A fistful of shelled pista nuts

2. A fistful of cranberries

3. 2 Tbsp of Italian Dressing

4. A drizzle of olive oil

5. 5-6 halved cherry tomatoes 

6. one boiled egg chopped up

Tomorrow, I am thinking chickpeas. I never thought my interest in cooking would turn into mad scientististry with me grabbing random things from the refrigerator. But let us see how long this fad of mine lasts. Probably until my salads get too crazy and start tasting weird.