Happy Holi!

This Holi, Hobbes decided to go all out and make thandai and gujiyas. He is becoming quite an expert in Indian desserts; his latest successful attempts have included jalebi (on my birthday)and puran poli (on Diwali).

First, the easier of the two.

Then, the real thing. First, the ingredients.

Then, the filling.

All ready to be fried.

And here we go.

Aren't they lovely?

As the gujiyas were being made, Nusrat saheb's voice kept us company with "Hajrat Khwaja ke sang kheliye dhamaal".

Happy Holi, everyone!

Manresa

Hobbes and I had wanted to go to Manresa for a long time but somehow it never happened. And then last year there was a fire following which they closed down for repairs. So as soon as we found out that had reopened we showed up at the first available opportunity. And I can say, the wait was worth it.

The list of ingredients. The menu doesn't arrive until the end of the meal.

Amuse-bouches.

Granola crisp.

Petit fours "red pepper-black olive".

Green panisse with meyer lemon.

Seafood with fermented plum, caviar.

Arpege farm egg. Amazing presentation!

Followed by a bread course. Several kinds to choose from.

And now, on to main courses. Seven of them!

Sweet turnip consomme, citrus and matsutake. The non-vegetarian option substituted the citrus with crab but looked almost like this. Hobbes opted for meat, and I took the vegetarian options. We usually do this at restaurants so we get to sample a lot more dishes :). In my opinion it takes a lot more to make vegetables taste exquisite, so it is a good measure of the chef's skills. Manresa went to great lengths to makes the dishes look alike and didn't bat an eyelid when we said that our party consisted of both meat-eaters and vegetarians. Bonus points for that!

Parsley (scallop) and carrot with flowering coriander. The brackets denote the meat substitutions.

Into the vegetable garden ... Loved the plate!

Winter truffle.

 Porcini "norinade".

 Black cod "norinade".

Shitake rice porridge, morels, black vinegar.

Abalone porridge, morels, black vinegar.

Chanterelles, hoshigake mostarda and sweet potato.

Roast duck, hoshigake mostarda and sweet potato.

Delicata, buckwheat and smoked lentil.

Beef bowl, buckwheat and smoked lentil.

 The dessert courses begin.

Apple and celery with green tea.

Beignet, quince with yogurt and hibiscus.

Winter squash, chocolate and sherry vinegar.

Petit fours "strawberry-chocolate".

Additional desserts outside of the prescribed courses.

Macaroons.

Chocolates.

The take-home bag.

 What was in the bag.

 Along with the menu.

Sun breakfast

Pancakes to celebrate the last day of holidays. Topped with mascarpone.

Sat night dinner

The resolution for 2015 is to blog more - post food pictures and put down my observations about music. Let's see how far I get, but here's the first one.

Tonight's dinner was goat biryani, tandoori gobhi, and onion raita. Washed down with some excellent wine.

The wine.

The gobhi was inspired by the lunches we used to have at the ICH canteen in Seepz.

The accompaniment.

And finally, the main attraction for the evening. Garnished with fried onions.

All set to eat.

Unconventional voices in Bollywood - Richa Sharma

You've probably heard her sing Maahi Ve in Kaante. Deep, and khule gale wali gaayaki. Classically trained, she handles both low and high notes with equal ease. Even though she had already sung several Bollywood songs by then, it wasn't until Maahi Ve that she got the recognition that she deserved. The song was extremely well received, though that may have more to do with its video rather than Richa's voice ;)

Here's arguably her most popular song. Notice how loud she gets in parts without getting screechy or besura. Sukhwinder Singh, the male voice, is another amazingly talented singer, but that's a post for another day :)

One another aspect of her voice is that it oozes with earthy confidence. No sweet nothings or love ballads for her - this woman delivers strong, powerful statements with her songs.

Listen to her in Sajda from My Name Is Khan.  She steals the song completely.  And that's not an easy thing to do, when you are singing with Rahat.

While one gets to hear her now fairly frequently as part of Hindi film music, I think, her forte is devotional music performed live. This probably has something to do with the fact that she has done this since she was a kid.

Here she charms her audience with Amir Khushro's poetry.

And again, a similar effect, with this perennial favorite. It isn't that she sings this better than the several ustaads who have sung it before her - it's the strength, the throw in her voice that impresses me, and the aplomb with which she renders it.

I leave you with this - Show Me Your Jalwa from Aaja Nachle. Her expression is perfect for the lyrics, and her strong voice would fill even the meekest women with self-confidence. 

Hats off to a truly "strong" singer!

हिन्दी में ब्लॉग करने का पहला प्रयास

इंटरनेट पर मेरी पसंदीदा एक्टिविटी है ब्लॉग पढ़ना । कई दिनों पहले कुछ ढूँढ़ते हुए मैं एक हिन्दी ब्लॉग पर जा पहुँची । वहाँ से लिंक्स के द्वारा और बहुत सारे हिन्दी ब्लॉग पढ़ने का मौका मिला । उनको पढ़ कर मुझे भी हिन्दी में लिखने की इच्छा हुई । सोचा कि ब्लॉगर इस्तेमाल कर के देखूं कि हिन्दी लिखने में कितना कष्ट होता है । लोहा मानना पड़ेगा गूगल का, कि इतना आसान बना दिया हिन्दी लिखना । सच में, मज़ा आ गया !

Fall colors

As I was driving back home from work, I looked up and saw beautiful, wonderful fall colors on my street. I parked the car, went out with my camera, and shot these pictures. All these are within a few steps of my home.

Frittata

Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda

Just finished watching this movie. Hobbes usually has full control of our Netflix queue, but he hasn't been feeling well, and in his feverish delirium, he agreed to let me add some movies and move them to the top :)

SKSG (Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda) brought back memories of the many Sunday evenings and afternoons spent in front of the telly. I was a kid then, and like everyone else around me, more or less hated these artsy movies. Watched them nevertheless, since the pull of the "Sunday feature film" was so strong. Having grown up and seen many, many more movies now (thanks to Hobbes), I can truly appreciate some of the gems that I saw then. Watching SKSG was an attempt at realizing it's true worth.

The story was fairly straightforward. There were only a handful of characters, and they were portrayed quite naturally and, were developed very well. The plot was simple and easy to follow. (Compare this to Marte Dam Tak, which I watched last week. There were so many characters and sub-plots that I was totally lost and utterly confused within 30 minutes of the start of the movie.) That is not to say that the characters themselves were simple. They were complex and had shades of gray. More than anything, they were normal human beings who could be selfish and self centered at times.

I loved the locations and the sets! There were no exotic locales, no designer inspired homes and no awe-inspiring landscapes. Everything looked in its rightful place. The broken windows, the dirty, narrow lanes, the tiny homes, the shared terraces - again, extremely nostalgic.

I don't know anything about camera work or cinematography, but I liked the fact that most frames had very shallow depth of field. In most of the scenes, only one or two characters filled the whole frame and were in focus, while the rest was blurred. The signal to noise ratio was pretty high and that made my brain happy :) There wasn't extraneous background information to process.

I was surprised to hear Pallavi Joshi and Rajit Kapoor break into a song (I believe it was sung by Udit Narayan and Kavita Krishnamurthy) in the middle of their conversation. The song was below-average and seemed out of place. I would say this was the only negative thing about the movie.

All in all, a weekend afternoon well spent!

Road Trip

My newest toy

No, the D40 doesn't cook :) But these are some of the first pictures I took!

Click here to view all the pictures.

Tose Naina Lage

Last week, I was watching "Antakshari - the Great Challenge" - it was the episode in which Vasundhara Das was a guest. There is a round on the show where the celebrity sings a favorite antara of theirs, and the contestants have to identify the mukhda.... One of the songs she picked was Tose Naina Lagey (Javeda Zindagi) from Anwar. (The teams were not able to identify the song, they confused it with Maula Mere Maula from the same sound track.) I loved what she sang, and I looked up the song on the net. I have to say, I hit a JACKPOT! This song is amazing, fabulous, awesome, well, adjectives don't do justice do it ....

I admit, I am late to the party, the album was released in 2006, and I hadn't heard this song till last week. (I had heard Maula a couple of times in bits and pieces.) But once I heard it, I was totally hooked. I rented the movie on Netflix, and watched it. (The movie isn't anywhere close to being as wonderful as these two tracks, but can be watched once. A subject matter of an hour or so is unfortunately stretched out into around two and a half hours. The premise of the movie is, interesting, though.) I listened to Javeda Zindagi straight for 8 hours on two consecutive days at work, and it is PROFOUND. I still get goose bumps when I listen to it. Out of the mediocre-listen-today-forget-tomorrow Hindi film music, comes this gem. What's not to like - the voices, the prelude, the interlude, the chanting (dhyaan dhyaan dhyaan dhar man), the words.... The jewel in the crown is the tabla, though. Specially endearing is the part where Kshitij sings the sargam and alaap instead of the words in the mukhda.

I looked up the meaning of Javeda - it's actually spelt as Javeeda at some places and it means eternal. Now that I know this, the song makes a lot more sense, and it fits right into context in the movie. I liked the fact that it plays in the background in the movie (no one lip syncs it, it actually plays during the end credits). That adds a lot more enigma to the song and makes it apt for the situation. SPOILER ALERT ............ All the central characters in the story are dead, and the song talks about how love gives a whole new life and renders death meaningless.

I like watching music shows for this reason - I don't get the time to listen to all the new music being written, and these shows introduce me to the gems that I miss out on. (I heard Kailash Kher's Teri Deewani for the first time on SaReGaMaPa Little Champs when Abhrokanti sang it.)

Maula is also a great song, though it pales in comparison to Tose Naina Lage. Another song worth mentioning is Dilbar Mera, but I wish that it wasn't so harsh-sounding. I think it's a rare talent that Kailash Kher possesses - to be able to sing in a raw voice, and yet sound gentle. I wonder how this song would have sounded if Kher had sung it, but we will never know ....

Listen to the best song of 2006 here.

Physical fitness

We’ve always been conscious of what we eat (calorie content, trans fat, cholesterol etc.); but our awareness in this field has increased substantially over the years. I’ve made it a personal goal to be fit and healthy, and Hobbes has also taken this up seriously this year. Here are a couple of changes we have made to our lifestyle.

1. No eating out. The exception to this rule is vacation. So yes, we have eaten all meals out when we were traveling earlier this year. I was willing to go the Tasty Bite way, but Hobbes is not a big fan of those and their sodium content isn’t exactly low :) That is not to say that we never eat out on regular days – but we certainly try to minimize those occasions. We both brown bag our food to work. This has the side effect of saving money. I have seen numerous calculations of how much that $5 coffee or lunch adds up to over a long period of time.

2. No rice on weekdays. Earlier our mindset was such that a meal wouldn’t seem complete unless rice was included. One day we decided and boom, no more rice. (On earlier occasions, we had talked about giving it up, but it just seemed too difficult to do.) We indulge in rice on weekends with dishes that taste especially good with rice (think egg curry). Also, khichri is more or less a permanent fixture on our weekend menu, so we get our rice fix then.

3. Exercise. There is no substitute for this, unfortunately :( Hobbes has joined the gym at my work. Both of us exercise first thing in the morning. We try to be at the gym by around 7-7:30 AM. Cardio, weights, crunches and stretching take up about an hour. My gym is really cool because they have showers with adequate facilities so that you don’t need to carry anything other than your clothes. The gym has towels, shampoo, conditioner, even q-tips! Hobbes could have used the gym at his work for free, but working out together has his own advantages. (We pay a nominal fee for him to access the gym). We encourage each other to work out when one of us doesn’t feel like going. And best of all, it’s fun! We compliment each other, correct each other, and it’s just more time we spend with each other, totally relaxed and having tons of fun! Hobbes has also started coming to my yoga classes. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I will say, that is really quality time as a couple :) And oh, we try and do this ~3-4 times/week.

4. No booze. I haven’t had a drop for a while now. Hobbes also decided to give up drinking, at least till the end of the year. BTW, all this effort is directed towards looking good at an upcoming family event, but my hope is that we will continue everything even after that, and if possible, for the rest of our lives. It was funny how quickly Hobbes went through all the liquor in the house because he was trying to give up drinking ;)

5. Running. We go for a run every Saturday morning. This started a couple of weeks back, and I can feel the differences in such a short time. We essentially cover the same distance and always the same trail, but every week, we manage to get it done in less time than the previous week. Right now we are at 5 miles in a little over an hour. The amazing this is that ever since I started running, I feel less cold. Earlier, I used to be cold all the time. My resistance to cold has gone up, albeit by a few degrees! And for someone, who is always the butt of everyone’s jokes for being cold at odd times of the year, this is certainly a welcome relief!

That’s it. Sometimes we throw in an evening of Turbo Jam, but we’re pretty bad at that stuff, cause we’re still learning some of the moves. Both of us are noticing considerable improvements in our physical constitution, and that’s the greatest satisfaction because we know that the hard stuff is paying off – we like the folks staring back at us in the mirror :)

Toronto photos

All the photos that I took in Toronto are here.

Toronto trip, day 6

Our last day in Toronto. We had packed the previous night, so there wasn't much to do. We checked out of the hotel, kept our luggage for safekeeping, and off we were for our final movie of the festival. And what a fitting finale to our trip!



The Last King of Scotland was running at Paramount. It was an awesome movie. It was so well done, the story was so tightly knit, and well-written, that for a few days I kept on thinking that it was based on a true story. After I few days, I was looking for more information about the movie on the web, and realized that it was fictional. Very touching, very moving and just amazing overall.

That was it. That concluded our marathon movie week :) We had brunch at a local place, and took the airport shuttle back to Pearson International Airport.

Toronto trip, day 5

We watched Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn at Paramount. This was an absolutely amazing film. Part of the fascination was that it was drawn from a real person's life. Herzog couldn't be there for the Q&A but one of the actors was there, and he said that all the actors had lost a lot of weight in a very short time for the movie. Great performances and wonderful acting.



One of the things on my to-do list in Canada was to have a crepe (sweet stuffed version of the desi dosa). We had lunch at Cafe Crepe.



The menu, look at the variety of crepes available.



Some people order right here.



We sat down inside.



And finally, the food !



Washed down with Canadian beer and a milkshake.



After filling up our stomachs, we headed to the Royal Ontario Museum. This and CN Tower were the only two attractions we used our City Pass at. We spent a lot of time at the various Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Greek exhibits there. Saw the Japanese warrior God dress (identical to the one shown in Harakiri) there!

Our last night in Toronto... Dinner was at Rasoee. Better than Dhaba, but overall, not impressed with the Indian food in Toronto at all.