1 (29 to go) - Bengal Gram with Coconut

Most of the times I don't know the original name of the dish that I am making, primarily because most of the times I am probably not making an original dish. So, I will try to stick to a generic name for the dish. This is one is Black Gram with shredded coconut. Soak around 150 gms of bengal grams overnight and pressure cook them. Soak 2 pods of tamarind beans in hot water for 20 mins. Then mash the beans to get the pulp out. Keep aside. In a pestle and mortar grind 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1.5 tsp coriander seeds, 1 inch long cinnamon, 5 cardamoms, 5 cloves, 1 inch long ginger and 2 green chillies. In a pan heat 2 tbsp oil and put 1 dry red chilli and a tsp of mustard seeds. Let it sputter. The add the ground spices and roast till you get a nice aroma. Then add the tamarind pulp and let the mixture reduce. Add 50 gms of shredded coconuts to the pan and cook till the mixture dries. Then add the boiled bengal grams and cook. Serve with roti.

Folly - As is with all experiments, they never turn out their best the first time. Therefore, folly. I was using actual tamarind beans from Fiesta Mart rather than using tamarind paste. The real thing is way too sour compared to the paste. Just use one bean.

Now serving dinner...

I have to admit, however lame it might sound, that the inspiration to this new project was in a viewing of Julie and Julia. I am not claiming to be anyone akin to either Julie or Julia, I don't aspire to be one of them, in fact I didn't even like the movie and I hate Meryl Streep (Amy Adams was the only reason I saw the movie). If I have to choose an inspiring enough food themed movie I would probably pick La graine et le mulet or Bella Martha. I have also discovered that I will never make a career in blogging, as is evident from this blog. So, this is not about Julie and Julia or food blogging or any other form of blogging. This project is just to fill time. Time that I suddenly seem to have over the Christmas holidays 2009, doing things that I like - cooking, eating and attempting to write. At the basic idea of the project is to cook up 30 new dishes (drinks, appetizers, main course, anything), things that I have never cooked before, over the holidays, then write about those on this blog. I will try my best and if it does not work out, cool. I fail. In this effort the people I thank and am in awe of are my mom and sisters who have the best recipes, some great food bloggers and some great TV shows (read Bizarre Foods and No Reservations). Bon Appetit.

Ek Republic Dena

Finally managed to catch Gulaal this weekend. I went in with a lot of expectation after having watched Dev.D last week and getting soaked in Gulaal’s amazing music and lyrics all of this week. I have no complaints about the movie, but Piyush Mishra’s moving lyrics were a bit overqualified for the subject of the movie. The movie itself is another solid follow through from Anurag Kashyap. A movie created in the backdrop of neon signs proclaiming the existence of hell in the middle of their more brightly colored brethren selling democracy beer. Additional nuances enhance the imagery of the failing republic and it’s depressed public – a blue eunuch and its Lennon crazed poet master who rewrites Bismil Azimabadi’s “सरफरोशी की तमन्ना” to lament about the loss of indigenous undergarment manufacturing mills. The fact that this movie took over five years to can, shows in some stale references of planes and towers in classic mujra songs. Anurag Kashyap draws from his DU experience yet again while continuing to dabble in larger issues facing our democracy – state vs. the union, youth identity, generation gap and the unending romanticism of the youth trying to realize its own version of “सोने की चिड़िया”. On the character front, the movie has some brilliantly sketched women protagonists. Ayesha Mohan as the firebrand youth leader Kiran, and Mahie Gill as the bar dancer Madhuri, play the prey and the predator at the same time to a bunch of cuckolded men who revel in their paradise of drunken pride and false machismo. Jesse Randhawa is a pure waste as the victimized teacher Anuja, which is a very well defined character, central to the story. Among the male leads Raj Singh Chaudhary as Dileep Singh is the only one worth a mention. Overall, the movie comes across as the labor of love that it really is but a lot of it will be lost in translation.

Dev(iant) D

I had to write this while I was in the middle of Dev D or I will never get it right. Thanks to my son… he wanted me to put something on PBSKids.com and I had to pause the movie.
So yeah I am watching it a little late (the blogs are all old and reviews stale) but I am sorry… I live here in Dallas and I get to watch some of these movies only when they come on DVD.
Ok… to beign with, you need to watch Dev D omly when you are down your second bottle of Napa Valley vintage or whatever else you find comfort in. And I am down on my 5th bottle of Shiner Centennial.
It is as edgy an Bollywood movie can get. You really need to be in that state of mind to get it. Anurag Kashyup wrote in probably in that state. Thanks dude! I will remember him forever as my first ragging experience at Hansraj and the later at the plays of Jana Natya Manch. I can understand how he drew in from his DU experiences of the 90s. And then he uses shots from our college and our Zoology teacher Hardeep Kaur. It suddenly dawned on me, that sitting through her class is the reason behind my liking of the macabre sense of humor that Anurag shows.
This movie is the Kill Bill version of Devdas. A movie that flips every conventional logic, where the songs formed the storyline and dialogs were just incidental. Where a classic Sarat Chandra story was taken to a level where it appeals to all of us deviants. Served any other way and we would have never got it. A MMS tainted, French speaking Chanda, a hallucinating, sex crazed Dev and Chunni as his pimp!
Now I am so desperate to watch Gulaal.

Yeh hai Bombay meri jaan

Is the portrayal of Bombay in the movie Slumdog Millionaire, western voyeurism into third world urban squalor or is it just a story of destiny, hope and exhilaration set against a very sour background? A lot of movie goers will attest to the former. The media was quick to point “Its poverty porn”. If portrayal of the ugly underbelly of the city, titillates the more fortunate, then is the incessant barrage of multimillion dollar song and dance movies that Bollywood churns out, “affluence porn”? Meant to titillate the Slumdog?
In the famous scene where Jamal jumps into a load of crap to be able to meet his matinee idol, most people saw an abomination, an exaggeration that stereotypes the tough life of Bombay. But one of my friends, who is as hardcore a native of the city as anyone can be, ignoring the fancy closed captioning, was actually listening to the dialogue exchange between the man on the loo door and Salim “Mera lendi abhi border mein hain... jaldi darwaja khol”. He pointed it out to me and we were rolling on the floor laughing. That is the kind of exchange that one would listen to if one really paid attention to the city’s background din of humanity. We were amazed at the insight that the movie makers had about the city when they made the movie. Having been a local of the city I do see the humor in the situation and I admire the effort that has gone in to pick such a gem and present it in its right context.
I think Danny Boyle has made a movie of great insight and honesty. In all his interviews he has been very genuine in talking about his feelings about India, Mumbai and the slums. I am sure a lot of it is coaching from the public relations team but how many people really make even that much effort? At the Golden Globe acceptance speech Danny, made a comment that the crew made the movie “dil se” and he went ahead a spelt it out D-I-L S-E. That is genuine.
Slumdog Millionaire is a true bridge movie which I see as a great example of international collaboration in movie making. In the all the glitz of the awards, what really thrilled me is the recognition that the music received. Something that I really think that the Indian movie industry does well. The movie gave A.R. Rehman a chance to create one of the most beautiful scores ever. Of course Roja, Bombay and Dil Se and his latest albums Ghajini and Dilli-6 are great albums but Slumdog is a different genre. It’s a different palette of musical influences - Indian bollywood, Electronica, Rap. And the greater outcome is the Oscar nod for Gulzaar Saab's “Jai Ho”. After all, there is no one on this earth who can write poetry like "aaja aaja jinde shamiyane ke tale"... and there cannot be a better description of Bombay's atmosphere than that.
In an interview, Vikas Swarup, the writer of the book Q&A on which Slumdog is based, was asked “What is the biggest difference between the book and the movie” and he answered “the book is about luck; Danny made the movie about destiny”. And that is what gives us hope, a fair dose of hope, from a movie from the Maximum City that is probably the most feel good movie of the decade.

Greed is Good... Is Greed Good?

While driving to the airport last evening listening to CNN on XM radio some news reader was commenting on "Fall of the Fat Cats" piece that the Special Investigations Unit is doing and the enormous amounts of money that the Wall Street Executives make, the long waiting lines for Ferraries, the $ 100 Million paintings, they are spending $250 Billion per year and how the Gordon Geckos have taken over reality.
The discussion went into - "What are these fat cats doing for which they should be paid the multi million dollar salaries?" someone answered - "Oh, they are the smartest brains and they put in long hours." and the obvious rhetoric came as - "Hey! even I work 10-12 days and still earn 1/100th of the what those guys are making".
But take the same argument a step further and imagine it in a cafe in a country that is not a fat cat in the global economic scene - "What are these people in the fat cat countries doing that lets them buy a car in whereas I cannot even get a bicycle?".
It is how capitalism works. The rich get richer because greed is good. There is no altruism in the free market. Man by nature is a selfish animal, after all he has to survive. And he does not have to survive against chasing hyenas or poison mushrooms, we were over that evolutionary hump long ago. He simply has to survive against other men. And that is what we enact every day - Wall Street vs. Main Street; Rich countries vs. Poor countries; Haves vs. the have nots.
The person commenting on CNN probably makes more money than 99% of humanity. Why? Just for telling us that people on Wall Street are earning more than people on main street and buying privet jets for money that could have fed people in Darfur? Step back and think... the 24 hour news channel that churns incessant barrage of sound bytes and pays them 100's of thousand dollars for helping them doing so also has no relevance to a poor hungry child in a third world economy. They don't even have television. But there is a paying market for news and analysis beamed through million dollar satellites and watched on a $2,000, 52" LCD screen.
The raw power of money is why I am able to write this and why you are reading this. So stop whining that someone is making more than you are... if you had half a chance to buy that privet jet, you would.