Dinner follows menu

Yesterday when I was looking for cilantro, I realized there was spinach in the fridge. Today afternoon, I was all up for making the best of weekend, to make rotis. That spinach image from yesterday subconsciously got married with roti and I said
"We are having palak paratha for dinner".
I have never had it before. Getting a general idea from the recipe, I sauteed the spinach. It finally ended up with so much water, that I didn't have to add any extra. In fact, I kept adding dough to get it to a thicker consistency. While rolling out the parathas, I was amazed at how thin they would roll out and match the pan size. It reminded me of all the gimmicks we used as kids to make soft rotis. Hot water, oil. Like true North Indian style, we had them with thick curds.
The spinach worked into the dough consistently. It was funny in the beginning, a mush feel when my hands encountered soft spinach during the dough preparation.
I am reminded of onion paratha, I used to have 10 years ago (bought from a home kitchen) when I had no kitchen and stayed as a paying guest. Bread and Kissan jam were the go tos.

Never in a Chef's jacket

Author: Alyssa Shelasky

The author of ‘Apron Anxiety’ is a writer. The way she lands writing assignments is interesting. She is one of those people who seem to be in the right place to find people and things to write about. Almost till half into the book, the author paints a stark picture of her self as an absolute food illiterate, happy making the same kind of sandwiches months together. Her boyfriends turn out to be ‘more imaginative eater’ than her. With one such love a ‘Pioneer Woman’ story where the author relocates for love not to the boondocks but a city nowhere vibrant like New York. She puts herself into the kingdom of food, which is what exactly her fiancé is tied to more than to her. Her foray into the cooking scene with her blog fame involves a brush with ‘foodie mafia’. She finds herself content as a homecook with an apron. In the day of foodie mania where the food world is wowed with foams she sticks to simple delicious food.

Her culinary journey starts with a desire to feed her loved one. As her kitchen confidence increases, so does her audience. Friends and neighbours and so do the emotional ties with them. She is no longer a kitchen-phobe when she cooks for the chefs who work at her fiance’s restaurant. She is open to positive criticism about her cooking. While sharing the stories of her life, she also shares the recipes that let her celebrate or tough out life - a down day with a pizza made from store bought dough (not a purist) to a Rainy Day Rigatoni. She’s an optimist always appreciating how good the place smells after she has cooked something, like that itself was the end result of the kitchen labor.

Once she realizes the power of food, she starts wielding it. The author finds joy in conceptualizing and creating menus. That’s a long way from a person with just a ‘like’ for food to a someone who executes meals with desired colors in mind.

Her realization that ‘everyone hurts and everyone is hungry’ is a credo that makes her want to cook for others to brighten up some lives.

The writing flows smoothly like a batter without any lumps. The author managed to meld the people, food and recipes without overdoing any of them.

Athletic Ali G

Author: Mark Titus

A general storyline of sports memoirs - a person shows athletic promise, a coach/mentor recognizes the talent and motivates the athlete.
This memoir has none of it. Still the author was part of a team that played in NCAA and NIT basketball games. That's not all of it. The author wrote a successful blog `Club Trillion' and had thousands of fans cheering him wearing his log logo T-shirts towards the end of his 4-year stint at OSU as a bench warmer.
When I picked this book, I even needed help understanding the title, visually I thought he meant more like `don't write me off'. Basketball lingo -Layup, walkon is new to me.

Mark Titus describes in slow detail when he is about to take a shot in the last 15 seconds and plays mind games with the readers about how he did the shot and its outcome.
If the book is not a detailed account of turning points of the games he played during his OSU walk-on time, how moments of glory have been stolen from him, it is 'prank time' where he does not mind pulling one on anyone - coaches, teammates.
From this book, you will take home a different side of athlete unlike the industrious, practicing kind. The author descries how he fit in with the team and how he didn't. Whenever he bemoans a great loss to the team, something wrong has happened to him.

The author notes on his blog that the book is meant for 18-35 age males. Not being a part of that demographic didn't hurt the book but the writing style is not what I usually read. For all the inspiration that the sports athletes are, I now wonder about the writing style of them each.

His story of how he started the `Club Trillion' is interesting. Once he begins explaining the rules of the club membership like a pro, he knows he has arrived. His book romanticises the `truant style' of life (even if just in sports), that will work out for one in a million. Still he has a following, not just from fellow bench warmers, but from people from all walks of life - mechanics.

Similar to college dropout successes and lottery winners, his is a too good to be true story(even if for a little while), but not reproducible. But like them he amassed great funds for charity.

Very interesting read

The content i.e details of Bernini's sculpture is very interesting to know.

The author makes us look at the sculptures in an expert way by mentioning things like - one sculpture having an inaccurate centre of gravity. The concept of one medium used to look like the other being immoral was new to me.

And just one sentence that I needed to know, about how Bernini viewed his work -' he considered most of his works far inferior to the Beauty that he knew and conceived in his mind'. Bernini's work and his interest in it seems like 'progressive improvement'. So It was interesting to know that he was inspired in a way that didnt stop at one work or with the greater beauty that he saw, he never seems to have been at loss for inspiration.

My favourite is Cornaro Chapel.


Oct 5, 2006, 5/5

Excellent novel

Author: Khaled Hosseini

'The Kite Runner' by Khalid Hosseini is a great novel with exactly all the story and style, all perfect.


If you write like Hosseini, you will never have to think twice before giving your works for anyone to review.


In his official site, Hosseini calls 'Amir', the protagonist. But while reading the book, you would like to call it the story of Amir or that of the Kite Runner or Amir's father and of all the characters in the book. Rarely do you come across a book where each character has been so well etched.


There's so much to say and wonder about his writing style. He introduces you to the world of his characters by use of certain phrases and next time you come across them , since they are no longer new to you , you comfortably get under the skin of his characters.


'Rich' is the word that springs up to your mind when you see lots of words at work describing scenes. This surely is not the kind of description readers have been fed years on, the one which you need to read over again to see whats been told. Writing dialogues comes so natural to him.


In short, Hosseini has learnt the art of using words to work for him in a very infectious way each adding cumulatively to the effect of the next and the previous.


Sep 3, 2005, 5/5

Untroubled

Author: Ana Castillo

Just a little background of New Mexico's history and you will be ready to understand why the connection of the people to the land is different from those of other Native Indians. 'So far from God' shows how having moved away from the land of their ancestors, people fail to connect to it in the same way as their predecessors.
Although it deals with serious issues, it does not fail to make you laugh out loud when weird things happen to Sofi's children and she's still one piece. And all this when you thought you were beginning to feel pity for Sofi beset with troubles for children.

Aug 4, 2007, 5/5

read for a class.

Culture and more

Author: Amy Tan

This book is a yarn spun by four women , Chinese Americans and their mothers who have seen dificult times. It is a good mix of else where and now.

The book of is an easy read. The flow of the book will not let you put it down.

I liked reading about the various practices in China. Their belief in fortune, trying to beget favorable conditions, even when everything is not so right, is fascinating.

Different voices in the book form a bridge between short story and novel forms. Although the distinctness of the voices is not preserved, the matter of the stories are still conveyed in a very interesting manner.


May 19, 2005, 5/5