Sad sad sad.

I'm blogging under threat here. Someone on my blog-roll (and I won't say who) threatened me with removal from their blog-roll if I didn't update my blog. So here goes, blogging under pressure.

What have I been doing?
Not exercising. I'm what you'd call skinny-fat. Thin with a gut. And the last two months or so, thanks to the gym being closed on weekends, and frisbee, my body has, shall we say, deteriorated. Luckily, classes will start at UW-Madison from Sept and with it the gym hours will go back to being normal.

What have I been reading?
I started reading The Extended Phenotype. I was in the middle of Maximum City when the library decided that someone else deserves to read it first. Hopefully, I'll get it back and find out what happens to Manoj the Crossdresser. I also realized that I have too many comic books and probably need to sell some of them. After I have read them one last time.

What have I been eating?
Too much partially hydrogenated fat. And it's not good for me. Don't eat partially hydrogenated fat people, it kills puppies.

What have I been listening to?
The College Dropout and Late Registration. Mr. West can't really rap that good but he can sure produce a nice sounding album. Drive slow.

Well, there's your post. Hopefully I won't have so much aalas next time and will update quickly enough.

I got a cold and a bad one too
It made me sick like Winnie the Pooh
But the doctor, he made me fit
By prescribing antibiotics

Yeah, clearly my poetry skills have deteriorated along with the lining of my throat. This was a bad one though, and it kept me in on Friday. I watched Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music (The Director's Cut) and what a great documentary that was.

Saturday, after spending the whole afternoon at home, moping and ripping CDs, I went out and watched Spiderman 3 with Little A. A little Argentinian Cabernet Sauvignon at Barriques Wine Cave finished off the evening. Spiderman 3 is a must watch if you are comic geek. And it's a must watch even if you aren't. And before going to bed, I sipped a warm cup of Theraflu which knocked me unconscious.

Sunday, I was feeling much better, and spent most of my day bugging the crap out of KT and Ms. Non Sequitur who were trying hard to get their papers done. I'm now half a music educator and half a PhD in development studies. I need to leverage this unholy knowledge somehow and make more money. I also spoke to Gary who said she was sick and sleepy and had had a 36 hour shift. Doctors work way harder than engineers. And finally I watched Salaam Bombay which I had never seen before. I miss Bombay.

And Tall Mike has movie night tonight, where we shall watch the last two episodes of Dexter Season 1! Serial-killer cops rock!

India update 4
16 - 18 Feb 2007

Let's begin with some more general vegetarian goodness. I was in the mood for spicy stuffed bell peppers (capsicum to Indian folk) and my mom indulged me! Along the way I also learned how to make them. I was planning pictures at each step but the battery on my camera gave way and needed to be recharged. Well here they are anyway , along with matki chi usal - a dry curry of moth bean sprouts, ambat varan - a sour garlicky daal, bharleli kashmiri mirchi - bell peppers stuffed with spiced chick pea flour, shrikhand - a yogurt based dessert and karela - fried bitter gourd.



What happened next was a puja (Satyanarayan puja) at our house. Of course this meant the mandatory fast before the puja - fast of course, being a relative term as you can have your fill of sabudana khichadi!



And after the puja was over there was a veritable feast served in the traditional banana leaf shaped dish (Ideally you serve in a real banana leaf but it's hard to find large clean ones these days!) Traveling clockwise in that plate we see salt, lemon, cucumber roasted peanut salad, green coconut chutney, yogurt, puran - sweetened boiled chickpea mash, fresh cashew curry - these aren't your run-off-the-mill roasted cashews, these are fresh from the fruit, soft and creamy and utterly delicious, and tragically unavailable anywhere in the US, lightly sauteed fresh okra, rice with varan dal, chapaties, and masala dudh - milk flavored with saffron, almonds, pistachios etc. etc.



I'm thinking of having another puja before I leave, just for the food...

Anyway, after that on Sunday, I had my buddies over for lunch and there was more great food. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics of the food, but I can list what was on the menu - chicken curry, dry chick pea curry, jain style potato curry, faras bean curry, an assortment of chutneys and pickles, and for dessert dudhi halva - a halva made of dudhi, an Indian gourd, shira - a halva made of semolina and ice cream!

Later that evening I went for the Roger Waters concert at the MMRDA grounds in the Bandra-Kurla complex. I didn't have any great expectations from this thing so was blown away by how good it was! The lights, the sounds, Dark Side of The Moon! He finished with Comfortably Numb! I'll post some pics later when my friend has a chance to get them off his camera phone.

We ended the night with roomali roti - a soft-as-velvet flat bread that's made by tossing it into the air (roomal is the Hindi word for a silk handkerchief), bheja fry - fried brains, chicken bhuna - roasted chicken curry and seekh kababs at Bademiya's at Colaba! Eating on the street, off the hood of your car that's been propped up by a Coke bottle (sorry Thums Up bottle) has it's own unique charm that cannot be reproduced anywhere else!