In a Sunburned Country

I liked the book 'A short history of nearly everything' and liked the author's style. So when I asked for recommendations on any other books of his, my friend suggested 'In a Sunburned Country', a travelogue on Australia. I didn't waste any time in ordering it and got the book in 3-4 days time (thanks to Flipkart). This is the book through which I fell in love with Bill Bryson and his humour.
Of all the types of humour, I like the self-deprecating type. Bryson scores there, hands down. Here is an excerpt about his jet-lagged self falling asleep on a trip to see the city of Sydney.

 

"I am not, I regret to say, a discreet and fetching sleeper. Most people when they nod off look as if they need a blanket; I look as if I could do with medical attention. I sleep as if injected with a powerful experimental muscle relaxant. My legs fall open in a grotesque come-hither manner; my knuckles brush the floor. Whatever is inside - tongue, uvula, moist bubbles of intestinal air - decides to leak out. From time to time, like one of those nodding duck toys, my head tips forward to empty a quart or so of viscous drool onto my lap, then falls back to begin loading again with a noise like a toilet cistern filling. And I snore, hugely and helplessly, like a cartoon character, with rubbery flapping lips and prolonged steam-valve exhalations. For long periods I grow unnaturally still, in a way that inclines onlookers to exchange glances and lean forward in concern, then dramatically I stiffen and, after a tantalizing pause, begin to bounce and jostle in a series of whole-body spasms of the sort that bring to mind an electric chair when the switch is thrown. Then I shriek once or twice in a piercing and effeminate manner and wake up to find that all motion within five hundred feet has stopped and all children under eight are clutching their mothers' hems. It is a terrible burden to bear."

 

I haven't laughed rolling on the floor reading a book for a long time. With this book, once I started I couldn't stop. So when my neighbour called up and menacingly told "satham podathe" (don't make noise), I really thought I was laughing too loud. Only after a few seconds it occurred to me that she was telling the name of the movie which we were planning to watch the next day.

 

The conversation which followed after the author was asked to take photograph while looking at a 56 feet giant lobster perched at the side of a highway:

 

'You can tell people it's an engagement photo,' I suggested.

He liked the idea. 'Yeah!' he said keenly. 'Meet the fiancee. She's not much for looks or conversation, but jeez can she scuttle!'

'At Wauchop there's a Big Bull,' he added.

I raised my eyebrows in a way that said: 'Oh yes?'

He nodded fondly. 'It's testicles swing in the breeze.'

'It has testicles?' I said, impressed.

'I'll say. If they fell on you, you wouldn't get up in a hurry.'

We took an extended moment to savor this image. 'It would make an interesting insurance claim, I suppose,' I observed at last.

'Yeah!' He liked this idea, too. "Or a newspaper headline: "Man crushed by falling bollocks".'

'"By falling bullocks' bollocks",' I offered.

 

I can keep writing more from the book, but then that's not the idea. So go ahead, get it. It is worth having in your library. Or call me up and come over and you can borrow my copy.

The best pizza ever!

So Naples is off our list of places to visit after some deliberation. We read in various reviews that the place is still filthy and the garbage problem is still not taken care of. But fate would have it that we land up in Naples for our connecting train to Sorrento on a day of strike and we were stranded there for a few hours. So we decided to make use of the time as effectively as possible. 

After dumping the luggage in lockers we decided to go in search of pizza. Our guidebook suggested Pizzeria Sorbillo Antonio E Gigi as the top one. We decided we didn't want anything lesser than the top one. We found the place in the map and started walking. It was a pretty long walk from the railway station and after asking 18 people for the way, we ended up in front of the place. We were tired after the long walk. The place was densely packed, with a lot of youngsters making merry over pizza and beer. 

Live band inside Gigi Sorbillo

Eating out with 2 vegetarians and one pseudo non-vegetarian is painful. I decided to order a pepperoni pizza. That means I have to eat the whole pizza. Once we started eating I realised, the whole walk, the wait and the ordering of the whole pizza was indeed worth it. I not only enjoyed the pizza (look at the size of it), I enjoyed even the last bite, though I knew I was eating more than double the amount of food I usually eat. I told my friends that it was the best pizza I have ever eaten in my life and I had to tell this to the chef. So while walking out we watched the handsome duo in action. One stretched the dough, made the base, filled the sauce, toppings and cheese. The other moved each of the prepared pizza into the wood oven and out of it. They posed for us and with us and I also told them that it is the best ever pizza I have had in my life. I could not have been the first one to tell them that, but that made them happy still. 

I did the walk back to the railway station in a dream and promised myself that I am going to come back to Naples to eat pizza again. So if you ever end up in Naples you know what to do. We indeed saw garbage piled up sky high on the streets of Naples. But when you can eat the best pizza ever in the world, you forgive and forget.

Here is the address:
Antonio e Gigi Sorbillo
Via Tribunal, 38 Napoli,

80138 Italy

Resolutions those were not meant to be!

It is another new year. Another resolution time. Long time back I have taken the mother of all resolutions that I will never make any new year resolutions. It had made life so much easier. But this year suddenly I felt like breaking the old resolution and making some new resolutions. What do I want to change! Hm, good question. Let me think.

1. Refurbish the house. I moved into my new house in 2003 December. May be it is time I furnish it properly, put up proper drapes, make the under the staircase aquarium. Phew! That indeed sounds like a lot of work. Let that wait.

2. I used to read a lot of books earlier. But it has fallen over the last couple of years. May be it is time I made sure I read at least 15 pages every day. That way I might finish all the books I have bought and kept in the next 4 to 5 years. Too much work? May be not. What if I ended up travelling again, can't commit. Let that wait too.

3. Too long since some wax has seen my legs and a thread has seen my eyebrows. My friends with whom I have traveled Europe have told me after seeing my hairy arms that, it is sacrilegious to being a woman to have hair on arms. Oops, I really didn't know that. May be I should start waxing my arms too. Ooh, that really sounds like too much work again.

4. Half my garden is empty. May be I should fill it up with some really beautiful flower plants. Ooh, too much work.

5. I should finish up the half finished painting, the half finished bead and thread works. Now you sort of get the point. Too much work.

6. Stay away from the laptop after reaching home. Really? Should I?

7. Exercise. It seems, this is the second most popular new year resolution. I am surprised, I thought this would be the most popular. Anyway, after my badminton partners have started showing "attitude", I have stopped playing regularly. It is not that I am bad, I do beat them once in a while, but then they are, you know, "men". There went the only exercise I could do without feeling I am exercising. Finding another one, again looks like TMW indeed.

8. Have a baby? TMW.

9. Start the school. TMW.

10. Dulce Cuppy Cakes? TMW.

I think, the lazy bum I am, is better off really just continuing how it is now. The mother of all resolutions will stay. May be let me go through 2012 like this itself and if the world doesn't end on December 21st, I will think up a list for 2013.

I always say "When the pain of not changing exceeds the pain of changing (read TMW), you will automatically change". 

Things I learnt today - 2

Let me not cheat, these are not exactly things I learned today, but happened over the last few days. But when I saw the blue butterfly's life cycle, I just couldn't stop myself from writing about my kids also.

1. This is the butterfly story. If you ever thought the whole birthing process in human beings is complicated, read this. 

 

Large Blue

The below is an extract from Wikipedia on Large Blue (butterfly)

Large Blue caterpillars feed on wild thyme or marjoram flowers for the first few days of development. Once well fed, the caterpillar secretes sweet fluids to attract red ants of the species Myrmica sabuleti. The ants then take the caterpillar back to their nest and proceed to feed from these secretions. The caterpillar then hibernates inside the ants' tunnels. On emerging from hibernation, the caterpillars will then begin to eat the red ant's eggs and larvae for up to 3 weeks. It will then hang itself by its legs on the nest's roof and build a chrysalis around itself. The caterpillar will spend a further 3 weeks transforming into the Large Blue butterfly adult. After its change from caterpillar to butterfly, the insect emerges from its chrysalis and leaves the red ant nest to find a mate. Usually, red ants will escort the newly emerged butterfly to the surface, taking it to a low plant or shrub nearby. The red ants will encircle the butterfly and ward off any predators that attempt to attack the butterfly as it dries out. After the butterfly is ready to fly away, the ants will retreat back into their nest.

(Picture and text are from Wikipedia)

I thought the whole process of egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly itself is a complicated process for a life-cycle. But this mutual association as a part of the life-cycle makes it so much more complex.  No wonder this butterfly is almost extinct. 

My kids on stage

2. Children never forget; at least not for a year. I keep getting that odd call from my kids still, telling me some story or other from their current class or their marks and ranks when they think it is good enough to make me happy. Few days back I got a call from my last year's 7th standard boys on their annual day. They were not part of anything and they were pretty upset about that. They were remembering the  drama I taught them and their performance and all the fun we had. I could feel their disappointment in not doing something similar this year.

Pumpkin flowers for lunch

female and male flowers of pumpkin

It is just one vine of pumpkin, but it is like an obsessive thought, it totally takes over one side of the garden. Then the flowers started blooming and I was waiting for a female flower. It came much later than I thought and by then the thought of cutting off the vine also passed my mind (who needs a male pumpkin vine). So when I saw the first female bud I was happy and felt a little guilty too. Then everyday I saw many male and female flowers blooming and wilting. Then on a Sunday morning while deliberating on what is for lunch today, I caught sight of those flowers and said 'let's eat them'.

I have never eaten pumpkin flowers earlier though I have heard that all parts of a pumpkin plant is edible, may be except the roots. So I started searching for a recipe for pumpkin flowers and came up with a lot of deep fried ones. The flower petals looked so delicate deep frying them sounded so brutal. So I went in for my own simple recipe.

I collected 16 flowers and they were quite a handful. I chopped them up and then the quantity looked even more. But it went inside the pan and started heating up and started shrinking and leaving water. By the time I managed to evaporate all the water and get it into the consistency I wanted, it was just a very small bowlful. Since it was only Shyam and I for lunch that day, we each had enough to taste the flowers properly.

When I started cooking I was expecting the taste of the rest of the ingredients to make up the taste of the dish. But I was pleasantly surprised to find a delicious flavour added by the pumpkin flower to the dish.

Pumpkin flower recipe

Coconut oil             - 1tsp

Mustard seeds         - 1/2 tsp

Curry leaf                - 1 sprig

Red Chilly               - 4 to 5

Onion                      - 1 medium sized

Ginger                     - 1/2 inch piece, made to paste or finely chopped

Turmeric powder    - 1/4 tsp

Chilly powder          - 1 tsp

Coriander powder   - 1tsp

Pumpkin flower      - 16* (only petals, cut into to 1cm wide strips)

Salt                          - 1/2 tsp or to taste

Grated coconut        - 1tbsp (optional)

Heat the coconut oil and add the mustard seeds. Once it finish spluttering, add the curry leaf and then the red chillies. Fry till the red chillies are starting to brown, add ginger. Add the onion, fry till the they turn translucent. Add all the powders and fry for a minute. Add the pumpkin flowers, it will turn very watery once the flowers start cooking. Stir to mix and leave it in low flame for the water to evaporate, stirring occasionally. Once it reaches the required dryness add the salt. This is important since the volume reduces tremendously, if you add the salt earlier it could turn to be more than needed. Sprinkle the grated coconut over and serve hot with steaming hot rice. I sprinkled the coconut only for my photography session, but that gave a nice crunch to the dish.

*The female flowers are bigger than the male flowers. I had 14 male and 2 female flowers. If you have many female flowers you count extra 2 female flower for 3 male flowers.
No pumpkin flowers? What the heck, call me up and come over on a weekend. If the pumpkin flowers are still there, I will make it for you :)

I found no aloo in my vindaloo

The delicacies of Goa:
For me vacation means not having a todo list to look into every 30 minutes. But the next thing about a vacation is the food. I love food and I love eating. But I am not as lucky as I was 10 years back with eating, as I tend to put on weight now a days. Some actress or model has famously said that "no food tastes as good as being thin". That is not true for me. For me a lot of food taste better than being thin. But I don't want to be fat either. So I go in for the balancing act between eating and still not eating too much. The only time when this balance tilts a little to the eating too much side is when I am on vacation. This was true while in Goa on my last vacation too. We ate at restaurants with waiters in crisp uniforms, with waiters who bring water with one finger in it and all the variants in between. We ate at a bar in which the owner barked "upstairs" even before I entered. Once my eyes got used to the dim light inside I saw a bar full of men at various stages of drunkenness staring at us and realised why he shouted. But that bar was where I had my best meal from this travel. So food was one major (if not "the" major) part of my vacation in Goa.

When we were on our way back to the airport, we were comparing notes on which meal was our best meal and I realised disappointingly that I should have kept notes on each meal and the restaurant and it would have been fodder for a good blog. Then I thought at least I can write on the dishes I have had. So here goes a small list of dishes I tried in Goa and my take on them.

Serradura - I already wrote about this earlier. So this looks like the winner, nah, it was just that it was the easiest for me to even think about trying. But still, this is a yummy dessert.

Dodol - Dodol tasted somewhat like Kerala halva. It was not as firm as halva, so it almost felt like someone set out to make halva and got tired towards the end and said this is enough and left it a little loose. May be I tasted this at the wrong place, so I didn't take to it that much. But still worth trying out. Here is a recipe and pictures for the same from Flavours of Mumbai.

Costaz Bebinca

Bebinca - I started eating bebinca on the same day I landed in Goa and kept eating almost everyday till I found Serradura. I also picked up 2 packets of bebinca to share with friends and family back home. It is like a layered Kerala halva and very delicious, especially when eaten with ice-cream. I thought I will make it, but when I saw the 9 egg yolks in the recipe, I have postponed it. I hate recipes which ask either for egg yolk or egg white alone. I don't know what to do with the other part. I have to plan to make 2 recipes together sometime. Here is the recipe for bebinca.

Balchao - Balchao is a spicy, vinegary gravy and I ate the pork version of it in Goa. It is terribly spicy and almost made me faint. I couldn't find a pork balchao recipe, but here is one for a prawn one. It looks like prawn balchao is more popular than pork balchao.
 
Xacuti - Xacuti is also a spicy dish, again with the vinegary flavour, its special ingredient being poppy seeds. Here is a recipe for a fish xacuti. This one made me cry but I didn't faint.

Vindaloo - I have been looking forward to eating vindaloo as much as I was looking forward to jumping into the sea. But every time I ended up eating vindaloo I searched for the aloo (potato) in the vindaloo, sometimes even rolling my eyes at the unsuspecting waiter, when I found no aloo. Vindaloo is also another spicy gravy together with, hold your breath, vinegar. The colour of this gravy being darkish brown from the almost burnt onion made into paste with vinegar. I figured after a few disappointments that traditionally, vindaloo doesn't contain any aloo. But even now I feel it would taste good with potato in the gravy and if ever I plan to make vindaloo, I will make with aloo. Here is a recipe for the traditional chicken vindaloo without the aloo.

Sorpotel - Sorportel is almost liked pickled meet, small pieces of parboiled meat cooked in a vinegar based gravy. I ate this on the first day I landed in Goa and never managed to find it again. I am not much of a meat cook, so I wonder whether I will ever make it also.

Ambot tik - Finally one dish which is not flavoured sour by adding vinegar, but this is still sour but with tamarind.  This dish is mostly made with fish and that too shark. In all the savoury dishes I have here, this might be the only one I will cook. Here is the recipe. For all the other dishes I will wait till I go to Goa again. Or in case you decide to make any of these, please let me know. I can become the helper and taster, rolled in one.

My first bundt cake

November 15th is supposed to be national bundt day (which nation? some far away nation, hmm that is not the point). I didn't know what a bundt cake was 2 months back, so I don't expect you to know either, but if you knew what a bundt cake is, you are way cooler than me. So here is Wikipedia coming for our help - Bundt Cake (finally I paid up, couldn't handle the guilt any more :) ). I came across this information about bundt day from the food librarian whose blog I keep visiting very regularly. I love the pictures which she puts up there and also the recipes. After reading about the national bundt day, I decided it is the perfect time to use the bundt baking pan which I have picked up 2 months back while on a shopping spree for baking stuff.

When we wanted to make a cheese cake for the cooking-together-saturday, Lisa asked Shyam to pick up some cream cheese. The recipe called for 500g of cream cheese and Shyam picked up 1000 rupees worth of cream cheese. Since Lisa thought it is criminal to use 1000 rupees worth of cream cheese in one go, she halved all the ingredients and made the cake. That means I am left with the rest of the cream cheese in my fridge and I wanted to use that too in the bundt day baking. So I ended up with this Martha Stewart's recipe for a pound cake which I decided to bake in my bundt pan.

If you notice there is no baking powder in the recipe which caused slight hesitation. Then we decided to follow the recipe anyway. I didn't expect the cake to rise since there was no baking powder, but then it started rising and there appeared some cracks on top of the cake. Then when I checked back on the Martha Stewart page I found the picture out there also has a cake with a crack. But when I wanted to take a picture we decided to make some icing to cover up the crack, so there went some more of the cream cheese and some sugar.

Obviously if I want to post the blog for the bundt day, I need pictures. Then I realised when I have something delicious sitting in front of me I don't have the patience to take 350 pictures to select the best out of it. 5 pictures and the cake was inside my mouth. It turned out really rich (all that cream cheese) and moist, dense and real yummm. Only there was a slight buttery after taste, reason for which I need to figure out and fix next time.

Next day morning I decided to take some pictures of the cake in the garden. While out I saw many butterflies around. Then I became ambitious, I wanted the picture of the cake with a butterfly in the background. It was a wait for sometime before I managed to do that and I realised that I needed a larger depth of field to get both visible. But before the butterfly flew away, I managed to change the focus and got that in another frame, but I forgot to turn the cake around. Next time I will do a better job, promise :)

Common Grass yellow with my cream cheese cake