Dinesh and Bawa
Friday, May 23, 2008
Tomato Rice and Cheese Peas Pulav
Tomato Rice
This is a very gentle, subtle flavoured rice... i love it!
Take 5 generous handfuls of rice and soak in water for about an hour. Wash the rice well and bung it into a cooker.
Puree 7-8 tomatoes and optionally cook it for a while in olive oil. Add this to the rice. I find that cooking the puree before adding to the rice in the cooker somehow enhances the flavour.
Add to it some green peas (depends on how much you like them, I add about a small cup full of them). Peel 2 carrots and slice them into medium roundels. Add to the rice. You could also add a chunkily chopped potato (don’t remove the skin). Add a finely chopped chopped tomato as well. In the photo below i have also added a few chunks of mock meat that shilpa got for us from singapore... This is absolutely optional :)
Next add 10-15 fresh basil leaves. Also add lots of olive oil, I just let it glug out of the bottle for a bit ☺. Finally add a small blob of butter. Add salt to taste. Add water so that it completely covers the entire mixture. And pressure cook for three whistles and simmer for 10ish minutes after that. Wait for the cooker to cool down before opening it.
Serve piping hot. Tzatziki (recipe coming real soon) will go really well with it. As well as fresh dahi.
You could also change the flavour by doing a garlic tadka. (Heat Olive oil and add 2 mashed or very finely sliced garlic cloves. Add to the rice and mix it up well).
There is a variation to this. I call it cheese peas Pulav.
You don’t add the tomatoes and carrots to the rice. Just add lots of green peas and 2 chunkily sliced potatoes and depending on how many calories you want to watch out for heaps of grated cheese. Cheddar works best. And follow the recipe exactly as above.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
The Email
Lemme introduce everyone to Suparna. She is a volunteer for the Art of Living in France. Lives in a small lil town called Fontainebleau with her hubby and daughter. She also writes short stories and is currently working on a full length book.
I loved this story that she sent me to read and with her permission have uploaded it on this blog, coz it definitely sounded interesting... If you like the story (and i am sure you will), please email her with your praises and comments at sue195chat@yahoo.com. I would love to read your comments on this story as well...
Tomato Rice and Alibag tomorrow :)
The E-mail
by Suparna Chatterjee
Ashimesh reads the e-mail for the third time.
It is written in multiple shades of blue and green. An invitation to a birthday party the following Friday. Ashimesh hesitates a moment or two before deleting the mail. He is unsure of the proper etiquette for misdirected e-mail, and besides, the intended recipient will not receive the invitation unless he points out the mistake. He clicks the Reply button.
Dear Sam,
I think you have made a mistake in sending me this mail, as I’m quite sure that you are unknown to me.
Ashimesh
Ashimesh Banerjee is a pucca Bengali. He attended Scottish Church School, and later graduated from the prestigious Presidency College, with a First Class degree in Geology. He joined the Geological Survey of India as a trainee and retired as a General Manager after thirty-eight years of dedicated service.
Like most Bengalis of his generation he mistrusted those who found their way into the city from the east of the border. He wholeheartedly supported Mohun Bagan in the local football league, and when it was time for the World Cup, the undisputed favorite was Brazil. He bought sweets only from Dwarik’s, one of the few establishments in North Calcutta that hadn’t yet compromised on quality, and fish from Hatibagan, where one was always sure to find the freshest.
The past few years, however, Ashimesh has been a shadow of his former self.
His ancestral home at Baghbazar, where he has lived all his life, is beginning to show its age. Walls are in desperate need of plastering, the leak in the roof is a constant menace during the monsoons, and the exterior has not smelt fresh paint in over a decade. Ashimesh rarely steps out of the house these days, yet he barely notices the decay.
The PC (a gift from Arnab on one of his visits) is the only living thing in his life now. He reads the daily news at the CNN website, and runs a Google search on classical music or FIFA. Occasionally on something more academic.
Ashimesh pops in a couple of valium tablets, and switches on the computer again.
There are ten emails lying in his mailbox. The usual solicitations…tour companies selling vacation packages, life insurance schemes, mobile ringtones. He reads them all, and re-reads them before deleting them one by one. He pauses at the last one.
Hi Ashimesh,
Sorry, I was sending the mail to a bunch of friends and in a hurry I must have made an error. If it wasn’t for your reply, Ashley Benson wouldn’t have received her invite. Thanks so much!!
I attend middle school in Richmond, Virginia. Where are you from? Your name isn’t American.
Bye for now,
Sam
Dear Sam,
I live in India, in the historic city of Calcutta. I am 67 years old. My son too lives… (He starts, pauses for a minute and shakes his head. No point in bringing up Arnab and his family).
Tell me about Richmond.
Ashimesh
People who knew Ashimesh ten years ago fail to recognize him these days. Ashimesh was a jovial man, the life of any adda. An enthusiastic participant in the local Puja Committee during the autumn festivities and a meticulous sport critic during the cricket and football seasons. Ashimesh and a few close friends regularly met at the Club House and discussed Satyajit and Jyoti Babu over a few rounds of Bridge, the innumerable cigarette stubs and the unending cups of tea from the local tea shop bearing testimony to their debates.
Dear Ashimesh,
Richmond is a historic place too. It was one of the first settlements of the British in this country, so Calcutta and Richmond have something in common after all. The weather here is temperate. The leaves change color every autumn to red, gold and orange and winters frequently cover the landscape with snow...
Ashimesh runs a Google search for “Richmond” before retiring for the night.
He wakes up with a start and a headache the following day. The doorbell sounds for the third time. Ashimesh opens his tired eyes to look at his watch. 9:30. He puts on his glasses and answers the door. It’s Subala, wiping her forehead with the tip of her once white sari.
“Have you been sleeping late today? Been standing here for almost 10 minutes”.
Ashimesh walks to the bathroom as Subala gets ready to sweep the floor, all the while continuing her soliloquy in an authoritative tone. “I see you haven’t eaten any dinner last night. How long is this going to continue? Why don’t you ask Dadababu to come back? He has been to college; he will surely find work here. Or else, you go to live with him. He is always asking you to. Why spend old age alone when you can be enjoying your grandchildren, I ask…?”
Ashimesh endures this everyday, and it has now reached a point where it does not bother him anymore.
The emails from Sam soon become a certainty in his otherwise lackluster existence.
Sam loved school but hated Math, had a pet fox terrier called Woofy, spent Christmas with grandparents in Charlotte, and went to D.C. to watch the 4th of July fireworks each year. Does Ashimesh have any kids? Sam wants to know.
Dear Sam,
I have one son, Arnab. He graduated from IIT, Bombay, the best engineering college in this country. He then received a full scholarship to pursue a PhD in UCLA, and thereafter has chosen to settle down in your country…
He tells Sam about India. About its people. About Ramayana and Mahabharata. He talks about Durga Puja, the Christmas equivalent of his religion.
“…the whole city is bathed in colorful lights. Thousands of people throng the streets all night long, dressed in their best, limping from the discomfort of their newly purchased shoes, to pay homage to the Goddess in every corner of the city, munching egg rolls and fish culets purchased from industrious street side vendors…”
Atop the showcase in the living room are old black and white photographs in rusted silver frames. Pictures of Arnab in his neatly pressed school uniform, bag in hand, oily hair combed in place by his indulgent mother. Others show a family vacation in Puri or Darjeeling. Ashimesh picks up a photo and wipes out the dust with his thumb. It’s a photograph of Arnab with his new bride. He clearly remembers the day Arnab had announced his wish to marry Susan, an American school teacher. The news had left Ashimesh and his wife shocked and disheartened. Tanima had been bedridden for days, and finally succumbed to a heart attack. The day before she died, she requested her husband to make a place for this photograph, among the others in the showcase.
Dear Ashimesh,
Durga Puja sounds awesome! Wish I could be there.
We brunched at IHOP’s today. They make the best blueberry pancakes ever!!! Do you like music? I love N’Sync and Backstreet Boys, but mom won’t let me listen to Eminem.
Btw, my phone number is 080 234 5689.Do you want to chat during the weekends?
Dear Sam,
My favorite dish used to be prawn malaikari, prepared lovingly by my wife. No one could make it like her. I used to listen to music too, though the names you have mentioned are not familiar to me. I loved K.L. Saigal, and every winter, during the classical music festival, Barun (a close friend) and I would stay up all night at Singi Park to listen to the great maestros…
It is one year since the emails first started. To his own astonishment, Ashimesh remembers to send an e-card on Sam’s birthday. He has never sent a birthday card to anyone before. Not to his wife, not to his son, not even to his own granddaughter.
Ashimesh has trouble sleeping that night. The valium doesn’t help any. He gets out of his bed and starts penning down his long overdue apology. To Susan and to Arnab. But most of all to his grandchild, his own flesh and blood, whom he had chosen to disregard all these years. When his pen finally stops, it had covered eight sheets. Ashimesh seals the envelope and couriers it first thing in the morning.
Later that day, he makes a trip to Hatibagan and buys some of his favorite prawns and a coconut. He would have to give clear instructions to Subala on how to prepare it. On his way back, he picks up a couple of tickets to a Ravi Shankar concert, scheduled for the following month.
That weekend he calls Sam.
-Sam, I have some good news for you.
-Really? What?
-I might be visiting your country soon.
-Yes, I know.
-You know? How?
-Dadu, I’m Samhita.
It is the first time the little girl addresses her grandfather as Dadu.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Prince Caspian
A lot has happened in Narnia, 1300 years of it... and the old Narnia is threatened by the humans who have somehow managed to get there...
An evil uncle, a good doctor, a prince, 2 Kings (one of them is a high King, as edmund says its complicated), 2 queens, dwarves and the Godly Lion Aslaan along with a potpourri of talking animals and some pretty angry nature make a nice movie with good morals...
There is very good acting from all the 4 children, though Prince Caspian seems a bit jerky and uncomfortable. The Location is fabulous. Made me feel that we really have to halt this global warming so more places on the planet can become like it again...
Enjoyable fare, worth watching once...
Oh yes, there is also a torchlight... :)
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Goin to Alibag
We are off to Alibag from Poona for 2-3 days at the beach... will post photos and other stuff once i am back in Bangalore... no idea if there is internet connectivity there...
Will write a few things out to be ready to publish in the time i am there, maybe poke dinesh to write as well :)
Also, I am thinking of inviting guests to write a few articles for this blog... We know so many really interesting people, and what they write will fit right into our theme... Sounds Interesting...
Tomato Rice Recipe coming up soon...
Also QnA 10 and maybe a Guru story or 2
I have scheduled my review of the movie Prince Caspian to be published tomorrow morning at 10:30 am... it s a new feature on blogger, lets see how well it works :)
Will see all of you in a few days... Keep Breathing
Jai Gurudeva!
love
bawa (and dinesh)
Monday, May 19, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Baked Potatoes
Very easy and extremely tasty!!
Get together:
5-7 Potatoes small to medium size
Olive oil
Butter (a generous tablespoonful)
1/2 cup grated cheese (cheddar is best), you could use lesser if you wish
Mushrooms (1 packet)
1-2 Carrots medium size, cut (dice) into very small pieces
1 clove of garlic, peeled and squashed or diced finely
6-7 fresh basil leaves
Fresh Cream
Juice of 2 Lemons
Salt
Trim your nails, wash your hands :)
Pre heat to oven to 250 deg
Throughly wash the potatoes, do not peel the skin... If there is some mud stuck on them, looosen it and remove it. Poke the potatoes 7-8 times with a fork. Stick the fork right in, dont do it politely :)
This allows the steam to escape while baking... i have been told that they may explode otherwise!
In a Pan melt the butter and add some olive oil. Remove from gas.
Now just put each potato in the butter and oil mixture and with your fingers spread it on the entire potato, dont put too much. Put the potato on a baking tray. Do for all potatoes. Sprinkle some salt on them. Put to bake at 250 deg for about 30 to 40 minutes. When they turn a delicious golden brown they are done.
Meanwhile, put the pan with the olive oil and butter mixture on the gas and add 1 pod of garlic that has been peeled ad squashed or cut into fine pieces. wait until it browns a bit. Then add 6-7 fresh basil leaves. Add the diced carrots and just saute them. They should be crunchy. Add the Mushrooms and cook for about 3 more minutes, add grated cheese to this and stir well until the cheese has melted. Remove from gas.
Add the juice of the lemons to about a cup of cream and beat it well till it is nice and thick.
Once the potatoes are done, slit them along one side and open them up a bit. be careful they will be really hot. Spoon in some of the mushroom carrot cheese mixture. Add a dollop of the sour cream and decorate it with a basil leaf. Serve immediately. It should be eaten piping hot...
You can be creative with what sort of toppings you put on your baked potatoes: Just sour cream with finely chopped chives, grated cheddar cheese with a dash of red chilly powder, finesly shredded spinach with sour cream... the list is almost endless :)
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This is in response to the question asked "Q: I go to college. Guru Ji says, make one friend everyday. How?"
Guruji's advice about making a new friend every day can be counterproductive. It must be stated with some caveats.
There are lot of unspiritual people in this world. If you make friends with such people, they will drag you down into drinking, teasing, smoking, sex, etc.
What is the underlying desire in making a new friend? We must be friends only with those who fulfill our ultimate spiritual goals (Satsang). Lot of people spend time chatting away with so-called friends about silly things [I am like this, you are like that]. Real friends are those who teach you good things, who have good character.
If you exist in a state of silence, you will automatically discover the people you need to make friends with - those who match your spiritual desires.
Make new friends... no caveats... if they are "unspiritual", make them spiritual!!
Along with being spiritual, you also need to really strong, then the environment you are in doesn't make any difference to you, but you do have a super impact on the environment!!
Of course, there are few people who will simply not learn, or refuse to learn, we keep our distance from them, but always have our doors open, in case they wish for Knowledge...