Cooking 101: Rubbish Potatoes

Image Source: my kitchen.

Just like any other person who is undergoing physiotherapy and who accidentally hurt the same foot which was healing, thereby causing a nasty, bloody bruise which caused swelling all over again, I boldly ventured into the kitchen yesterday to make myself something to eat as I was hungry and I was also reveling in my new found mobility.

Now I believe it is of paramount importance to not delude yourself.
Therefore, knowing that the culinary dept. was not one of my strengths, I decided to make the simplest dish known to man a.k.a baked potatoes. Let me categorically state that it all began well and I was successfully able to skin and cut the potatoes while ignoring the mild throbbing on my foot.
Emboldened, I proceeded with what can only be described as "great enthu".

After following my mother's instructions thus far, I forgot her instructions on how to set the oven and place the potatoes in them (refer 25 things about me- point 17).
Playing by ear and going along with the flow, I made some (later revealed as nowhere in the vicinity of the ballpark) guesstimates and pressed on. I waited for a bit. The throbbing was mildly irritating and so I sat down and started dreaming and salivating in anticipation of my meal to come.
It was at this point that I smelt something burning. Hastily, I got up. A sharp shooting pain in my foot due to recently acquired wound made me plop back down again completely unable to get up.

Realizing I was in rather a predicament, I somehow managed to switch off and open the oven with a walking stick. Only to be greeted by a charred sight (refer pic. above).
However, I believe in taking responsibility for one's actions and ate the potatoes after removing the charred bits and coating what was left with some rubbish "lemon-drizzle" dressing.

Just for the record, I offered it very kindly to other human beings who refused after grimacing.
Yes, they all grimaced. Every single one.

Blog Long and Prosper

I have been reading my blog, and realized that I have not made a single post about my orthopedic health.
Readers of this blog may never have guessed that for the past couple of months my left leg was in a lot of pain and discomfort from foot to knee and that I had fluid build-up also. I could hear this weird grinding noise of the bone. I was and still am on pretty powerful painkillers that cause pretty powerful nausea and grogginess and make me a bit irritable and woozy.

Also, the doc said it was taking an uncharacteristically long time to heal. So I had to get another scan done also to rule out more hidden minute bone cracks and other exciting things.

However, the important thing is that the bandages et al. came off a few days back and I have now started physiotherapy and can walk again. Albeit with a little pain.

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I am very excited about the new Star Trek movie.
Spock and Kirk never looked this good.

All together now: Blog long and prosper.

With tongue firmly in cheek.

Philosophy Story

Steven G rode the Point to Point bus hanging out of the window with the wind coursing through his hair. He had come to India a week back to discover the meaning of life.

He rode the bus for an important reason. Haibomma Begum on the other hand rode the bus for a much more mundane reason. Her family owned a flower business and she was headed to procure some special string needed. The only string Steven knew was String Theory.

The bus stopped and the Begum and Steve alighted.

Steven looked around and spotted a large elephant outside a temple eating several bananas simultaneously. Immediately he composed a philosophical couplet. Satisfied, he proceeded towards the temple to meet with one Swami Adangapidarinanda.

(to be continued)

Matter

One of the few things which has genuinely miffed me, is how and why women place so much emphasis on and fall for a guy with good English-speaking ability.
Mere good communication skills is never enough.

I don't believe in being wordy; so all I have to say regarding this is:

English mattum terinja poduma? Vishayam teriyanum 'la?*




*It is not enough to just be good at English. One should know the matter also.

I was tagged on facebook a couple of months back before this leg fiasco by S who said to me: "A, will you do this 25 thing?"
I honestly didnt have time then as I was busy with work and had a social life.
But now I am unable to participate in both above mentioned activities and so will take up this tag.
I have seen many ppl do this tag on their blog and thought this was a good idea and so i will also do it on my blog (since I currently have one).

25 is a huge number and i am not known for sustaining my interest in anything for too long, but I will finish this.


1. I am not fond of chocolate. If all the women in the world were divided into those who love and hate chocolate, I would probably be all alone on one side with the rest of the women on the other.
2. While we're on this topic, I might as well 'fess up that I ABSOLUTELY HATE coffee and am not that into ice-cream either.
3. My favorite colors are blue, black and red.
4. I don’t like wearing jeans. For some weird reason, it hurts my skin.
5. My favorite fruit/flavor is mango. The only ice-cream I will touch is Mango ice-cream.
6. I have at least 5 pairs of black pants and at one point had 4 black winter coats. I used to try to wear these at any given time. Because of this, I was given the name 'Grim.'
7. The previous naming ceremony was also held because I can be pretty cold and un-emotional sometimes. However, I am pretty good at masking this when I want to.
8. I love pecan pie and cheesecake. There was a point of time where the highlights of my life used to be used to be BK Veggie burger and Mango cheesecake.
9. I love tea. (no brownie points for guessing that one). I can also make quite good tea, my sole claim to fame in the culinary dept.
10. I am a sci-fi fan. Star trek and Star Wars being my favorite.
11. Coming from a musically inclined (and of course tam-brahm) family, I was put into Carnatic vocal (presumably because I was a girl) and instrumental classes from a young age. I am a pretty good singer, if I do say so myself. I also believe I know my music pretty well. So if I tell you its ragam Durbari Kaanada, it probably is.
12. I used to be good at Shot-put and Javelin. The only sport that I still enjoy playing now and follow regularly is Tennis.
13. I believe in live and let live (usually). You really have to be one mentally sick specimen to want to annoy me. However, if annoyed and pushed, I can get nasty.
14. I am very absent-minded. A number of times I have opened the fridge and forgotten what I wanted or walked into rooms and couldn’t remember what I came there for.
15. I love Lego. I used to build spaceships as a kid with my Lego blocks and this used to be my favorite pastime apart from reading.
16. Most people, when they meet me in person, seem astonished that I am interested in science, philosophy, and sci-fi. Probably they were expecting thick glasses. I’m usually the one who has the last laugh in these meetings.
17. I forget things quickly. I have scrapes on my body that I usually can’t remember how I got. This sometimes worries my mother. (love you amma).
18. I am not that good a cook. I suspect due to poor short-term memory. But if someone else is there along with me in the kitchen, I can manage quite well.
19. I love philosophy. I can have discussions about Vedanta anywhere, anytime.
20. There are only 3 languages I can read, write AND speak/understand: English, Hindi and Sanskrit.
21. My favorite part of Chennai is Mylapore.
22. I like martial arts.
23. I have a varied music taste. I enjoy listening to almost everything from Carnatic to Jazz to Japanese/Chinese classical. My favorite music band of all time is Alan Parsons Project.
24. I love reading. My favorite books include Amar Chitra Katha, Asterix, Tintin, Calvin and Hobbes, Panchatantra, Hitopadesha, The Upanishads, The Mahabharatha and Ramayana, and R.K Narayan and Ruskin Bond's works. My favorite book of all time is R.K. Narayan's Swami and Friends.
25. I love listening to the Tambura.

Interactive

I thought perhaps a little interactivity would be nice, as opposed to you just passively reading what I have to say and commenting.

On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you rate your cowardice?

A Violent Man

An almost completely immobile life where one is greatly dependent on infinitely patient parents for simple things including visits to the loo and transport to the next street, has left me feeling quite fidgety.

This coupled with depressing thoughts such as "Will this bandage come off before Agni Nakshatram sets in?" has left me reminiscing about happier, mobile times.

This incident happened when I was 12 during my summer vacation. It was decided that we would go to a popular hill-station for a holiday. However, due to several reasons including my exams, our family had to travel separately, with one set of family and relatives going first and me and my mother coming later, accompanied by a portly family friend who was going to a place a couple of stops after ours.

Now I had never traveled by train before and this was going to be my first time and I was understandably a very excited child. This excitement manifested itself in several forms during the journey with my asking the ticket conductor a smorgasbord of annoying questions, checking the berths for dead people (pun intended) and a number of other things.

Having exhausted these venues, my attention now turned to the portly family friend, whose girth greatly fascinated me. When my mother took her nap, I took the opportunity to focus my energy on this friend. I spilled hot bournvita near his crotch (accidentally) to which he said "its alright ....just a child." I also woke him up from his nap so that I could "check" his berth for safety reasons. Then I excitedly touched his crisp shirt with oily train-food stained hands to show him some cows outside. I also gently poked his stomach and immediately apologized.

At any rate, when we reached our station, the portly gentleman politely helped my mother off the train and after I had gotten off, threw my bugs-bunny suitcase out of the compartment with what I thought was rather unnecessary violence.

A violent man indeed.