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For mona who wanted the dalia recipe. (Dalia is broken wheat.)

Chop lots of onions and some green chillies. Boil and cube some potatoes separately. It's not absolutely necessary but you could take dalia and pressure cook with daal (like khichdi). Add some turmeric powder, salt, and chilli powder when you pressure cook. While that is cooking, in a separate pan, heat some oil or ghee. I personally love mustard oil but the taste is strong. You could try it if you like things pungent. When the oil is hot, add some cumin seeds, mustard seeds, chopped onions, dried red chillies, and green red chillies. Sautee until the onions start softening. Add the potatoes. Toss them about until they are coated with oil and start browning slightly. (I don't add tomatoes or peas but you could, if you wanted. What does taste really good are soya chunks. Soak them a few minutes before in hot, salted water for 10 minutes or so. Add them to the mix and cook them.) There is a meat masala (it's all vegetarian but it used for meat preps) that I also use. You could try with pav bhaji or some kind of biryani masala if you like. Add the daal and dalia khichdi to this. Sprinkle some water as you cook in case the dish is going dry. Taste to see that the masala has spread evenly. Cover and cook for some time. Eat with curd and pickle. You could drizzle some ghee or butter also.

Other things that happened:

There is a FB page that I am part of - Pune Eat Outs. I made a comment on there - and it was a fairly innocent one, I think - on the trend of food reviews being fairly descriptive. It's an interesting trend. My comment was something along the lines of how all food reviews are now written like drama - it actually has a 3 act structure! Anyway, I think the admin guy didn't like it. For some reason, with a deluge of smileys, he insinuated that I was getting a lot of 'footage' on his page, and how he thinks I have now gotten enough coverage to get writing jobs - or something like that. It's funny when admins start getting touchy about their own pages. But actually - no not funny, I suppose it's natural. I was working some time back with someone else who was putting up posts for his workshop but he got some negative reviews and then he blocked the person or something like that. Online is a fascinating place. Rejection is sensed and responded to in so many different ways. What I don't quite get is the use of smileys through clenched teeth. In fact, there should be a smiley like that - the tight smiley - where you don't really want to smile but you have to because you want to show nonchalance and the ability to take the high-road.

A friend of mine is in Paris. She shared some pictures of the paintings that she saw in the Louvre. Stunning they are. I love, love, love the way the shadows and soft pools of light have been painted around the human figures. Maybe those painters had their squabbles also. Terse disagreements with strangers. Snarky attacks from the offended. But they went and painted. This is why I think art will save the world.It is the only thing innocent and strong and random and cheeky enough to pull you into an everyday nobility.

I want roads to move and twist and become grey hairs on my head. My thoughts will be potholes or cars or shrubs tough enough o grow through pavements. I wonder if my birthday will come again. I mean I know it will come but sometimes I imagine my birthday to be upholstered on a rocking chair and I can sit and rock myself to that specific day any time. I am in Bombay and I generally work near the kitchen. But the light bothers my mummy. So today I am sitting and working in the library on the ground floor. I had bought Tamerlane by Justin Marozzi. But then inexplicably it got misplaced. I searched every where - nearly ten times! Today I sat in the library and was led to open the book case in front of me. Tamerlane was there.

Living in magic. That's what I am doing. That's what we are doing.


Comments

Anonymous said…
Thank you so much!