08.16.08
Every once in a while I experience a culinary triumph.
I’m happy to say that I have graduated from the “Pasta ala Mala” school of throwing together Ragu sauces and Starkist tuna and actually delved into being a little more desi in my cooking attempts. This came about because I had a bunch of jasmine rice in the cabinet from when my mom visited last year and a package of frozen vegetables when she visited a few months ago. I’ve been perfecting the recipe for a while and I think I’ve finally got it down.
Mind you, this recipe is just a guideline. I like to think that it’s impossible for Indian home cooking to involve exact numbers. We’re very much a school of “just throw stuff in, and then throw MORE stuff in.” So, no matter what the amounts for the spices are below, just assume I kept randomly adding in more at various points in the process. LOL.
Mala’s Technicolor Dreamrice
Supplies:
A ten inch diameter nonstick frying pan.
A nonstick hatha (what the Hell is the English word for ‘cooking spoon’?)
Ingredients:
1/2 cup uncooked white rice (long grain, jasmine or basmati)
1 10 oz package frozen peas & carrots
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon of whole black peppercorns
desired amount of dried cranberries
desired amount of unsalted, dry roasted peanuts
Directions:
After a thorough rinse, soak rice in lukewarm water for ten minutes. While rice is soaking, heat oil in frying pan at medium heat. When the oil is hot enough, unwrap the frozen vegetables and jump back three feet to avoid being splattered. Let the veggies thaw, stirring occasionally to break apart the ice and ensure it cooks evenly. Add the turmeric and a 1/4 teaspoon of salt. (Make sure you don’t add too much turmeric. It’s solely for color and tastes very bitter.) Sautee! Once your veggies stop looking all frozen-y and raw and actually seem to be browning, drain your rice and dump it into the frying pan. Add two parts water to how much ever rice you have and turn up the heat a little. Add the remainder of your spices and bring to a boil.
Once the rice comes to a boil, reduce the temperature to a simmer and cook until all the water is absorbed. (If you’re like me and you taste as you go, you end up adding more ginger, more salt, etc.) Add peanuts and cranberries and stir until thoroughly mixed.
Voila!
Mala's Technicolor Dreamrice
I usually end up with enough for three meals. I pair it with George Foreman-ed chicken or steak (not very Indian of me, I know!) or eat it all by itself.
Prep time: 20 minutes max!
08.15.08
Togas, trolls, and thongs: Is Gossip Girl journalism now?
The last week has been a fascinating, very personal, lesson in how the Internet blogosphere phenomenon cannot and will not take the place of “real” news unless some serious changes are implemented.
One thing we’re taught in print is to always authenticate our sources, back up our research, and make sure the person we’re interviewing knows their quotes are being used (and used accurately). No such rule exists in Internet journalism. Anyone with a shred of gossip can pass it off as truth. “You know you love me, xoxo.” Anyone with a username (be it fake or real) can dub themselves a reporter. You can pull quotes and anecdotes out of your ass like a fount of rainbows and there’s really no one who will say, “Well, that’s not true.” Once ten people read it on a blog, and it passes through the chain like a game of telephone, it becomes legend.
That’s so bizarre to me…and I won’t lie, I didn’t give it much thought before. I didn’t consider the drawbacks to the blogosphere until it started to impact me and my own profession was recently drawn into the fray. It’s utterly and completely ridiculous, the way speculation ran rampant and then amuck and then past the point of no return. Apparently I’ve been working some place that’s a cross between Auschwitz and a Roman orgy…whodathunkit? (And, by the way, people need to QUIT whipping out Holocaust references to “prove” their points. Nothing and no one is as bad as the Holocaust and Adolph Hitler. Mmkay? Godwin’s Law. Check it out.) Where exactly was I when all my coworkers were being pistol-whipped and/or having all this illicit sex? Did I not get the memo? As allegations got more and more crass and outrageous, all I could do was sit in front of my computer slack-jawed and thinking, “Oh my God, is this how celebrities feel when they read stupid, unsubstantiated crap about themselves? Is this how politicians feel?” On a small scale, of course. Brangelina I’m not.
It’s not so much the dissemination of information on the Web that I take umbrage with. Hell, I “live” on the Internet. I get all my news and gossip here. It’s the spreading of MISinformation that’s insidious. I’ve had a harsh wakeup call about the thin line between journalist and message board troll.
It has given me pause. My skin is prickling and there’s a bad taste in my mouth. I just don’t like it. I don’t like that this is acceptable.
Maybe it’s naive of me, but I feel like somebody broke into my house and rifled through my underwear drawer.
But I should be careful about saying that. Before you know it, ten people will believe it and talk about my collection of leopard print thongs.
08.06.08
I want a new drug.
You know what I miss right now? The sensation of being in love. That heady flush of infatuation that makes your skin tingle and your pulse leap. The sense that if you don’t see this person this weekend, you’re missing something. The driving need to see their smile or hear their voice because it’s those tiny, simple things about them that make your day.
I mean, the closest thing I have right now is anticipating the flash of Jay Kenneth Johnson’s dimples on Days of our Lives. And while the man has some damn fine dimples, it’s not the same. I mean, hey, even I’m not crazy enough to equate crushing on a fictional character like Philip to being in love. ;).
I haven’t had a good, solid real-life crush in almost three years… and, okay, the last go ’round didn’t go very well. In fact, I’m pretty sure the object of my affection was gay and in the closet. (This has never been confirmed; it’s just a fairly good theory.) Still, despite the fact that it crashed and burned, there’s no denying that wanting that guy was an amazing feeling. Not to make it sound like an ulcer, but it ate me up inside. It consumed me. Wrap the tube around my arm, tap the vein and go! It was intense. And while I’ve experienced other kinds of emotional intensity since (ever try apartment hunting in Manhattan?) and my life is full of work and activity and friends, falling for somebody… it’s like being high, and I so, so need the drug.
(Not that I’ve ever been high. But I do read a lot, so I’m assuming the simile is apt.)
07.26.08
May the Schwartz be with youuuuuuuu.
I will concede that there has been one, small advantage to the calorie count revolution: My new fixation with frozen yogurt! See, prior to this cruel twist of regulatory fate, whenever people would talk about Pinkberry or its various knockoffs, I would just tune out. It seemed to be such an obsession with the pseudo-health conscious gym rat set that I figured, okay, as a chick who drinks Yuengling, loves steak, and adores chocolate, what the Hell do I care about yogurt? I even give Tasti D-lite a wide berth. Give me the real deal or GTFO, you know?
But then the storefront on the corner of 34th and 3rd began making its transformation from Latin Corner (which had barely been there a year) to something called Red Mango. I love mangoes. They’re my favorite fruit. They remind me of hot summer days in Kolkata, eating aam and wrinkling my nose at the red, earthen containers of mishti dahi, sweet yogurt, that Mom would have brought from the nearest confectionary shop. Mangoes, I liked, but yogurt…? Not so much. So, anyway, even here in the States, we’d have mangoes whenever they were in season. I love mango ice cream and mango margaritas… I pretty much like everything mango-related except mango lassi.
So when I saw the Red Mango going up, I was immediately intrigued, and immediately had to Google and see what the store was. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a Pinkberry-esque fro-yo place. Now, I have to admit here that when I heard the term “frozen yogurt,” I had two mental pictures: 1)It was just soft serve ice cream, which is what would pass for fro-yo back in Ohio, or 2)It was your Dannon variety yogurt, just a little cold. It turns out that it’s somewhere in between! AND it’s good for you. A small serving, which is more than enough for me, is less than 100 calories.
Yes, I have succumbed. I have tried both the original and green tea flavors, and the tart tang is unmistakably that of “real” yogurt, complete with active cultures. But, somehow, the fact that it’s cold and whipped makes it more palatable. Then, there’s the toppings. At Red Mango, you can get everything from Cocoa Krispies (totally tried that!) to various fruits. Would you believe that it took me until my third visit to realize that they actually had mangoes? (What can I say? I’m not always very smart.)
So, just a few days ago, I did what Fate had no doubt been waiting for me to do… get the original, sweet yogurt, garnished with mangoes. Mishti dahi and aam. And, lo, it was like the Heavens parted and a troupe of apsaras began dancing in my mouth. I finally get it. I finally get why the two flavors go together. And my sense of nostalgia for Kolkata was all wrapped up in those tart-sweet bites.
Hot summer days in New York aren’t quite the same, but thanks to Red Mango, they’re a little closer to home.
07.20.08
The obligatory calorie count rant.
New York state forcing all chain restaurants to post calorie counts? Sucks. I can say this with personal authority because the policy has thus far ruined my enjoyment of Baskin Robbins, Chevy’s, and Ruby Tuesday’s. I’m sorry, but anyone who goes to a restaurant in general is probably not going there to eat healthy… unless you’re going to some frou-frou health joint and drinking wheat germ. When I go out, it’s with the expectation that I’m going to be a little bad, and I really don’t want to know how bad. Seeing these calorie counts that rank well past 1100 and into the teens for chicken dishes, for burgers… it just made the idea of eating dishes I normally would have enjoyed er, unpalatable.
I now look to the lowest count when I hit the Baskin Robbins ice cream counter. I had a Corona Light at Chevy’s while waiting to get into Dark Knight at the AMC Empire, because the thought of drinking a 500 calorie margarita made me cringe. At Ruby Tuesday’s, I narrowed my choices down to dishes that were all in the 500-600 calorie range, my jaw dropping at some of the numbers for their much-touted burgers. And it’s not that I’m stupid — I know full well how bad some of these dishes must be, but for the purposes of going out and enjoying a meal outside my house and my bevy of Lean Cuisine dishes and three days’ worth of homemade biriyani, I really just want to exist in a pleasant state of denial.
If a handful of people are dumb enough to think McDonald’s is good for you, how is that the problem of the rest of the residents of this state? The rising obesity rate is not the restaurant’s fault; it’s the fault of people who don’t control how often they eat out and what they eat when they’re out.
I never considered myself some kind of crazy hedonist, someone fond of excess and into flouting the rules. But when it comes to food? Just back the hell off. There’s too many countries where people don’t even have the option of chowing down on a Smokehouse Burger. Worrying that, oh noes!, some privileged Westerner is going to add a few inches to their waistline unless someone tells them how many calories there are in the damn thing is stupid and condescending.
I’m SO sick of this generation of Americans refusing to take basic responsibility for themselves and then our government stepping in to fill those gaps. Everything has to be regulated because god forbid someone make their own, mature decision. We’re going to tell you how bad or good your food is for you, we’re going to tell you which TV shows are appropriate for what ages, what books you shouldn’t read, what medication you shouldn’t take, and everybody’s going to be hypersensitive and politically correct because god forbid we hurt someone’s feelings. It’s ridiculous that citizens are being reduced to children — and willingly so. Yes, please, put parameters and constraints on my stomach, my uterus, my brain…
Pretty soon people won’t have to think at all. And is that the future we’re headed for? Orwellian? Where we’re a bunch of automatons, brainwashed, sanitizing our history and sleepwalking through our present and future?
Is a big ol’ margarita, a double scoop of rocky road, and a cheese-laden chicken dish really that detrimental to society? Come on.
07.12.08
Is there a cure for Hot Dad Syndrome?
I love pretty boys. I love manly men. I like ‘em tall, I like ‘em short. I like men with blue eyes, men with good senses of humor, and men who look good in a pair of worn, faded blue jeans. But you know how I can tell I’ve gotten older and my tastes are refining…? The kind of man that I find most attractive is a committed one.
And I don’t mean that in some sort of twisted, man-stealing, gold-digger sense. I don’t lust after taken guys… I lust after what they represent. I’ve often told Dave, this cute Scottish bartender at my regular dive, that the sexiest thing about him is his wedding ring. It’s completely true and I say it with no ulterior motive. He is so, so appealing because that band glints in the low light of the bar as he works the Guinness tap and it says, “I’m going home to my wife at 4 a.m.” I don’t know about anybody else, but I want that. That sense of “I belong to someone and he belongs to me.” It’s incredibly sexy.
Here in the city, when you see a woman with a child, nine out of ten times, it’s a nanny. You can just tell. Usually because the kid in the stroller and the accompanying woman aren’t the same color and aren’t speaking the same language — and, yes, I know that’s not always an indicator, thank you, Angelina. But when you see a guy with their child, it’s a lot more obvious. A man in a business suit with a three-year-old wriggling in one arm as he hails a cab with the other… not a manny! And I find it SO adorable. It’s Hot Dad Syndrome. A good-looking man with a kid sends a message straight to my marrow, screaming, “This is for the long haul,” and “This is a possibility,” and “You, too, can have this complete package for just five payments of $19.99.” I want that.
Read the rest of this entry »
07.08.08
Julia Quinn serves up a delicious Cavendish.
HarperCollins sent me an ARC of Mr. Cavendish, I Presume, by Julia Quinn, and I presume that was due to my raving about The Lost Duke of Wyndham here. Despite the fact that there are no soap actors on the cover this time, I was utterly delighted. I started it reading it at my desk at work (hey, I deserve a lunch break!) and continued tearing through it when I got home. The companion piece to The Lost Duke of Wyndham, Mr. Cavendish, I Presume is unique in that it tells almost exactly the same story from two different characters’ points of view. Honestly, that’s rather remarkable in the field of romance. I like being surprised, I like creativity. After reading the billionth retread of Duke McHottie and Lady Heaving Bosom flitting about the London ton, it’s experiments like this that revitalize the genre.
Where TLDoW told the story from Jack and Grace’s perspectives, Mr. Cavendish is wholly Thomas and Amelia’s tale. Thomas, the current Duke of Wyndham, and Lady Amelia Willoughby, have been engaged since the cradle and barely know each other. Just when they’re finally beginning to make each other’s acquaintance (with some obligatory tonsil hockey in a garden, no less!), the “rightful” Duke of Wyndham, Jack Audley, appears, throwing everything into a tailspin.
Quinn wrote the books simultaneously, and it shows in the brilliant parallel scenes that appear in both works, but I found the scenes that didn’t crossover more appealing, because they established Thomas and Amelia as characters in their own right. Jack overpowered everyone in his own novel. Here, the reader gets to see that Thomas has just as much wit, passion, and intelligence, and that Amelia is perhaps more clever than Grace. In fact, Amelia’s sharp tongue and penchant for sarcasm was a really nice surprise. Grace was a little too reserved and classy for me, which is why Jack was more memorable in their book than she was. The same can’t be said for Thomas and Amelia, who make a great match.
I know that Quinn has long been a household name in the industry, and I’m chagrined to admit that I had never read one of her books until now. (I guess we can thank As the World Turns Ewa da Cruz for forcing the introduction!) Both of these novels are entirely worth the read. I recommend going back-to-back, with the accompanying snacks and beverages of your choice.
Mr. Cavendish, I Presume hits bookstores on September 30 and retails for $7.99.
No, you can’t have my copy.
07.01.08
A bit of linkspam to kick off July.
Check out my latest entries at Blogging With Mala…I’m probably preaching to the choir here, but why do soaps, soap actors and soap viewers all get such a bad rap? Sometimes, I feel like everywhere I turn, all I see is scorn for the genre. Sports fans are lauded for their loyalty, for having pricey season tickets, lucky chairs and lucky hats. The cast of the SOPRANOS, the showrunners for LOST…they all get kudos for being SO talented. But soap operas are the redheaded stepchildren of media.
Where the Hell is Matt? - a surprisingly heartwarming vid featuring a guy dorkily dancing his way around the world. I sniffled.
NPH. Nathan Fillion. Joss. I think that says it all.
Bollywood Remix. WHY have I not gone dancing with my people? Shame on me! Who wants to go to Tonic this summer?
Speaking of Bollywood, Karan Johar has a blog. The mind wobbles.
Last, but not least, HAPPY CANADA DAY!
06.30.08
“English is my second language!”
Well, it is. I pretty much learned English five minutes after I learned Bengali, though fluency in the latter came first, and now, some 30 years later, I’m definitely more proficient in the former. Yet, I still use the old chestnut of an excuse; it’s a running joke with me and my friends and coworkers. When I stumble over a word, when I do something silly that has nothing do with language whatsoever, I cry, “English is my second language! Leave me alone!” As you’d expect, many coworkers who hear me speak on a daily basis don’t buy that for a moment. Between the four-letter words and the “Oh my God!”s, I sound like a cross between a trucker and a valley girl. If you talked to me on the phone, you would have absolutely no indication of my ethnic heritage. I think people are probably just as surprised when they meet me and this completely informal slang comes out of my mouth.
So, English is indeed my second language, and I treat it like a sparkly, shiny thing I found on the beach. Each new phrase I learn is a piece that glitters, that I tuck away in a box. To go for a different metaphor entirely, I’m a walking Swiffer. I pick up idioms, speech patterns, regional dialects, because I just can’t help it. I love me some swear words like you wouldn’t believe. I had a cuss jar at an office I worked at several years ago and I earned enough to buy my coworkers a pizza lunch. (I’ve since regulated my abuse of the f-bomb, don’t worry.) I picked up “sweetie” from somebody somewhere down the line and “whatever blah blah blah” from my friend Heather. I say “hella,” because of several trips taken with friends from northern California, and “y’all” and “reckon” because I grew up in a part of Ohio where speech has a very southern influence. I say “Dude!” all the time as an exclamation… and my most famous story about that is me “Dude!”-ing my then-still-new boss. In front of witnesses. I was so mortified! Four years later, I “Dude!” constantly and no one blinks an eye, least of all the Boss Lady.
Sometimes, I even have problems accessing the vast storage of linguistic detritus I’ve absorbed. Just a couple of weeks ago, I dubbed somebody a “golddigger,” when I actually just meant to say they were a “tramp.” Funny, right? But, hey, there’s a distinct difference! Tramps aren’t necessarily out for money, whereas golddiggers do what they do for financial gain.
I love words. I like making up words (I’m notorious for conjugating Bengali verbs as if they were English ones ala I’m “aashing” and “jaa-ing” instead of “coming” and “going”). I like slipping wacky words like “kerfuffle” into articles I’ve written. I love big words, small ones, ones that mean nothing, ones that are used solely for the Internet (OMG! WTF!). I am a veritable word tramp…or perhaps a word golddigger, since, as a journalist, I definitely use them for financial gain.
06.24.08
A random act of poetry.
of a feather
Dark shape on the window ledge,
a puffball, head tucked into its breast.
For the moment, it’s not a nuisance,
just a sleepy creature at rest.
Not “shoo,” not “scat,” not “get,”
it’s noble and sentient and streaked with grey.
High above the city, the king of birds,
on the ledge the pigeon rules the day.
May 3, 2008.
