Pav Bhaji

Came across this recipe recently, seems promising..

Pav Bhaji

Ingredients:
1 small head of cauliflower, cut into florets (about 3-4 cups)
3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 tbsp oil
1 green bell pepper, minced
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp chili powder or red chili paste
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
salt to taste
2-3 cups tomato puree
1/2 cup peas (fresh or frozen)...optional
1 tbsp Everest pav-bhaji masala (or more to taste)
1 tbsp butter
Method:
1. Boil the cauliflower and potatoes till tender and set aside. I usually do this in a pressure cooker.
2. Heat oil in a deep saucepan and saute the pepper. Add ginger-garlic paste and saute some more.
3. Add turmeric powder, chili powder to taste and salt to taste. Saute for a few seconds.
4. Add tomato puree, peas, boiled potatoes and cauliflower, pav-bhaji masala and butter.
5. Keep sauteeing and mashing it together till it is a smooth mixture, adding water as required (you can use a potato masher to help you along). Be aware that the mixture can spurt up as it boils, so keep a lid on it while you are not actively stirring it. Simmer for 20-25 minutes to really get the flavors to meld together.
You have to keep tasting and adjusting salt, masala and tomato till you like the balance between the tomato-ey tang and the heat of the masala.

Serve with:
1. More pats of butter (as much as you can dare really, don't be chicken now),
2. Finely sliced/ chopped onions, minced cilantro and wedges of lemon.

Source - http://onehotstove.blogspot.com/2005/04/bombay-street-food-pav-bhaji.html

Of journeys and meetings and second chances...

.... so I get a call at 8:52 pm saying "hey Nandhini, I'm going to watch rock on, interested ?" .. I was like, yeah sure! I want to watch the movie as well.. and then pat comes the reply, cool , can you please get ready in 5 min ? The show starts at 9:05!
A blast of noise greeted us as we walked into the theater, which, we found out later was the ending chords of the song socha hai , and we were like maan, we missed the beginning, and almost immediately afterwards came the title "Rock On" .
What followed was a very well depicted tale of the journey that every person takes in his or her own unique way, the choices they make, the choices they could have made, the struggle with the imp in your head that keeps saying "What if?" ; but ultimately of redemption and of relationships that just have no way of going wrong, however deep the gash may be (or maybe because what was perceived as a gash was just a superficial wound?? you never know!)
Farhan Akhtar is A.W.E.S.O.M.E ! He starts off as the insensitive guy, seemingly oblivious to how empty his life is (despite the great house he lives in!) , who just wants to get on with life kyunki "Compromise kaun nahi kartaa" ? He smiles, and it is more like a grimace, his life is his work, and his wife is just a part of the scheme of things, a convenient addition, with any emotions towards her safely swept under the "compromise package" .
Farhan Akhtar can sing! He's made sure his directorial debut was unforgettable, leading the way to a separate genre of movies -- and every movie made about friends (including the one being written about by yours truly!) has been labeled as a movie "with a DCH hangover" . And what an acting debut! One of those acts where you don't feel separated by time, space and a movie screen, and he manages to sing five out of a total of seven songs, and sound good!! Never seen that before!
As acting went, one could see the desperation in Joe(well played by Arjun Rampal)'s eyes, as they flare up and die down alternately with any tiny wisp of hope and with the wisp never really becoming anything substantial. You see KD, whose face always has that dazed look of someone in shock, and who seems to be eternally asking himself "What if? "
..And then there is the quiet wife who just cannot see whats (not) happening and sets things in motion once she "accidentally" discovers that her husband was infact alive once upon a time.
What seemed the most shaky part of the story was how the friends part, how sudden fame causes dormant egos to waken and reminds everyone that they're individuals first, and a part of a team next. Interestingly (defininitely not originally.. remember seeing something like this before as well, ... may be in DCH :) ) alternating between the present and the past, the viewer is made cognizant of how deep/wide the divide is.
One awkward surprise birthday party and two different conversations later, the four meet, not before Rob says what was the movie's most unforgettable dialogue "Zindagi sabko doosra mauka nahi detii" ..
Next is more or less formula, throw in an old rival, an old love, and an old rivalry, and the good old brain tumour.
My friend and I were "wow" once the closing titles came up (something else comes up too "Please buy a CD, don't download the music" !!! touche! )

It all started with a group of friends who said "Yeh dosti hum nahi todenge, todenge dum magar tera saath na chodenge" , it ends with the same group of friends who still maintain "Yeh dosti hum nahi todenge", but one of them actually manages not to "live" upto it, and what happens in between is just a second chance, carefully camouflaged in a small box, lying somewhere forgotten , unrecognizable and waiting to be picked up by someone who realizes its worth and makes the effort to join the dots.

Taa naa, nah nah naa Taa naa nah nah naa

Interesting poem

The second coming -- William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?