Monday, January 18, 2010

Black forest cake and a Teetotaler


I was getting bored of my cake variations. “Change” was the cry from within and indeed from my guinea pigs in office !!

Black forest cake appealed to me greatly. Now, I am not a big fan of black forest, but the technical challenges were daunting. You have to make multiple layers of cake, create the icing and the ingredients are different. What is a Master Chef’s life without a few challenges ?

The initial challenge was the recipe. After 30 mins of intense googling, I found a couple of recipes that seemed manageable. However an obstacle of gigantic proportion loomed. All recipes required the use of Rum. I am strict non-alcoholic - a statement that is quite often met with stares and shouts of disbelief. “What ? YOU don’t drink ????”. As James Herriot might say, its a rum ’un :-) I must add I am not averse to an occasional glass of wine [ occasional = once or twice per year ], but that is where I stop.

Now how and where do I buy Rum from? Again some research showed me that there a liquor chain called Madhuloka which has presence in almost all the malls across Bangalore. The nearest one I could find was in Cosmos mall. So off I went in search of Rum.

The shop itself looked impressive and there was a decent crowd inside. Of course, I did not want to ask for Rum and have the salesman laugh at me. Because I don’t even know if it can be found in shops like these. Or else if Rum is colloquial term and if the liquor buffs call it something else. I don’t even know its color for God’s sake !!

So I did what I hoped a confident alcoholic would do. I walked around the aisles, inspecting a few bottles, looking as if I have been around a million times. Alas, no sigh of Rum. I found Vodka, Wine, Whiskey and Beer but no Rum. A second round of inspection followed. This time much slower, as if I am intensely debating what to buy. And success !! I found the light green colored Bacardi bottles in one corner. I picked the smallest one, I think it was around 250 ml

Smoothly proceeded to checkout counter, with mild beads of perspiration on my fore-head. My first ever purchase of alcohol !! And I am over thirty !! Is that good or bad ? Who knows :-)

“Just the one bottle , sir ? “ The man behind the counter asks. Oh boy, I must be looking like a raging alcoholic after all :-((
“New year resolution, buddy”, I am tempted to answer back. Instead, I take my bottle of Rum and quietly slip away. [PS : Quarter liter is not enough ?? how much do normal people drink ? One liter ? I am totally stumped ]

The cake itself was a rather painful affair, with a lot of work, the end result is shown below

DSC00236 DSC00235

Now the critics may say it looks as if some one ate cherries with milk and threw up on top of my cake. But with no icing tools at my disposal, this is the best I could do :-)

Stay tuned for more experimentations, this time hopefully with no alcohol involved !!

Monday, January 4, 2010

The dot does not matter !!


Everyday I learn something new from the Internet. The latest being that the dots in your gmail ID simply does not matter. I was getting a lot of emails that was addressed to a Gmail ID similar to mine, but with a missing dot [ . ]. I was convinced that there was some error with Gmail.

Excerpt from the above article says

Gmail doesn't recognize dots as characters within usernames, you can add or remove the dots from a Gmail address without changing the actual destination address; they'll all go to your inbox, and only yours. In short:

  • homerjsimpson@gmail.com = hom.er.j.sim.ps.on@gmail.com
  • homerjsimpson@gmail.com = HOMERJSIMPSON@gmail.com
  • homerjsimpson@gmail.com = Homer.J.Simpson@gmail.com

All these addresses belong to the same person. You can see this if you try to sign in with your username, but adding or removing a dot from it. You'll still go to your account

This was definitely news for me !!

Rava dosa


In case you were wondering, The Master Chef is still pretty active in the kitchen.

The most recent grand success [ just a couple of hours old] being Rava Dosa. Just finished eating 5 of those :-). This time I followed an online recipe that I found from YouTube

Ended up using a bit too much of green chilly, actually this lot of green chillies I have is a bit hotter than normal. Whole mouth feels as if it is on fire, even after a few liters of water and plenty of sugar !!

What I love about this is that there is no fermentation time. Mix the batter and you are ready to go !!

Had some good success with a Black Forest cake too, more on that later …..

Happy 2010


Hoping that the new year brings you lots of joy, peace and the company of loved ones. It is most definitely going to be a land mark year for me, the one in which I will be re-united with my family !!

Speaking of New year and resolutions, you can add one more category of people to my hate list : The New Year resolution folks.

It is sad enough that they overcrowd the gyms and cause hardship to regular gym goers. Now, today I got out from office at 6.15 and found that the roads were jam packed. No doubt with hundreds of resolution addicts who would have sworn to leave office by 6 come what may this year.

I guess this may be one resolution that has a faster death than the gym one !! Two days of this mess and I hope some sense returns :-)

Had a lovely vacation at home. Though I was at home for 10 days, it felt more like 1 !!

My daughter insisted on coming with me everywhere, even to my hair cut saloon !! :-) It was really nice to spend so much time with them, you realize the value of all this only when deprived of it.