Brownie time ..

Tea cake, Chocolate cake, Raisin cake, Nuts and raisins cake, Cashew nut cake, Pineapple cake, Chocolate chip muffins and cookies, Black forest cake, Rum and Raisin cake … Hmmm, just about enough items in my arsenal to open a bakery !! Maybe one of these days I should do so .

I had been contemplating baking a brownie for some time. I have not eaten a brownie, or if I have, I have forgotten what it tastes like. I like undertaking these kind of experiments, because one can be very liberal in the interpretation of success :-).

I required a square cake tin for the same ( don’t ask me why, almost everyone says brownie should be made in one ), a brief trip to MK retail fixed that part.

When wifey was over here couple of weeks back, she was complaining about the lack of general purpose vessels in our kitchen. However I can proudly say that there is no way she could raise the same complaint about baking vessels. Muffin trays, muffin cups, rectangular baking trays, bread box, circular baking tray, hexagonal tray, I have them all !! I have no idea why, maybe I have a bit of blind-spot when it comes to baking ….

For the recipe, my US consultant stepped up to the plate yet again with this recipe on Hershey’s site. Only alteration was to use half cup cocoa instead of one-third mentioned. I did not bother with the frosting, in the past I have failed pretty spectacularly whenever I have attempted it.

All in all the brownie came out looking decent. Maybe more of a blackie than a brownie. It crumbled somewhat towards the center and it was not very easy to extract it out of my cake tin.

Nothing extra-ordinary about the taste, I don’t think it will be one of my favorite cakes. May be the walnuts spoiled the taste some what for me, I should have used cashews instead :(

Rain, Power and me

Not only is it raining here, but it is windy like crazy. And the strange part is the rain and wind exist only for a one hour stretch in the evening. After that it is perfectly calm and bone dry. But boy, the one hour more than makes up for the remaining 23 hours of calm. It has been total mayhem for past 2 days. Trees falling, windows getting shattered, roads getting flooded and what not

Plus the small issue of lack of power of course. The merest sight of a breeze and power goes off. I am supposedly a fully qualified electrical engineer and I can offer no explanation on why this maybe the case.
Is the power switched off to prevent trees from falling and shorting the wires ? Maybe , but underground cable is not exactly rocket science technology to implement, is it ?

More sadly the lack of power brings back two painful problems
1. Since the ceiling fan does not turn, mosquitoes have a field day in attacking me. Hence I cannot sleep very well
2. I light up a mosquito coil to shoo them away, but the smoke invariably triggers an asthma attack. Which in turn again means that I cannot sleep

Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

Among these raging insomniacal days, I have somehow finished Coming back to me by Marcus Trescothick. In one word- brilliant. 

Truly eye opening account on how devastating depression can be, and also on how under-diagnosed the condition is. It is very rare for a professional sportsman (who is still an active cricketer in the county circuit) to be so open about his problems. The story of his cricket life is very well written with a touch of humor present all the time. The book won William hill sports book of the year award in 2008 and I am not surprised at all.

Muffins and me

It is high time I launch my own bakery.

I was wandering in Forum Value mall the other day when I felt like eating a muffin( or a cup cake) . Strode into Cookie Man and ordered one, only to realize on piece is  Rs.60.  Imagine that !!! And it was not all that great either,pieces of it were under-cooked.

Later on I was in Hyper City when again I saw a pack of chocolate chip muffins, 2 of them being sold for Rs.50.

And to think I am giving away mine for free to the ungrateful lot in office !! Next time I am charging heavily for my creations …..

Learn from nature

A recent visit to the Mysore Zoo triggered some thoughts in my mind. There are indeed a lot of things that we can learn from animals.

For example take the Lion. The male lion does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. All it does is sleep the whole day, the female does all the hard work. The male is not even a wage earning member of the family for God’s sake !! Yet, you could say he enjoys his life. No responsibilities, 24x 7 x 365 food and comfort guaranteed.

Male Lion’s life is not too bad eh ? yeah , yeah, i know they look royal and all that stuff. I could grow a mane too, you know :-)

Or the Hornbill, which is the state bird of Kerala. Legend says that it drinks its water directly from the rain drops. Now why do we spend so much time washing our cars ? Leave them out of the covered garages whenever it rains, let nature do the washing for you !!

Extending the same concept to human beings can result in rather objectionable odors, especially if you are in a place like Bangalore where it rarely rains. So let us leave that one alone please …

I am convinced that this is a “natural” path to follow :)

Jnanappana

No, that was not some jumble that my daughter typed, it is the name of a famous poetry book in Malayalam. More specifically, the obtuse sounding reference to this old book is in the context of the following two verses

Randu nalu dinam kodangoruthane thandilethi nadathunnathum bhavan
Malika mugalileriya mannante tholil marappu kethunnathum bhavan

The translation, again obtained from the above link, reads :

In a matter of day or two You are He, who makes them ride on the royal chair.
On the shoulder of the king who climbs to the top of palace. You are He, who places the tattered heap.

How else can I describe my state ? Till yesterday I was a king. My house was filled with laughter, people, food , action and conversation. Today there is nothing, my family has gone back after their brief vacation

On the positive side, we spent probably the happiest week ever together !!

I will get back to my reading mode again. Among other books, I have the latest collection of short stories from Archer in queue : And Thereby Hangs a Tale.

Long trip

And I am back to Bangalore, after having driven ~ 950 kms over the past 5 days.

It all started with a drive to Calicut with my parents on 1st May. The trip took longer than I planned because we took frequent breaks in between. Plus I no longer drive at the same peak speeds after an accident I had around an year back.

The road is in very good condition, except for a small section between Mysore and Nanjangud which is quite bumpy and uneven. Nanjangud to Bandipur forest is the best stretch of road. Sparse traffic, long straight sections with very good visibility. Do watch out for several unmarked humps. The forest section has its own charm due to the significant drop in temperature, we drove with our windows down at noon in the peak of summer. Still it was so cool !! All the more reason for Bangalore to actively look at increasing its tree cover.

The drive through Kerala is very scenic. Overtaking is a nightmare, owing to twisty nature of the roads. You can rarely see a 50m stretch of straight road, it always snakes around into blind corners :(

Then we went to Kuttiyadi for my cousin’s wedding on Monday. Again a 50 km drive that took me close to 1.5 hours due to the fact mentioned above !!

On the drive back on Tuesday, I had my wife, kid, sister, brother-in-law and niece for company. We took one day break in Mysore and did some sightseeing there.

The Mysore zoo is a must visit for folks with young kids. Be prepared to spend half a day there if you are planning to cover it by walking as we did. You have to walk close to 3 kms !!

My favs were the Hornbill, Sarus crane ( which is the world’s tallest flying bird, a fact that I did not know till now) and the Royal Bengal Tiger. I don’t know who named the Lion as the king of animals, for me it has to be Tiger without a shadow of doubt !!.

Reached back in Bangalore yesterday evening. And I am sick of the sight of my car already :-( Driving in peak summer is not too much fun.