what one does on a week of extended freedom..

..one evades putting ones thoughts down in a coherent manner, and resorts to spewing random tidbits of information, leaving readers to make what they will of what follows..

1) I finished Kafka on the Shore, and South of the Border-West of the Sun and am powering through After the Quake. Murakami is intense, confusing at times, but a very riveting author, whos writing is like taking a journey into a different world. Its hard to come across the kind of craft and story-telling like I have just seen in Murakami's writing. In the case of all the books mentioned above, I have had a hard time putting the book down and getting things done around here. Which if why, it helps that I am on my week of extended freedom! That said, I think when Im done with After the Quake, Im going to need something light, cheery and breezy to read. Recommendations?

2) In between being buried amidst my books, Iv also been on a food spree. We went to the IFFI version of khau-galli. Our very own promenade dotted with food stalls with a surprisingly tasty variety of street food from all over. Everything from dabeli and vada pav to pav bhaji and chaat, kababs and biryani, to gola and gobi manchurian! Read about it on my other blog. I was determined to take pictures because the street festivity presented many moments worthy of being captured. So I decided to go with my half blind eye, the trusty green dot that tells me when somethings in focus and went click-clicking away. Im personally not too happy with the pictures, but it seems I havent lost touch and I still have an eye. So hopefully this is the beginning of the revival.

3) Part of the food spree also percolated into my own kitchen and led me to try my hand at making BisiBeleBhaath! Lets just say desperate times call for desperate measures. I was food-home-sick (which is to say home-sick for food!) and something needed to be done. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and try my luck. And the result was a pretty kick-butt kinda BBB, if you know what I mean. So I was able to satiate our food cravings, and doing it rather well too. Hows that for a win-win situation? That endeavour has been neatly documented too. By me, singlehandedly. Amidst cursing VC for not being around when I needed him and his clever photographic eye the most! Take a look at my efforts on the food blog.

4) The food spree didnt end there. The husband has been making loud noises about needing to eat dessert for a while now. But I have been buried nose deep in my books and general glory of being free, and we had a bit of a milk-shortage situation, which seemed conveniently timed, to pay heed to his hints. However my blog-hopping led me to this fantastic blog: Divine Taste, where I found this ridiculously-easy-sounding recipe for Chocolate Custard. Milk, cream, chocolate, vanilla -- whats not to like? So I tried my hand at that too. Yes hand, because while one hand tried to mix the various ingredients together and make a complete mess around the kitchen, the other tried to juggle a DSLR and take pictures to document the process. For the food blog, of course! Take a look, and tell me my efforts of juggling 500ml milk, 200ml cream and a camera were worth it.

5) It makes me happy that the food blog has undergone that revival it so desperately needed. It was started over a year ago, as a means to make our weekends (in an otherwise very boring and dull week) entertaining, for the husband and I to indulge in the two things we love: food and photography. It is only in recent times that the "cooking" and "culinary" aspect of food has crept into our lives. What with moving out of home and setting up a home of our own, having to fend for ourselves food-wise, and the husband turning non-vegetarian again. Clearly, food has become more than a mere necessity. It is a priority!