Life of Pi

Watched Life of Pi at PVR IMax Bangalore.

 

The story as we are reminded time and again is about a ship-wrecked teenagers survival on the Pacific aboard a lifeboat, with just a Royal Bengal tiger for company, a story to strengthen your belief in God! The God portion - felt like it was being thrust in just because the author thought to be consistent.
Having not read the book I am not in a position to compare it with Ang Lee's treatment of the story. There were portions we were left wondering...

 

Not withstanding the cliched South Indians or the mildly irritating Indian accent, the movie was quite a watch. The visual effects spared us from yawning and kept us hooked, open jawed at times. The director having paintstakingly put together every frame , as would an artist do a landscape on his canvas. They were at times overwhelming , So much so that the kids ( Karthik especially) watched it bug-eyed, never once disturbing us with a "Amma loo" or "Appa get me a cheese popcorn now -I'm sooo hungry".

And, boy, Richard Parker - What a tiger! Arguably the most beautiful CG creation till date.

 

A good half of the story crawls along with a Rushdie-esque story telling, interest picking up with the wrecking of the ship, and the later portions hanging on just to the strength of the visuals.

 

Hey, was the bikini even invented when Pi's mamaji visited the Piscine Molitor in Paris? I thought the bikini made its intro after Indian Indepedence. Gotta google and check.

 

And, meerkats on a spot of an island in the Pacific?  A carnivorous island, with carnivorous flowers? Really? How were the thousands of meerkats surviving then? Am sure if some of our பெரிசுகள் see this, they will surely ask "என்ன விட்டலாச்சார்யா படமா இது ?"

The inspiration-dried writer visiting the adult Pi said it all : "Well it is all too much to take in... Its incredible!!"
As we left Sripradha said " I could write a story like this!" Ganesh interrupted "Mine will be the Life of Gi!, Karthik's would be the Life of Ki !!"
 

An Evening with Mr.Bond - 4th Nov, 2012

And Mr. Bond: Spent close to 3 hours until midnight yday but im lost!
Granted I get the whole humanising Bond thing, and enjoyed it in the earlier outings of Daniel Craig. But hey, there is a certain devil-may-care attitude, jaw-dropping gadgetry and a convincing enough Intnl espionage plot expected, that makes a Bond film - all of which were missing in Skyfall. To top it, they had to make a perfe...

ctly good Javier Bardeim creepy with gross orthodontics and bad hair colour. And, whats with the Bond girls? Even they lacked the punch.
If not for the opening sequence on the train until the titles, it would have been a complete washout. To rinse this memory away, I'm finishing up Sunday lunch quickly, dusting away my archives and settling for the afternoon with an earlier more suave Mr.Bond.

Sinful Beta Carotene

" Carrot saapidu!  Kannukku nallathu!"
This is something we have grown up listening to. Right through my childhood, ( and a good part of my adult life), I have tasted carrots mostly in sambar ,avial, kootu or poriyal - As a standalone dish or to add colour or volume to the beans or cabbage poriyal.
Generally I have found South Indians preferring the taste of the orange Ooty carrots, and the North Indians swearing by their red winter carrots.
But orange or red, I really love eating carrots, and do love cooking them as well. Guests at my home would have surely tasted my pale orange Carrot Kheer for dessert, or the occasional carrot halwa.
Ever since I travelled to the North in the Winter of 2009 I have been captivated by the vivid images of roadside markets full of sarson , long tender radishes , and deep red sweet carrots. This winter, the day carrots hit markets in Gurgaon, I had decided to try my hand at a carrot cake.
Thanks to Google, and many nameless generous home-cooks across the world, I found numerous recipes with fab pics for this cake. Many called for almonds, Most mandated eggs. Finally, after spending a good two hours searching and thinking, I decided to take the plunge with my own recipe. The cake turned out pretty much ok.

1 1/2 cup grated Carrots,
1 cup powdered Sugar
1 cup Oil
1/2 tsp Cinnamon Powder
(guess i should hv added a pinch of nutmeg too - but didnt have any)
1 tsp Orgran egg replacer powder
21/2 tbsp milk
1 1/3 cup Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
to Decorate: 1 tbsp almond slivers; a bit of butter

Preheat the oven to 400F (200 C).
Grease and flour/line an 6-inch cake tin.
In a bowl, the sugar and oil and beat well. mix up the egg replacer with milk and pour into the sugar / oil mix. Add the carrots.
In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and the cinnamon and nutmeg powders. Sift this little by little into  the wet mix gently until it is completely incorporated. Pour into the prepared cake tin and bake for 30 minutes.
Remove the tin from oven and quickly brush over the top of the cake with a bit of butter in room temperature - arrange almond slivers , push it back into the oven for another 6-7 mins.
Your cake is done when a knife or toothpick, inserted into the centre of the cake, comes out clean.
With this version you should get a cake that is soft inside with a mild crunch on the top.
Quite scrummy - perfect for a year end wintery cold night.

One question atleast 4 people have asked me is why my cake did not look orange?
Hey ! I used the red winter carrots here.
Also, most recipes had asked for 2-3 cups of carrots - I had added less, thinking it would be too much or make the cake dry. On hindsight maybe I was wrong!
There's always a next time. Though I think next time round, i'd replace carrots with beets, and catch a better camera for the pictures ;-)