Thursday, February 14, 2013

Brownies - sans egg, all purpose flour, butter

From the time I tasted brownies, here in Singapore, I have fallen in love with them. I can go on eating, bite after bite, yet there is not satisfaction. I always want more and reach our for the next piece. During my stay near Siglap centre, we used to get brownies from Royal Cakes. I began hunting for a good recipe when I got the confidence that I too can make brownies a home. I stumbled upon this blog http://www.lovefoodeat.com/ and discovered Chinmayie's brownie recipe. I have tried a few time to follow her recipe of brownies but failed each time to get those prefect ones. Last week, I managed and I fell in love with these brownies all over again. THANK YOU, Chinmayie Bhat. 



Book review "The Memory of Water"



My second book "The Memory of Water" was absolutely a treat to read. A slow moving yet very gripping story about two sisters. Alternating narration / peek by characters mixed with emotions, conflicts, fear, water, colour - you can find it all. I simply could not put the book down even though this is not a murder mystery but had all the element into it, woven with emotions and feelings. This is my third book of this author (I have not written about her paranormal romance novel that I had read earlier...) and I loved every word of it.

The story is about two sisters, one dark secret they share. 'Time' forces one of them to move out of home and the same 'time' forces her to come back home. Does she find the comfort of a home, does she want to stay back, does she has to fight with anyone or fight for anything? - these are the question whose answer will be found in the book. 

As always I have enjoyed Karen's book.

Viswaroopam - a review

This movie starts off with Mami  - Pooja Kumar (PK) talking with a psychiatrist about how unhappy she is with her husband (note the usage of tambrahm words - that too in NY, huh???). The psychiatrist begins the usual probing questions and the story unfolds with Mama alias KH (Kamal Hassan) dancing to a katak song in tamil with his students and also is busy cooking for his wifey dear. PK is thinking of some excuse not to come home for dinner and here enters the "Mama" et al. (Shekar Kapur, Andrea Jeremiah and Miles Anderson) who are not her dear relatives / friends. PK manages to send a private investigator to find more about her "aathukar" and is aghast to find that he is muslim. A terror group kills the private investigator and the manages to find our "mama" and "mami". They are captured by the terror group and held hostage. KH has introduced lots of so-called "LOL" situation and dialogues which failed to impress me. I was like  - what the hell is this??? why does anyone need such a situation when you're dealing with terror group and hostages??? What is Mama trying to? Show that he is having fun or that the movie is about to take a serious turn??

You can always imagine the "role reversal" or the "becoming of a Man" scene where our Mama is suddenly shaking off his "mama cloak" and showing his RAW powers. This scene was exactly like the way you can imagine and was shown twice so that the impact and the progress are registered by the viewers who are still left in doubt whether they need to react to LOL situations or appreciate the serious of the movie and all the research that has gone in making this movie. 

Our mami is so so surprised at the super powers of this aged RAW agent that she is speechless. While she (viewers too..) manages to understand what is happening, the NYPD comes into action. Did I mention about Omar - Rahul Bose? Right from his introduction scene (with that scary looking eye ball.........) he outshines everyone else in this movie. 


Flashback scenes with the story of our dear RAW mama agent, scenes rich with fight and terror and some Arabic language (I wonder why Actor Nassar is wasted??) and lots of emotions are part of this movie.

I wonder if 

  • you're arrested by FBI - will you be sneaked away to a posh office where every other guy (public) can notice you??
  • the FBI / NYPD remain calm if you assault a officer and then saw sorry?? 
  • The Prime minister of India speaks????? and that too to a RAW agent (miracle!!?? )
  • wives of RAW agents are allowed to be with their husbands during the working hours of the agents?
  • you need PhD to tell the atomic number and atomic mass of Cesium??
I have no patience to review the rest of the movie that I left it for the readers to discover in case they are interested.  The movie ends with a declaration from our RAW mama agent that you can expect Viswaroopam Part 2.

sigh!

Watch Viswaroopam for Rahul Bose.


PS: This is MY opinion about this movie.