Remaking a classic? My advice? Stop, think

When I was a kid, the only television channel was doordarshan. In 1988, there was a national integration video produced called Mile sur mera tumhara.

The national integration video was intended to instill a sense of pride and promote unity amongst Indians, highlighting the different linguistic communities and societies that live in India -- India's unity in diversity, so to speak.



This video was really done well, and in my perspective, it did achieve some of its goals, and if not anything, it still feels good to hear the sound.

Now, someone tried to make a sequel of this, and it has gone horribly horribly bad. Here is the link for part 1 - 8 mins, yes there is another part - totaling 16 minutes. Not all 16 minutes are a total waste of time, but the overall production quality sucks big time.

Could not understand many things:
1. Salman Khan in his undershirt
2. Deepika Padukone in skimpy clothes
3. Really bad music at a lot of places
.. and the list goes on.



Why remake a classic? You know you can't beat it. Have you run out of ideas? JUST PLAIN STUPID.

Weave - best plugin firefox ever had

Almost everyone I know have a work computer, and a home use computer or a laptop, and the problem of synchronization is too well known.

You are looking up something at work, go home, and can't remember the url? The bookmark on your work computer is not available on your laptop at home?

Mozilla Weave solves the problem for us. It can synchronize and merge your bookmarks, browsing history, passwords, preferences and more across one or more of your profiles on the same computer or across computers. All you need is a weave-account and the extension installed on all the profiles that you want synchronized.

It has simplified my browsing life more than I could imagine. Try it out for yourself. 

https://mozillalabs.com/weave/

Mozilla Weave enables you to have incredibly rich, personalized experiences across the web.

As the Web continues to evolve and more of our lives move online, we believe that Web browsers like Firefox can and should do more to broker rich experiences while increasing user control over their data and personal information. Weave is a Firefox add-on that is aimed at exploring this opportunity.
Some of the key functionality enabled by the Weave add-on includes:

• Synchronization engine - securely transports your browsing experience across all your devices
• Cryptographic engine - provides default client side encryption for all your data
• Weave server - a secure storage location for all your encrypted data
• APIs - extension interfaces for 3rd party developers

The initial release will provide extensive support for your browser meta-data (bookmarks, stored passwords, history, tabs, preferences, add-ons, personas).
Future releases will support other types of data and functionality.

Classic brownies - take 2

How hard can baking a brownie be? My first take at brownies was about two years ago - turned out to be a disaster. The brownie stuck to the bottom of the pan and was too thin to sacrifice the bottom part - all that aside, it tasked horrible too.

Last Friday, I mustered up courage to give it another go, this time around, I was a bit more careful, and lined it with baking sheet, and made sure I had a smaller baking pan for a thicker brownie just in case.

Credit for the picture goes to Madhu. It tasted just the brownie is supposed to.

Anyway, if you want to try this out, here is the recipe
http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/10/and-then-i-went-shoe-shopping/

My brownie turned out a bit different (darker and thicker) than the one in the recipe above. It called for..

• A 13x9 pan -- I used 8x8
• Bake for 35 mins -- I had to bake for about 50-55 minutes (to compensate for the extra thickness)
  

Baked tofu nuggets & Sweet Potato for dinner

Tofu nuggets for dinner? The picture speaks for itself and looks very complicated, can you believe the prep time is just under 30 minutes?

Baked Tofu:
http://chowvegan.com/2008/03/18/crispy-baked-tofu/

Garlic sauce:

• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/4 cup chopped scallion
• 2 teaspoon sesame seeds
• 3 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar

adapted from: http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/diaryofafoodie/2009/03/warm-tofu-with-spicy-garlic-sauce


Baked sweet potato fries: (All original Madhu's recipe)

• slice sweet potatoes like in the picture
• sprinkle with some olive oil, cumin powder, red chilli powder and salt
• bake in the oven at 375F for about 45 minutes
  

Quest for the perfect Pad Kee Mao

I love Pad Kee Mao (Drunken Noodles). It is one of the things on the menu that jumps at me whenever we are at a Thai restaurant. I judge Thai restaurants by their Pad Kee Mao :)

So, Madhu has been trying to perfect Pad Kee Mao in our kitchen for a while since I love it so much. Today's was the best. It looked and tasted fantastic - It is better than some Thai places around (no offense, Madhu knows my palette better than anyone).

She adapted a recipe from the cooking book Buddha's Table. The picture of Madhu's creation today says it all.

On a side note, Madhu's picture taking abilities have been better than ever. Looks like getting a SLR camera has paid off big time.