Cynic in Cucina

So Parul tagged me the other day to come up with a compendium of domestic disasters. Actually she might have meant only one - but I suffer from a problem of plenty so I thought I would let the readers chose!

...should I write about the time, I forgot to put the water in the pressure cooker while making rice? And about how I felt so smugly complacent when I smelt burning stuff. Secure in the belief that I had nothing on the gas that could burn?

...or about the time when I got onions and potatoes and kept them in a plastic bag in the store-room and cheerfully forgot about their existence, until strange overpowering smells started taking over the household? I learnt that onions die agonizing deaths inside plastic bags.

...or would it be more spectacular disasters that would make interesting reading? The time I nearly set the curtains on fire while happily leaving oil to heat in pan and cutting onions into interesting shapes to entertain myself while completely oblivious to the fact that heated oil lights up like a bonfire?

...or the fairly recent soup experience, where I put hot palak into the mixer only for the lid to blow up at rocket speed. S walked into the kitchen to see me standing in the middle of a lake with stuff dripping down my hair and a fairly bemused expression on my face staring at the mixer lid on top of the cupboard. ( Incidentally I still bear the scars of this one!)

So which shall it be?

P.S. People, can we have some visits onto the bhajifried blog please? And more importantly, can we have some guest contributors? We might run out of recipes at this rate. Hmpf.

Edited later: I forgot to tags the folks aiyo rama - dear readers, please take it up and let me know!!!

Kayku Haiku?

Lekhini had tagged me with an interesting thingie the other day but given the fact that I am on leave with a completely rubbish connection, I had not got around to writing or uploading it.But here goes ….

First the rules

In five syllables, no more, no less, describe the worst movie you can think of. Bonus points if you have to show off your Google skills because you can’t remember the name of it and all you can come up with is that it features Roz Russell and Sandra Dee. Turns out it was some tripe called Rosie! Exclamation point the producers’ idea, not mine.“Auntie Mame leavings.”

In seven syllables, no more, no less, describe your worst date. Bonus points if it was sordid. Subtract points if it sounds too much like an overweight fifteen year old Goth girl.“He pushed my head down. I puked.”

In five syllables, no more, no less, describe the worst job you ever had.

Put it all together and you have a haiku of life’s low points.

The actual tag says one haiku, but since I HAVE delayed writing it, will penalize myself and write two. Besides, so many of these experiences, its hard to chose!

Worst movie ever (5 syllables):
Man blanks love through booze
OR
Banshee Kirron Kher
OR
Plastic Queen Breaks Heart

Worst date ever (7 syllables):
Britney Spears fan club man
OR
Two timed him on first date, bore!

Worst job ever (5 syllables:
Start blues, Friday evening

A work stealing boss

The explanations:

Movie: Okay the first one might be simple enough. All three refer to the same movie. Actually there are a whole bunch of other bad movies floating around, but none reached quite the decibel levels of this one. Viz. Devdas

Date: Someone raving over Britney’s talent? Ahem. Same chap again, I was so thoroughly bored that I and my-then-friend-who-would-end-up-being-future-husband were having a parallel flirting session through text messaging.

Job: The first one refers to my first job; it was such a nightmare would start getting Monday morning blues from Friday evening itself. That’s pretty good indicator if you want to quit btw.
The other Haiku refers to my third job, where I had this ******* boss who would first rip my presentations, then steal them and mail it around claiming it was his ( after changing the background and color templates.) I devised a very effective solution to that. I took to showing the work to all and sundry before mailing him. So when he DID show the work as his, people pretty much knew it wasn’t.

Okay who to tag now?

Ideasmithy The wordsmith – would love to see this one
Epiphany: Doing a rocking job with the 55 word stories, so let’s see the 5 syllable ones
Naren: With all the courtship stories et al, one would love to see the horror stories from dating especially
Kraz: ah there is a reason for this.


And all ye others who are up for it

Randomization

I have been tagged by ditty – so here goes for whatever its worth.

First, the rules:
- Post the rules on your blog.
- Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website


6 random facts about me (which I probably shouldn't share in public forums.Sigh).

1. I have obsessive compulsive disorder about hygiene – for instance, I cannot take the first cup or the last cup in a dispensing machine (plate/any stack actually) because – well it might be er...dirty- will take the one in the middle. I cannot eat roadside food – the thought of it with all the flies et al makes me want to throw up. People in my old office would merrily wipe their hands on the toilet roll paper after washing hands before lunch – me? Not a chance! When I am travelling I have been known to do exceedingly bizarre stuff in public washrooms which involves strange acrobatics (so that I don’t have to touch handles and doors) which are certifiable so I shall maintain a discreet silence about them!

2. I’m a sleep contortionist. When I go to sleep I don’t toss and turn. I perform anti-gravitational stunts. I can sleep sitting up, with my feet crossed in weird ways and wrap myself up into a small ball and peacefully sleep through it. I have managed to curl myself in yogic poses (which I can’t do as easily when I am awake strangely enough). When I was younger, my family used to always say that I would most certainly psyche out the future husband. Which I did very soon after the shaadi. It was a couple of days after we came back from trip; I was suffering from a combination of a bad throat infection and fever + homesickness + wedding anticlimax + general blues. Somewhere during the night, I must have curled up into a ball at the foot of the bed and taken a blanket over me. Hero woke up, instead of a peacefully reposed wife; saw emptiness and a heap of discarded blankets at the foot of the bed. Waited for a while. No sign of me. Started getting worried. Got up. Went out. Checked the house. Checked the bathrooms. One absconding wife. Checked the main doors all the time wondering whether ill wife in delirium had decided to jaunt off to Bombay in the middle of the night. Door was locked. Full panic was happening by this time – but before he could go out to investigate whether I had jumped out from the balcony, happened to come back to the room. And there I was – sitting with the blankets over my head sleepily blinking at him, vaguely wondering why he looked so harrowed.

3. I have a fetish for stationary – any kind, any type.Have written a long post in my old blog which i cant link for some reason.

4. I have Technicolor dreams on absolutely insane stuff – can be complete sequels to movies (with commercial breaks and dance sequences), mystery books (whose endings leave me surprised), alien invasions, jaane-bhi-do-yaaro-isque chasing corpses around town, Bengali speaking dolphins, royal intrigues in the UK (with theme song from Neil and Nikki or other etcetera movies), complicated mathematical formulae, or even exotic recipes of stuff (which unfortunately I forget after I wake up). I also get bizarre ESP dreams which I am unable to explain scientifically – about stuff which exists and I have absolutely no previous knowledge of.

5. I used to have imaginary friends. Yeah, yeah - you can say, lots of people do. But I had imaginary alter-ego-life which I could switch to, every time real life got too boring for a dozen years off. Imaginary life also had its share of problems and issues. I had this parallel universe till I was almost twenty. (ahem)

6. I was chronically shy as a kid – I would walk with a frown on my face to discourage anyone from talking to me. I had to write down stuff and practise saying it before I could call up my uhm..friends from school. Talking to strangers was utter, absolute purgatory. Then I ended up in qualitative market research moderating consumer groups.

Okay now who next? The olde faithful – Kraz, Austro, SWB, Galadriel– new people hmm...Chandni, F&D (new blog in store)