Sunday Scribblings - "Observations"
In general:
- It rains mostly after I finish watering my plants. If I wait for any looming rainclouds to release their load, to save me having to bother with the watering, the clouds will hold off or disappear altogether until I give in and water the damn plants. THEN the clouds reappear - and it pours down like there’s no tomorrow.
- I respond to the melody of most songs, rather than the lyrics – a trait for which I’m eternally grateful because it enables me to:
1. be fond of some Hindi and Tamil movie songs which otherwise I would have to ignore for their banality and/or disgusting suggestiveness;
2. enjoy folk songs and music in general from around the world even if I’ve no idea what the songs are about.
- It’s a bad idea to wait for any machine to do its thing quickly, especially if you’re in a hurry for the output. Even worse to hover by its side, thereby confirming to the machine that you're in a hurry. (The colour copier at work takes forever to calibrate itself JUST when I urgently require multiple copies of a report. The thicker the report to be copied, the longer it takes to start up. Ditto with the electric glue binder contraption – the amount of time it takes to heat up when you’re by its side is practically infinite. But if you switch it on and go away, it not only heats up quickly, it also cools down as quickly and then shuts itself off, leaving you back at Square One.)
- Male celebrity hairdressers who appear in TV ads for hair care products usually sport greasy, lank hair – quite unlike that of their “clients”.
- Anyone in senior management who laughs all the time - especially at inappropriate moments - when speaking to you, is not to be trusted.
- Chefs who dismiss vegetarians and vegetarian food are arrogant idiots who don't deserve their title.
5 comments:
What a wonderful set of observations! I can't disagree with any of them. I think the third one has been expressed in the past by the aphorism, "A watched pot never boils". I like your updated version.
As a person who, usually unconsciously, hums all the time, I also am glad that I don't think of some of the words that would accompany some songs.
Totally with you on the rain and copier observations!! Almost like there's some devilry at work with those two...
Oh, and as for the ignorant
arrogance of the chefs-don't even get me started! Anthony Bourdain, whom I sort of did admire for his unconventional approach, had this to say about vegetarians and vegans in his book Kitchen Confidential':
"Vegetarians and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It’s healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I’ve worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold."
To which, I gotta say; "But what the hell do you know?! You chewed your way through a warthog's anus, on national tv, so you'll understand if we don't consider anything out of that same mouth to be better than spiel."
bourdain said that? how disgusting. i think they are just not upto the challenge of cooking veggie. because it is tough. i am vegetarian, but cook meat/fish for my husband/child... and believe me, you need far more skill to cook vegetarian food than the other. even by my poor standards, it's difficult to mess up meat. so i guess these crazy chefs just don't get it. ask them to make a simple chepai fry or usili or rasam, and then we'll give them their michelin star or whatever it is.
Granny Smith: Thank you, your kind words are much appreciated :)
Anu: Your retort made me laugh! And yes, Bourdain is one of my pet hates. He isnt even funny! (tried to read one of his books and had to give it up).
V: So true. I cook non-veg food for my husband and his kids. I wouldnt eat it but I dont diss it either!
The watched pot syndrome :)
I tend to burn the food I don't watch, and end up being impatient with those I do, and end up eat far too crunchy veg...
:)
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