{Thursday Happy}

It is not like me to perform my "happyhappyhappy" self on blog and/or Facebook. That's why, I have mostly refrained from posting status messages on my fb page. I don't want to sound "happy" to the world, neither do I want to perform depressed. But right now, I am feeling pretty low. As I said, in one of the previous posts, I know the reasons. Some, I do have control over. But those are not things that can be taken care of right away. They need painstaking labor. Others, are beyond my control. Like the mental state of my childhood friend, whom I love deeply. Or the London riots. Or the war. So, this is an exercise I will indulge in for the next three months. I will list three things that made me happy during a particular week. This the first installment:

1.

Cooking A New Chicken Dish

I have been on the lookout for a new chicken dish on the web for a while, and then I did run into one. It's a more spicy spin on the chicken korma that I used to cook. So, here is how I did it:

a. Marinate the chicken with ginger paste, salt, cumin and coriander powder, cayenne pepper powder.

b. Grind fennel seeds, peppercorn seeds, red chilli, cinnamon sticks and cardamom seeds.

c. Heat ghee/oil. I used ghee, since I am really keen on unhealthy eating.

d. Then pour in the ground spice mixture. Let it sizzle for a minute or two. Keep stirring the wok.

e. Slice onions, pour them into the mix, and put on a low-medium heat and cook it till the onions are brown and halfway between soft and crunchy. Sweat the onions so that the final dish is tastier.

f. Slice a tomato, and add it into the mix. Now, let everything turn slowly into a mush/paste.

g. Brown the marinated chicken. Once they have been browned, remove them into the main cooking pot. Stir and mix well with the tomato-onion spice mix. Feel free to add sugar, salt and chilli powder according to taste. I like to add a little sugar along with the spice, because I like the caramelized taste of the spices.

h. Then add1 cup of yoghurt. Add it one spoon at a time and mix thoroughly. Add chicken broth- about a cup and a half and cook it down till the chicken is cooked and the paste is thick. If the chicken isn't cooked and the broth is drying out, add more.

This turned out to be fairly good. And made me think, even if I cannot write a good dissertation or a good book of poems, or a good short story or whatever, I can still cook somewhat tasty meals for myself.

2.

Meeting With KA

KA and I had our poems published in a journal together. So, over the last two weeks, we had gotten in touch with each other over the email, and had decided on meeting for coffee, which we did yesterday. We hit it off immediately, and are trying to plan some activities/projects together. But, this meeting, I will count from now on, as an example of positive, productive, creative "networking", as against the totally inane "professional" kind, that I have come to hate so much in the recent years.

3.

Watching Fellini

Last night, R and I watched Luci del Varieta. As a film, it's an interesting one. But nothing that would turn my head off. But the fact that I could make time to actually sit down and see it, is something that needs to be celebrated. These days, I am so tired that I rarely find the mental peace and the intellectual energy to sit down and watch an intelligent film. I will write my thoughts on the film soon. But, for now, I am happy that I got to see it.