Pane Puri and Slumdog Millionaire

Bhel

This week has been a busy one for me too. Monday I was off with P to Sya's again - this time to teach them how to bake a cake. Worst fear came true, the oven took 40 minutes instead of 20 to cook the cake though luckily it still turned out quite fine.

Pane Puri

Had a good chat as usual, and believe it or not Sya fed us Indian junk food - Pane Puri! The Puris are made of semolina and fine wheat flour that she brought over ready-made from India and the filling and sauce were home-made : basically tamarind, black salt and jaggery. She served them with chick peas, a mint-coriander-spice chutney and the tamarind sauce. Using the same ingredients we varied the pleasure and also ate them with Bhel - crispy fried flour bits, potato patties, tomatoes etc. Yummy...

Bhel

Also watched a home video of a Hindu festival which made me want to go visit India and experience it all myself. Though I must say that watching Slumdog Millionaire the next evening sort of made me change my mind. A bit about that later.

Tuesday was off to Bologna with R. We had things to buy at Decathlon and wanted to go to the Burberry store as well. It was a little adventure for it was my first time driving into Bologna on my own - with R as nervous passenger. Every 10 minutes she would suggest that we park and take the taxi!

Actually I was pretty nervous myself, not knowing where I should and could go (God, the cameras), whether I could find parking...but suffice to say we didn't do too badly. But still, I'm not too keen to repeat the experience too quickly.

Wednesday went to the gym in the morning followed by lunch at Café Renoir to meet 2 mothers new to the school. They were nice and fun girls, in any case I know I can trust Rb and Muriel not to organise anything with boring people. Good seppia/squid salad and Angus filet (with Balsamic vinegar) which totally annulled my morning's effort at the gym. And Rb, I really dig that push-up.

Friday was at coffee morning at JW's to collect my precious bit of cheddar (thanks again!) and eat a few of her yummy scones. Met a few English ladies who do not have kids at the school and they seemed a nice bunch.

DP Vintage 2000

Sunday we had the Ks over for a BBQ lunch - in the snow. Thai Red Curry Wings, Chinese Pork Ribs, Teriyaki Wings, Sausages - not that you could see much of a difference between them once the Hub had them carbonated. Also baked some Sea Bass that turned out great, drank 2 bottles of champagne (DP Vintage 2000 and the very last bottle from our wedding), Burgundy white wine and overdosed on sugar with R's offering of Turkish Baklava and Chocolate Cake.

R's Choco Cake

Back to Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, it was a great movie from a cinematographic and storyline point of view. But very hard on the mother that I am. I have seen documentaries of slums in the Philippines, India, Brazil etc so I knew what to expect. But I have almost forgotten about the children.

A few years ago I learnt that very poor Indian parents sometimes break their healthy children's limbs when they were young out of a certain love for them - so that they may better beg for a living and not starve to death. But facing the possibility of having (orphaned) children maimed and exploited by unscrupulous adults made it really hard for me.

Other than that the rags-to-riches story (more or less the only thing that Eldest Son of mine retained), the never-give-up search for love, the pulsing speed and resilience of Mumbai life made it a really enjoyable movie. It’s the tale of Jamal, a young boy from the slums of Mumbai, who becomes a national phenomenon when he wins India’s version of “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?” The timeline of the movie, which relates each of Jamal’s game show questions to an instance in his troubled past, is a key to its popularity. And I was really quite happy when the movie ended with a group dance - like in most if not all Bollywood movies. Not to forget that they even showed a scene with Pane Puri in it!

This Tuesday we're on for Madagascar 2. Hub actually postponed a business trip to Hungary so that he may bring the kids to watch it. And there will be 2 birthday parties in the week. Plus I'm quite stuck trying to re-configure my computer now that I've finally migrated to the new one (and lost my old Outlook, Skype and hard disk in the process!) Busy busy as usual.