Free Imagine Things

Every once in a while we're going to give you an inspiration for a character. Today's comes from this photo. Give this guy a name, a job, fears, dreams, medical conditions, preferences, love life, etc. Go ahead, get started. Write him a life. He's waiting!

This is a dry curry which i learnt from a Mauritian Hindu couple Mr & Mrs. Prem who i made friends with in the supermarket here. They are such a wonderful people who were so delighted when i told them that i was a Hindu, They have moved in here quite a long time ago, They have two girls who are already married and have a grand child as well. I met one of them her is Asha and now she is in India, doing charity work in Hospitals and orphanages, Basically she is Journalist and has married a Gujarati, She was talking about the weddings and life style in India, and she loves everything about India !!, and lo ! there she is on a six months tour to India, she wants to enjoy the Blissfulness of the culture, tradition, food, hospitality of the Indian people. I heard from her parents she is really enjoying her stay in India.
Talking about them I had my friend's son come to visit me from Chicago & he had brought a friend from New Orleans that boy is an American boy, who also is visiting India in August just because he has come to know about the culture, tradition and food of course !! everything about India from his friends who are doing their engineering in Bangalore, which has impressed him a lot and wants to see India ASAP !!, He was saying that his friends told him that if you ever wanted to study then you have to study in India as people there, are very competitive and no nothing, but immerse themselves in education and want to top than the others !!. I wished a very Best of Luck to both of them and his tour to India be a very long lasting one in his memory lane !!,
Okay let me get back to my recipe thanks to Mrs.Prem for sharing me the recipe with me and hoping to add many more recipes from her cook book, & for this lovely dish i learnt from her, everybody in the house liked it, as I thought my eldest also said that some where it tasted like mango rice, that is when we mixed it with rice and ate it !! Like a Manga Saadham or Mango Rice.
BOTTLE GOURD DRY CURRY (MAURITIAN STYLE):
















Ingredients:

• 1 big Bottle Gourd
• 1 cup dry peanuts
• 2 to 3 pods of Garlic
• 1 Medium sized Onion
• 1 tbsp Jeera or cumin seeds
• 3-2 Red chillies (Guntur-Badgi)
• 1 cup of oil

SEASONINGS:

• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tbsp channa dal
• 1tbsp urad dal
• 1 sprig of curry leaves

METHOD:

1. Soak peanuts for an hour or so .
2. Then with the other ingredients except for curry leaves grind everything with the nicely soaked peanuts into a smooth paste add little water if required and make it into a paste.
3. Take a wok add 4 to 5 tbsp of oil and fry the ground paste in a low flame until the raw smell goes out of them,
4. I was adding little by by little oil and frying them in a low flame as I did not want to add too much oil, actually she asked me to fry with more oil as the when we do in gravies where the oil separate outs from the gravy. As I did not want to add more oil I did it like this,
5. Meanwhile in a separate wok take 2 tbsp of oil, when oil is hot add all the seasonings one by one and curry leaves and then the cut Bottle Gourd and allow it cook in a low flame.
6. Once when the Bottle Gourd is completely cooked add this fried Ground masala paste to it and mix it well, leave it in the wok for few more minutes so that the paste gets absorbed by the gourd and overall gives a good flavour.
7. Now it is ready to serve with hot rice or as a side dish to anything you choose to eat it with !!.

NOTE: When cooking Bottle gourd do not add any water at all as the Bottle Gourd itself has so much water in it. and starts giving out water, when you are cooking the subzi, leave the subzi with very little water in it say around 2 tbsp of it so when mixing the gravy it combines quite well with the Gourd and then you can cook until the water is completely drained off, do not keep on mixing as the gourd might get smashed.

As I do not want to use lot of oil I thought next time when I am going to cook this dish I will fry onions, garlic,chillies cumin seeds first in a little bit of oil and then grind it with the soaked peanuts then i might use less oil !! or i will use already roasted peanuts in them but of course i think it wouldn't give the same taste as the original recipe !!.

I also thought I will try doing the same method cooking with other vegetables like Ridge Gourd & Chow Chow too. I think it will definitely taste good.

This is a known Tiffin variety of south Indians and the people of karnataka do really enjoy this as it is so filling and doesn't make you hungry for a long time, and I always felt that after eating this you feel like drinking water all the time just like when you eat dosa the same feeling happens and feel as if you are thirsty all the time. As if there is a sponge in your stomach absorbing all the water you are drinking.

well coming back to the recipe Akki Rotti is dish made out of Rice flour and Raagi Rotti is a dish made out of Raagi Flour,even you can try making these kind of Rottis with corn flour & fine semolina rawa.

AKKI ROTTI & RAAGI ROTTI

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Rice flour for Akki Rotti & 1 cup raagi flour for Raagi Rotti
• 1 or 2 green chillies (optional)
• salt to taste
• 2 to 3 sprigs of coriander leaves
• 1 sprig curry leaves

Basically that is all is required to make rottis but you can add lot of things to make it even more tastier and richer to eat.

1. You can add finely chopped onions.
2. you can grate carrots, cabbage to it
3. with the plain above said ingredients you can add a cup of fresh coconut grated which is so tastier. You can add this grated coconut mixed with all the vegetables which i have just been telling about,
4. You can also add a tbsp of cumin seeds, tbsp of channa dal with finely chopped curry & coriander leaves and finely chopped onions.
5. You can also add roasted peanut powder with all the above said ingredients which is much more tastier.
6. During the Avarekkai season pick out the very tender ones and mix it with the plain basic recipe and make rottis they are absolutely gorgeous to eat.
7. You can also make these rottis with Methi or Fenugreek leaves
8. You can use capsicum which is finely sliced with other ingredients

METHOD

Cut or grate or however or whatever you are using as variation for making the rotti requires go according to it.

1. Take Akki or Rice flour or if you are making with Raagi flour the method is the same, In a bowl take the flour add all the ingredients finely chopped coriander & curry leaves & green chillies mix them together with warm water into a chapati dough consistency and then in a wok with you back of your fingers that is towards the nail side, with the help of water flatten them in the wok in a round shape.
2. Pour oil on the border of the line and make a hole in the middle and pour little oil in it and cook it in a low flame for 10-15 minutes turn it around once it is cooked and cook for another few minutes and now it is ready to serve with any side gravy of your choice or with chutneys or powders(pudis) of ur choice.
3. You can also use a plastic or the sheets you make poli or obattu with, to make these rottis then you do not need a wok, you can use a tawa. Take a small ball of it flatten it on a sheet into a round just like a poli make a hole in the middle and put it on the tawa and cook on both the sides.
4. I use the covers of boost, horlicks etc for making polis which do not stick on to the tawa or u can also use plantain leaf to make them.

Loads of markets out there for shorts and poems, but what about your fat, brilliant, all-over-the-place novel? There are certainly more (feel free to add) but here are a few places I've found so far that take excerpts. Happy submitting!

Greenbeard
Newport Review http://newportreview.org/
Precipice http://www.brocku.ca/precipice/precipice.htm
Twilight Tales Online http://twilighttales.com/
Wild River Review http://www.wildriverreview.com/
Think Journal http://web.me.com/christineyurick/Think_Journal/Home_Page.html

Man is Larry McMurty's Lonesome Dove a big ass book, or what? Normally after reading 589 pages you've read two or three books not just about made it half through one. But Lonesome Dove is never tiresome. It is not over described either, just beautifully painted. Transporting you to a version of the Old West that may or may not be accurate, the novel frolicks rather than drags. Characters pop up and the story meanders off and I couldn't decide what plot I wanted McMurty to stick with. Bandits, snake-chopping cooks, whores, gamblers, cowboys and out of place Irishmen fill up a real and vivid world that I don't want to leave. So I'm reading the last five hundred pages or so very slowly.



art by xstuntkidx:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xstuntkidx/

Rejection letters fill my inbox just as often as offers to enlarge my penis or Princes from African nations asking for my Paypal account info. I've learned to take them pretty well. Every so often, there are ones I don't know how to take...


Ryan,

Thanks for your submission. I found it economical and well-written; however, as I am personally repulsed by depictions of violence against non-human primates, I will have to pass on this one. Please keep us in mind for future submissions.

(Editor's name withheld)

1) Is human violence okay then? What about a man beating up a horse with a crowbar? What if I have a novel with a lot of dog on monkey violence, is this acceptable?

2) How often does she come across "depictions of violence against non-human primates"? I'm not the only one writing stories about construction workers kicking the crap out of chimpanzees? I thought I was being original.

3) How does the editor feel about the events in this picture?

If you like your blogs as experimental as they are saucy, Laughing Yeti is for you. The full title is Laughing Yeti: Notes From The Journal I Never Wrote And Other Scribbles
Shome Dasgupta's writing is in Paperwall, Diddledog and Cafe Irreal, among other places. On the blog you can find lists of lit journals, absurdist poetry, photos of Shome's work space and rather delightful odds and ends. It updates pretty often, so I suggest a bookmark.
http://laughingyeti.blogspot.com/

One part science fiction, one part romance. If that sounds like a recipe you might cook up than we've got a journal you should check out/submit to. Crossed Genres is a monthly journal that publishes Sci Fi/Fantasy stories that have a touch of something else. The current issue's genre mix-in is humor, next month it is Urban Fiction (deadline April 30th). If you have some alternate history sci fi/fantasy story, submit in June.
Check it out here: http://www.crossedgenres.com/index.htm
Seeing all the covers and angles of the genres being explored gets me all excited. I don't even write stories like this, but it's an interesting challenge.

photo by Hibb08
http://www.flickr.com/photos/30585380@N07/

A quirky first line for those stuck on a blank screen/page...

Sometimes Jesus is a girl.

Love to see any stories, prose, poems that come out of it.

I wrote "lol" for the first time in my life and honestly, I feel dirty, porn dirty. I wasn't even laughing, much less out loud. But a)I wanted to express that I appreciated the other person's attempt at mild humor and b) I didn't know what else to say/write/type. I'm new to this chatting stuff. And it only makes me itch for my quill and inkwell.

Still don't know what LMAO is. It makes me think of Chairman Mao every time though. And try as I might when I attempt to write "you" as "u" and "are" as "r" my fingers defy me and there is a moment of muscular mutiny. I battle myself until I am in control and all that fighting takes more time than if I would have just typed the full word.