Month: January 2018

Dal Makhani

On a recent visit to Fort Wayne Halal Meat and Grocery, I bought a package of Dal Makhani distributed by Deep Foods, Inc.

Being the adventurer gastronomically, I wasn’t sure exactly what I was getting. I knew it was a split bean recipe, but not much else.

I made it last night and had it with some brown rice. I was very impressed by it. Tasty and spicy.

Today I made the Goan Fish Curry manufactured by General Mills in India. Again, I didn’t really know what I was getting. Fish curry sounded a little odd, but I decided to give it a try.

It was also very good. I had to cook it longer than the recipe described because I added too much liquid to the pan, between the water from the fish and extra coconut milk.

Recipe: Cocoa mix

Here’s a recipe for hot cocoa mix.
The attached PDF is formatted for a 6″ x 4″ index card.
Cocoa Mix

The baking soda improves solubility.

Arrival

clapboardThis week, I was impressed by the movie Arrival (2016), directed by Denis Villeneuve.

There can be different essences that permeate a movie. One builds an adrenaline rush as the winners conquer their foes. Another thrills the audience with fear and suspense. Others gush with emotions like pathos or euphoria. Further movies purpose is to misdirect and then surprise the audience.

I don’t think Arrival fits neatly into those categories–it comes closest to the misdirect & surprise-the-audience theme. However, mostly, it gave me reasons to think. The movie didn’t feel like an attempt to market products to me–I didn’t even notice who manufactured the computers that were everywhere. It only asked me to spend time engaged with the story and to think about the human experience.

Once I watched the extra features on the disk, I saw attributes that make me appreciate the film more. Those nuances weren’t overwhelming. On first viewing, they didn’t draw me away from my embedding in the creators’ imagination and my suspension of disbelief.

The essence of my review is that am glad that I saw the movie.

Another dimension of success for the movie is that I am interested in seeing more movies by director Denis Villeneuve or with actress Amy Adams, who played the protagonist Louise Banks. Thanks to IMDB, that’s a lot easier than it was 40 years ago.

As a side note, one of the final credits thanks Stephen Wolfram. He is the creator of the tool Mathematica and the web site wolframalpha.com. I doubt that he remembers me, but about 30 years ago I visited his research lab in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois which was an exciting experience.