ihath

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Recipe

Cut up 2 cauliflower  heads into florettes and boil for about 15-20 minutes. You want the cauliflower to be cooked but still firm. Don't over cook.


Strain  cauliflower from water.

 On one plate place 1 cup of  flour.
In a bowl mix 5 eggs with salt and scramble with a fork.
 In a second plate place 1 cup of bread crumbs.
Drench each florette first into flour, shake off any excess
 then cover with eggs, finally drench in the bread crumbs.


Fry the each piece of cauliflower lightly on each side.

If there is any eggs left from before,  fry that up to make an omlette.


Finally, place all the pieces in a baking pan. Stacking them on top of each other is fine. Bake in the over for about 30 minutes.



You could deep fry instead, but I think light frying and then baking taskes better.

Here is what it looks like when you are done.

  O so long ago, garden gnomes lived in mystical gardens of profound magic and entertained themselves with random acts of mischief, but not this garden gnome. Frakash was bored with his fairy-tale existence. To him, memorizing magic spells only to recite them at absurd moments seemed like an entirely mind-numbing activity. Curiosity grew into an insatiable volcano in Frakash’s heart. One day, with reckless abandon, he catapults himself into a world of intellectual magnificence and finds his humble gnome self surrounded by computer programmers. His brain has never felt this electrified, even in all his past gnome lives charging dragons and rescuing fair maidens. Will Frakash be able blend in with the all powerful geekmeisters that call themselves computer programmers? Will he be able to produce the dizzying array of shapes and designs that form programs? And alas, will he be able to make the transition from the kingdom of magic into a world where unbridled brain power reigns supreme? All is revealed in The Adventures of Frakash in the Land of the Geekmeisters; a 5200 word manuscript accompanied by 15 vivid illustrations.




  I just finished working on the story and illustrations. The query letter will be going out to literary agents on Monday. I feel excited yet terrified. If somebody knows a literary agent and can hook me up I will be eternally grateful.



Wish me luck.



You can read more about the story of Frakash here:

Frakash came upon a large grey beast standing all alone in one corner. He figured this was the geekmeister’s dragon. The grey dragon was making a menacing humming sound. “Poor geekmeisters, they probably don’t know how to deal with him” thought Frakash to himself. “After all, geekmeisters don’t have time to take dragon charging training like garden gnomes do; I will thrash this beast into obedience in no time and impress all my yet to be friends” was Frakash’s reckoning. Frakash began reciting the dragon submission chant: “Fooooooooooo, fooooooooooo,fooooo,fooo,foo, kafo!” and then charged forward with absolute certainty, showing no fear, to grab the dragon’s scales around his eyes. The unexpected happened, the dragon began to shake and flash with blinding lights that didn’t burn. Instead of spitting fire the dragon began to spit sheets of paper. Frakash froze with shock. He had heard of flying carpets, but never heard of flying papers. The paper piled on top of him and gave him the tiniest little cuts all over his body. Once Frakash unfroze from his shock he tried to think quickly of a way to get out of his predicament. He remembered the bush whacking spell, which he used to free himself of the constricting paper surrounding his body and ran away as fast as possible.

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Frakash looked at the computer sitting on the desk delighted to get a chance to try this thing called programming. "How hard can it be?" thought Frakash to himself. He began to stare intently at the screen the same way he had seen Laila do while sitting on her sundeck. There were many words on the screen that Frakash couldn’t understand, but he maintained his intense gaze and squeezed his face muscles. After a while he began to notice patterns in the words that appeared on the screen, and then he started to realize that there were a few words that he did understand. He discovered that this thing called programming contained violent language that Frakash disapproved of. “If I rewrite this program using happier and more life affirming words I might be able to change the life of the geekmeister who labors in this box”, Frakash reckoned. He changed things around, “Trigger” became “Happy Event”, “Alert” became “Joyful tid-bit” and “Kill Process” became “Whistle cheerfully while you wait”. Frakash was quite amused, but after only a few minutes, the machine became angry and began making strange noises. The picture on the screen turned blue, like the sky. Frakash did not understand the meaning of the words: “System Error”. Frightened, he fled.


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1 large egg plant
4 table spoons on tahini sauce
juice of two lemons
1 clove of garlic
1 table spoon of extra virgin olive oil
pinch of salt
pinch of paprika

------ For decoration and garnish
chopped parsley
2 table spoons of extra virgin olive oil
sumac
5 olives
orange pepper, sliced thin


------- Directions
Roast the eggplant in the oven for 1 hour on 400 degrees.
Take the eggplant out of the oven and peel the skin by hand. Take the insides of the eggplant and place in a bowl. Mash the eggplant with a fork, making sure to get rid of any large chunks. Using a garlic press, squeeze a garlic into the eggplant. Add all tahini, lemon juice, salt, paprika 1 table spoon of olive oil and mix with a fork. Spread the baba ganoush of a flat plat, making a groove in the middle using a spoon. Pour the olive oil into the groove. Garnish and decorate using the parsley, sumac, olives and orange peppers.

Soak 2 cups of dried chickpeas in cold water over night.
The next day, boil the chickpeas for about 1 hour or until they can be squished between two fingers.
Drain the chickpeas of water.
Freeze half to use to make humus two weeks later, because that is how ofter you should be eating humus ... at least!

The other half throw into a food processor with:

1. The juice of 3 lemons
2. 4 table spoon of tahini sauce
3. Two cloves of garlic
4. bit of olive oil
5. cumin
6. salt

Mix for 2 minutes

Serve on a flat plate and garnish with olive oil, parsely and cumin.
Present it with pita bread.

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Now that I had so much fun playing with my digital camera and editing things in MovieMaker, I can't stop thinking about all the possibilities .... what next?

   In the computer biz, people will frequently describe software as being usable, or being user friendly. That is like presenting me with a dish and telling me that the food is edible. I am glad that the food is edible, but I expect so much more from food. I expect it to look good, smell appetizing, tickle my taste buds and I prefer to share it with good company. Good conversation and a few laughs make food so much more delicious. Food can be something that you dump into your stomach, at its best can be sensual experience and most of the time is something in between.

    Cooking is one of my passions. Recently I impressed my friend with some spinach pies. She seemed amazed by the fact that I made them from scratch. “Oh it is easy” I kept telling her. She look at me in disbelief. “No really! It is super easy; you start by making dough, the way you make for pita bread”. I started, trying to convince her of the undemanding nature of spinach pies. My friend looked horrified, “You make your own pita bread?” she asked me in disbelief. “Oh that is so easy” I replied. “You mix 6 cups of flour with salt, in a separate pot you warm up 3 cups of milk, you want the milk warm, but not hot .....” I noticed her eyes glaze over. I was going above my friend's culinary skills. The thought of making dough scared her off. Later on that day I remembered something, something I had forgotten. 18 years ago, I didn’t know how to boil an egg. Making a simple pot of rice seemed like an ordeal. Nine times out of ten, when I baked a cake, the cake got dumped in the garbage instead of anybodies stomach. What takes me half an hour to make without even putting my mind into it, used to take me 4 hours of focused attention years ago. Yeah! Cooking is easy .... because I have been experimenting with it for 18 years. It is a snap today, but it seemed like a bewildering mystery many years ago. I suddenly felt very humbled by this thought.

You know what else I have been doing for a long long time? Even longer than cooking. Programming. My initial passion. I am first and foremost a computer geek. It is time that we set the bar higher. No more just  edible software. For a while now, I have been working on something, here is the baby version of it. I am hoping it will grow into a healthy young adult one day.



You can explore a bit more here.

Frakash was stricken with a thunder bolt of emotion. He never felt such anger in any of his past gnome lives. Wishing he could lay flat on his stomach and pound his fists and feet on the ground like he saw Laila’s children do sometimes, a dark shadow eclipsed his heart. “I belong with the geekmeisters, I want to be one of them”, Frakash found himself thinking. “No giant glass door, no office manager and no security system can keep me out”, he muttered to no one in particular. For the first time in his life, acts of mischief of a dark kind entered his fantasies; the kind that is forbidden even by the gnome essential book- Mastering the Art of Mischief of Every Kind. Frakash surprised himself with an impulsive act.


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That night Frakash sneaked himself into Laila’s backpack, the same backpack he saw her carry to work every day. His plan was simple, to slip himself into the office of the geekmeisters and later jump out of the backpack and try to mingle with the people pretending he was one of them. After all, he had spent one whole year observing the way Laila talked and behaved. With a bit of ingenuity and cunning he was sure to blend in. “Nobody will suspect that I am just a garden gnome”, he told himself.



In the morning, everything went according to plan. As Laila walked past the large glass front door of her workplace, Frakash was riveted with a mixture of emotions that rumbled inside his body the way hamsters partied in their burrows. He was amazed by the large glass door. He had seen little shards of glass in the garden, glass windows of a house, but never something so big. The door was smooth, pristine and so perfectly flat. The adventure had already started for Frakash and his heart was spinning like a twirling dervish. His plan worked like clockwork. Laila, busy thinking about the next brilliant design, never opened her backpack in the morning and never suspected the stowaway garden refugee on her way to work. Frakash managed to get through the security without a problem. As soon as Laila walked through the large glass door, Frakash jumped out of the backpack and into the front hallway of the office of the geekmeisters. “Wow! I made it, I am here!”, Frakash jumped up and down with excitement. As he looked around his new surroundings, he was awestruck by what he saw. The walls were perfectly white, not a single smudge or speck to be seen. The earth was covered with a plush and fuzzy light blue material that was so pleasant to touch; Frakash wished he could roll face down in it. It was so delightful; Frakash reasoned he didn’t even need to wear boots. Everything was clean; there was no dirt, no worms and no crawlies. The geekmeisters sat in perfectly shaped boxes, focused on their work. There was no noise, except for a faint sound of the efficient clicking on the keyboard in the background, which blended together into a harmonized buzz. There was no smell either, not of manure, not of dirt, not of anything. Frakash could feel the relief in his sinuses as they smelled nothing for the very first time in their tired existence. “Oh this place is heaven”, Frakash thought to himself as he closed his eyes to soak up the moment, but, alas, his rapture came to a hasty end.

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Here is a clip of me reading a short story at the Vancouver International Writers Festival. Open Mic event. I ran out of time and so had to cut the story short. But you can read the full text of the story below.



The story of the Fish



There once was a fish that swam happily in the sea and was as happy as ... well as happy as a fish swimming in the sea could be. One day when the happy fish was swimming near the shore, it heard a wise voice from above say : “A woman needs a husband, like a fish needs a bicycle”. The fish felt riveted by what it heard. “A bicycle! .... A bicycle! ... A bicycle” ... the fish repeated the word in its mind like a chant. “O something that I don’t need” ... thought the happy fish lustfully. “For once to have something that I don’t need, would be something indeed”. And so the fish swam around the sea, feeling slightly less happy than happy can be, singing to herself a tune that can never be: “ I want to ride a bicycle, I want to ride a bicycle, I want to ride a bicycle”. And then one day as if by magic, the less happy than happy can be fish took a wrong turn and felt lost in the big sea. In a panic, the fish twirled around and zigzagged in random shapes, until it found itself in a never before encountered reef. As the sun sent its golden rays down the shallow end, darkness uncovered the way theatre drapes part on an opening night, and there it was, a shining object with two wheels. The fish’s heart skipped two beats and wobbly wobbles went up and down its imaginary knees. “God is indeed great” professed the fish. For it had wished, yearned and asked, but only an empowered creator could have answered back so eloquently. The fish stared at the bicycle in awe and with great trepidation approached it attentively. First the fish had to untangle the weed that entwined itself around the frame and across the wire. Then the fish made sure to place a coloured ring around the wire of the front wheel to mark it as taken. The fish was certain that had any other fish discovered this treasure it would lay its immediate claim. Now that the bicycle was cleaned and marked, it still looked unsatisfied. The fish knew that a bicycle was made for riding and not lying on one side. That is when the fish realized that her imaginary knees and knuckles better materialize. And so the fish swam to the Odd Objects store, where little fishes went to play pranks on their cousins and buy Halloween trappings. Among the soggy shelves it found sand blasting guns and plastic fins. But at the back of the store in the “Dropped from Heaven” department it found what delighted. Prosthetic human limbs, with the necessary knuckles and knees, the fish purchased without asking the price and went home feeling most accomplished. The fish spent all her evening strapping on legs , arms and practicing wobbling motions to bring them alive. After many failed attempts, the fish felt confident. It decided to approach the prized possession in her new disposition. The bicycle seemed mildly impressed with the fish’s hearty attempt. But Alas, all riding trials ended with the fish buried under a pile. The fish now was the most unhappy fish in the sea. It practiced and practiced with wobbly motions of all kind until a precise choreography of torso movements yielded mastery of limbs. The unhappy fish approached the bicycle with a new determination. And lo and behold! A riding experience was in the cards. The fish rode gingerly, around and around in a circle, and then in straight line. All the creatures of the sea, looked upon with amazement. Even the octopus and the shark spared precious moments to notice. The tortoise smiled for the first time in 50 years and the star fish took a vow of non violence. For times, they are changing and the signs were clear as can be. They sensed they had witnessed history. The fish puffed up it chest in victory and rode around every day to applause and adoration. The bicycle seemed pleased, but not all was well in the sea. A few logical fishes doubted the victorious fish and asked annoying logical questions : “Why ride a bicycle when you can swim faster? Why defy nature when god gave us scales and fins? A fish is not a human. Pretending something that you can’t be is a dangerous venture”. But the victorious fish answered them with clever retorts that silenced them: “You dumb doubters don’t you see? This is progress, it is called technology. Today I ride gingerly in a straight line, tomorrow I will zip around like a devil on ecstasy. You old fashioned fish don’t matter; it is us modern fish that hold the future in our nonexistent fingers”. In this state of defiance, the fish knew that it had to perform. In order to ride with required speed, the defiant fish needed to construct an elaborate plan to level paths and roads so that the bicycle could speedily navigate around. Although the doubters have been silenced, the defiant fish was certain that their doubting voices would rise again. As the vigorous training program for bicycle racing began, the astonishing happened. The bicycle spoke. Its first words in the sea where screeching moaning sounds of whining. “eeeemmmmmmmmmm, I do not like to forge ahead with this haste, I do not enjoy being ridden by a fish, I do feel nauseated by the wetness of the salty sea”. The shocked fish was dumb founded. Completely aghast, “Why didn’t you say something sooner, until now I thought you were deaf and mute”. “Oooooooo! I didn’t want too seem excessively fussy”, replied the bicycle. “That bastard!” .... er ... I mean .... “That illegitimate love child of a car and a unicycle!” ... “After everything I have done for him!”.... er .... I mean “After everything I have done for it!” ... The shocked fish began to scream and in complete hysterics picked up the bike with all its might and threw it to the shore. As tears poured down the depressed fish’s cheeks, it took off the fake limbs. Much to its surprise it found that real limbs had began to grow out of its torso and the depressed fish realized that it had forgotten how to swim. The fish sat next to the shore and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. “O! One day when I am finished sobbing, I will teach myself how to swim using these new limbs, who knows perhaps I will invent a novel way of swimming for fish” said the depressed fish to console herself. “And if that doesn’t work, I have heard that they can do wonders with plastic surgery these days” the depressed fish continued. That is when the depressed fish heard the wise voice from above again: “I told you that a woman needs a husband, like fish needs a bicycle. Next time why don’t you poke yourself in the eye instead and save yourself the heartache”. And so the fish started a poke in the eye business, where the young and foolish fishes could ,for a fee, get a poke in the eye using the depressed fish’s new limbs to immunize themselves from heartache. Her business motto was “A fish needs a bicycle like a woman needs a husband”. And the fish lived forever after bitterly.

Acrylic on canvas
24x18 inches

Acrylic on Canvas
16x20 inches

I am like a Christmas tree right now. All my emotions are blinking on and off like Christmas tree lights. I feel everything. I feel sad, angry, bitter, happy, relieved, free. Emotions come over me like waves and then go away only to be struck by the next one. One minute I am crying, next I feel happy and optimistic. “What doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger” goes the saying. I don’t want to get stronger, I am strong already. Only one light is acting unusually. A little yellow light, right under the bottom left corner of my heart, it is always on and doesn’t show any interest in blinking. Even the pixels on my laptop’s screen are acting funny. It has a few dots that blink red when they are supposed to be black. In sympathy with my Christmas tree state, my laptop has decided to follow.

I am not worried about getting through this, I know I will. I don’t care if I get stronger or not, it is all the same to me. I am worried about the type of person I will emerge as. I catch myself being not myself. “This is so not me, this is so so not me” I find myself thinking. Just last week I caught myself watching the movie Sleepless in Seattle. I never watch those pathetic Hollywood romantic comedies. They are stupid and saccharine pieces of puff pastry stuffed with sentimentality. These movies are fluff with no substance. I like serious movies, intelligent movies, hard hitting movies. I enjoy French cinema, world cinema, movies that maintain artistic integrity and I follow directors that practice their trade with the assumption that audience has brains. But for some reason I found myself yearning for corniness of the happy ending and indulging in the banality of not considering the ever after. “This is so not me, this is so so not me”, I kept telling myself. I am really worried about myself, what is next? I will start reading a harlequin novel? ..... Aaaaaah! No! ...... I hope I never catch myself in that stale pit of triteness. My current state of degradation is bad enough. Thank god I don’t own a T.V. set or otherwise I would start following soap operas ... I can’t decide which would be worse.

I am worried about the state of my heart at the end of this. Just last year I was sitting in coffee shop in Jerusalem with my daughter on a touristic visit, we were eating breakfast. A middle aged man sat across from us and without taking a breather began to flatter me with all sorts words of flowery compliments. He even asked me, pointing at my daughter “Is this your sister?” ... Ah! ... whatever. “I wonder what this guy is selling?” I found myself thinking cynically. Well sure enough, 15 minutes later it emerges that the man is a tourist guide and he was offering us his services to take us on tour of the city, for reasonable fee. I thanked him for the offer but assured him that I know my way around the city. As we were leaving my daughter commented “Wow! Mom that man is in love with you”. I was so touched by her naiveté. I tried to explain to her how people use flattery to sell things or services. How flattery is an effective tool with dim-witted people to get what you want out of them. But my daughter, only 13 at the time, insisted that the man was taken by me. Although I am certain that my version of events is the correct one, I felt envy at the fantastic world she lives in, where everybody says only what they truly mean. O I lived in that world for a long long time. Too long really. But the wild tiger of reality came along and prayed on the slow deer of my innocence. I explained my point of view to my daughter but not too forcefully. Later on that same day we went to the old city of Jerusalem with is busy markets and hustle and bustle locals shopping for daily needs. As we walked by, a merchant yelled at me “ I love your scarf!”. I said thank you politely and moved on quickly trying hard not to engage in any further discussion. My daughter looked adoringly at the colourful scarf wrapped around my neck and commented “Wow! Mom that scarf is really beautiful” as if noticing it for the first time, even though she saw me wearing it many times before. Again, I tried to explain to her that the merchants in the old city of Jerusalem are supper aggressive. If they even smell a faint hint of a tourist, they will do anything to engage you in a discussion, after which they muscle you into their store and then try to pressure you to buy silly trinkets for exuberate prices. That the comment on my scarf is nothing but the start of an elaborate sales pitch. “No mom, I think the man really liked your scarf”, was my daughter’s determined response. O ! to be that innocent again. I took off the scarf and unwrapped it from around my neck. I am not in any hurry to wisen her to the ways of this world . “Let her enjoy being foolish for a little longer” I thought to myself as I wrapped it around her neck.

Only a child protected by a loving family can maintain a high state of naiveté, but I am worried that I am going too far in the other direction. Is it possible to have all the knowledge that I have and all the experiences that I had, yet not become a cynic? I used to think that the answer was a resounding yes. But now in my blinking state, I am seriously worried. This is so not me. This is so so not me. Will I still recognize myself at the end of this?

I hope my private Christmas season will not last as long as it does in a north American mall. Rudolf the red rose reindeer, Meg Ryan in yet another tooth aching happy ending, I will go eat a puff pastry and hope the closings credits rolls soon.