Captain’s Log Star Date 30/8/2008

Those of you who have watched the original Star Trek series would recognize this as the announcement made at the beginning of many of its episodes – in the voice of Captain James Kirk. :-) Needless to say that I have managed to watch 2 episodes of one my old time favorite shows.

The first one was “The Man Trap” in which the Enterprise makes a stop at one of the less frequented planets where a scientist couple is doing research. An interesting twist to the story is that the wife from this couple has been a former flame of the ship’s doctor – “Bones” aka Dr. McCoy! While his former sweetheart is naturally happy to meet the Doc after all these years, her husband is not so affable as he keeps on urging the Captain to leave them alone. What's more, the Captain is puzzled as to why the Doc keeps saying that the lady in question hasn’t aged a day since he last saw her while the Captain can spot quite a few gray hairs.

Then a crewman from the landing party gets killed and when he is examined aboard the Enterprise he is found to have died of depletion of body salt. The rest of the episode is about the investigation carried out by the Captain and the inimitable Mr. Spock which brings them face to face with the sheer power of the last surviving member of a strange species.

I must admit though that as I sat down to watch the first episode I was a bit apprehensive as I was watching these episodes after a quite a gap. The technological advances in computer graphics as well as the huge production budgets have got all of us used to sophisticated sets as well as trick photography. The sets and the photography, even the acting in some cases wouldn’t be a match to it. Would I lose interest in Star Trek?

Sure, some of the sets – especially the ones of alien planets – do look a bit primitive and acting by some of the junior crewman leaves a lot to be desired. But I found to my delight that I love the Bridge of the Enterprise, its Communication Console, the Screen with its millions of twinkling stars, the Communicators that help the landing party touch base with the Enterprise, the Landing Station (with Scotty ready to beam people up or down), the Enterprise orbiting around alien planets and my old friends - Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, Uhura, Scotty and Sulu (Chekov isn’t part of Season 1) - just the same.

My journey has started once again with the words “Space – the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise”. And I intend to enjoy every minute of it because if I have to borrow words from Mr. Spock – it’s fascinating! :-)

What’s in a name?

When I heard the name “Barack Obama” for the first time I thought of George Bush – not because Obama is a potential candidate for taking over his duties but because I wondered if Bush would have got confused between “Obama” and “Osama”.

And now I wonder if Bush has noticed the similarity between “Bin Laden” and “Biden”. :-)

I have been writing about some of my favorite food shows on the Discovery Travel and Living Channel on this blog. So far I have written about 4 shows - Kylie Kwong (Simply Magic, Cooking with heart and Soul), Nigella Lawson (Nigella Express, Nigella Feasts), Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations and Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavors of India.

Today I am going to write about 2 more shows - Keith Floyd’s “Floyd’s India” and Bobby Chinn’s “World Café Asia”.

Keith Floyd - Floyd’s India

Floyd’s India is different from the rest of the shows because Keith Floyd typically cooks 3-4 dishes simultaneously. Despite watching many episodes I haven’t been yet able to keep track of which ingredients are put in which dishes. J The confusion is confounded because even for a particular dish, he often tips in a lot of ingredients together in the pan. That makes me wonder out aloud every time if all of them cook to perfection.

There’s one thing common in his and Madhur Jaffrey’s show though – both of them cook in the unlikelist of places. I once watched Madhur Jaffrey cook seafood dishes on a beach. Similarly, Floyd once cooked against the backdrop of an abandoned palace in a lake in Jaipur – and had elephants for company!

As I watch this show I can’t help but feel that it would be better if Floyd cooks his dishes one at a time.

Bobby Chinn - World Café Asia

Chefs who travel all over the world sampling different cuisines almost always show - or at least make sure that they show – a respect for both – the local ingredients and the local way of cooking. I have often realized this while watching Anthony Bourdain’s show. Even if he doesn’t like any dish he doesn’t turn up his nose at it. He just says that it tastes different.

Bobby Chinn is however - different. I have often watched his show - “World Café Asia” – and wondered how he has managed to get away with such grimacing. And you would think that since he is a Chinese - and the Chinese have a reputation of eating anything that swims, runs, flies or crawls - there wouldn’t be much that he would make a face at. :-)

However, I watch his show because I have a fondness for Asian food – mainly Chinese and Thai. Of course, I know that the Asian food that’s actually served in these countries is vastly different than the one served elsewhere in the world. I have had a first hand experience of the same while on a tour in Bangkok. I was sick of the Indian spread – like Chhole, Palak Paneer, Dal Makhani, Rajma, Navaratan Korma, Chicken Korma and the omnipresent Rumali Rotis and Naan - that used to be laid out at the Indian hotels that our tour guide used to take us to during the lunch and dinner hours.

So at one of the places, when he told us that there was Thai food on offer at a table nearby I stopped midway between spooning boondi raaita onto my plate and rushed to that table.

But when I got there I couldn’t even tell what meat was served. Praying that I have selected chicken I piled the rest of my plate with some dishes that were very decidedly veggie. I was in for a major disappointment however and had to abandon my plate despite being a firm believer in the doctrine that food should never be wasted. :-(

Ok, back to Bobby Chinn. In a nutshell, I don’t watch these food shows just to enjoy the sight of the food being cooked – I also hope to pick up a tip or a recipe. If that means I have to also put up with Bobby’s grimacing, then so be it!

Cloud Appreciation Society

How many of us look up at the skies to observe the clouds? Apparently some of us do. Check out this interesting site - http://www.cloudappreciationsociety.org/

You bet I am going to be on the lookout from now on :-)