It was heartening to see the market regulator SEBI getting an upper hand, for once, in the Sahara case. If you want to know about the person at SEBI who made this possible, check out this article. It's in Marathi but take my word for it - even if you don't understand the language, it's worth enlisting the help of someone who does to translate it for you.

Candies, Pali Naka, Bandra (W)

There are places where the ambiance is good but the food is nothing to write home about and those where food is great but there is no such thing as ambiance. And then there is Candies - not the one near Reclamation, but the one at Pali Naka - where food and ambiance come together in a spectacular fashion to make weekend lunch something to look forward to since Friday evening :-)

I am not sure if it was my 2nd or 3rd visit there this weekend. But that hardly matters because I know I will keep coming back to this place as long as I am in Mumbai. A tip - unless your group includes someone who, either because of age or medical conditions, cannot climb stairs, make it a point not to sit in the downstairs sitting area. The upstairs sitting arrangement is roomier and certainly more enjoyable.

Okay, now about the proof of the pudding. I always go with the intention of trying out their salad bar and end up ordering something else altogether. This time we chose Dragon Chicken and Fish & Chips.

The Dragon chicken consisted of spicy crispy boneless chicken pieces. I have had the misfortune of eating undercooked or chewy 'crispy' chicken pieces before elsewhere so I was a bit apprehensive before I put the first morsel in my mouth. My worries were totally misplaced though - they promised 'crispy' chicken and they served 'crispy' chicken. Every piece spiced the same way. The dish came with an accompaniment of macaroni salad. It was delicious as well but for some strange reason contained peanuts.

Dragon Chicken

 Earlier, I used to go to the Ruby's Tuesday outlet in CR2 mall at Nariman Point for their Fish & Chips. But since the outlet has closed down, I had resorted to buying ready-to-serve Fish cutlets and a bottle of Tartar dip. Hence, I was very keen on sampling the dish at Candies. When it was served, I was a bit disappointed with the dry look of the cutlets. But once again the first bite dispelled all my apprehension. I stopped only after the last piece was polished off the plate :-) The potato salad that came as an accompaniment was a potato lover's dream come true but I am not sure why the bread roll was part of the meal.

Fish & Chips

 P.S. Just remember that it is a self-serve eatery.

Magnum - the new Belgian Ice-cream in town

The hoardings are all over the city - featuring fat candies in 3 different flavors. One of the hoardings is right on the road that I take for my daily evening walks. And to be frank, every time I look at it, I feel as if the calories that I have tried to burn are back just by looking at the candies.

Alas! That didn't prevent me from going for them as we hunted for a dessert post Sunday lunch. Presently, Bru Cafes are one of the places where they are being sold. There are 3 flavors as I said - Classic (outer shell of chocolate, vanilla ice-cream inside), Almond (no description needed here!) and Chocolate Truffle (for those of us who can't get enough of chocolate I guess).

I tasted a bit of every flavor - but I must say that I liked the Classic one the best. I paid a total of Rs 255 for 3 candies - which I must say is a bit steep. After all, I can get the same taste of Classic in Amul's Probiotic ice-cream candy. The only thing is that Magnum scores in the quantity department :-)

कोल्हापूरी मिसळ

वन-डिश मील हवं होतं पण दाल बाटी करायची नव्हती म्हणून रेसिपीज लिहिलेल्या वह्या चाळल्या तेव्हा ही कृती मिळाली. मस्त झाली म्हणून पोस्ट करतेय.

साहित्य: ओलं खोबरं, शहाजिरं, लवंग, दालचिनी, आलं लसूण पेस्ट, कोथिंबीर, तेल, हळद, कांदा (बारीक चिरून), टोमेटो (बारीक चिरून), मोड आलेली मटकी (शिजवलेली), शिजवलेल्या बटाट्याच्या फोडी, मीठ, कोल्हापूरी कांदा लसूण मसाला, तिखट, चिवडा/फरसाण/मोठ्या गाठी, लिंबू, पाणी

कृती:

तेलावर ओलं खोबरं, शहाजिरं, लवंग, दालचिनी, आलं लसूण पेस्ट आणि कोथिंबीर परतून घ्या. मग त्याचं मिक्सरमधून वाटण करा.
तेल गरम करून त्यात हळद, आलं लसूण पेस्ट, मोड आलेली मटकी (शिजवलेली), शिजवलेल्या बटाट्याच्या फोडी, मीठ घाला आणि परतून उसळ करा.

कट (रस्सा) करण्यासाठी - तेल (जास्त घ्या) गरम करा. त्यात हळद, कांदा (बारीक चिरून), टोमेटो (बारीक चिरून), कोल्हापूरी कांदा लसूण मसाला, तिखट घाला. परता. मग त्यात वाटण घाला. मीठ आणि पाणी घालून पातळ रस्सा करा.

खायला देताना प्लेटमध्ये तळाला मटकीची उसळ घाला. कांदा (बारीक चिरून) पसरा. त्यावर भरपूर कट (रस्सा) ओता. चिवडा/फरसाण/मोठ्या गाठी घाला. ओलं खोबरं, कोथिंबीर घाला. शेवटी लिंबू पिळा व ब्रेडच्या स्लाईसेससोबत सर्व्ह करा.

Supernatural Season 9 - #Thinman

Seriously? That's what this episode was all about? A pair of fake ghost-hunters and another pair of wacko hillbillies out on a killing spree? This isn't season 1 or 2 of the show, folks. We could do with either a novel supernatural being - like that pishtaco - or the next step in the angel-demon saga. And frankly, I doubt it if poor Dean needs more reminders of 'how he let poor little Sammie down'. He did what he had to - for Sam, for himself or for the love of mankind. That doesn't matter. Either they are in it together or they go their separate ways. Dean would do better to give Sam this ultimatum.

And for once, I won't mind an episode or two without the Winchester brothers. Give Cass and his band of angels some much-deserved screen space, for heaven's sake!

Happy Women's Day????

For once the news about atrocities being committed against women in the country have been pushed to the inner pages. It wouldn't be politically correct to print them in hysterical/sensational/screaming fonts, would it now? Not since everyone is busy celebrating Women's Day. But that doesn't change the fact that women are getting raped, married off at an early age, saddled with the burden of an early pregnancy, denied the basic right of education, prevented from having any say in how they should live their lives, harassed for dowry and in general being treated as property of their male relatives.

Frankly, I don't know what's there to celebrate. :-(

On The Street Where You Live - by Mary Higgins Clark (Spoiler Alert!)

Oh Boy! If it were not for the fact that I was sitting right at home when I decided to ask about this book during my next visit to the library, I would have assumed that I have passed a KalpaVruksha (the tree that grants your every wish) somewhere in my neighborhood :-) The synopsis of this novel was given along with that of 2-3 other Higgins Clark books at the end of 'All Through The Night' and I was fascinated by the story of two murders occurring in the same neighborhood, but a century apart. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this book sitting right on the front aisle as I began my hunt for the next reading material.

Criminal defense attorney Emily Graham seems to have more than her fair share of troubles in life lately. Her marriage is over but that hasn't stopped her ex-husband from suing her for his share of the money that she came into after selling stock of a hot dotcom. On top of it, she is being stalked by the son of a murder victim whose murderer she managed to get freed. Though the stalker has been put behind the bars, thanks to the cameras installed by her friend Eric Bailey - the owner of the dotcom - Emily feels the need to get away from it all. She decides to take up the offer of working for a major Manhattan law firm and moves to Spring Lake.

In a sort of 'Back to the Womb' way, she buys a home that used to belong to her ancestors several generations ago. But the restored Victorian house has a dark history. One of Emily's ancestors, a young girl called Madeline Shapley, had disappeared from it without a trace about a century ago, never to be found. As the backyard is getting excavated to make room for a swimming pool, a skeleton is discovered in the ground - bound in heavy plastic sheets. The hand of the skeleton is clutching a finger bone - with a ring on it. The ring turns out to be the same one that Madeline had supposedly worn on that fateful day.

Spring Lake is shaken to its very core when the police discover that the skeleton belongs to Martha Lawrence, a young girl belonging to a well-known Spring Lake family who had disappeared about 4 years ago. But the cops are startled when they find that over a century ago, two of Madeline's friends had also disappeared off the face of earth - Letitia and Ellaine. Moreover, the dates on which Madeline and Martha were killed match.

As the town goes crazy over rumors of a "Reincarnated" killer roaming the streets, Emily, to her horror, discovers that her stalker has followed her to Spring Lake.

*** Spoiler Alert Begin ***

First of all, I must confess that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one. The needle of suspicion never stops rotating - Dr. Wilcox and his wife, Natalie and her husband, Nick Todd, Eric Bailey, Will Stafford - each and every one looks like a suspect at different times. But I guess Clark went overboard with Eric Bailey's shyness and weirdness. We all know that a shy and weird character almost never is the killer. And then there is mention, however brief, of the carriage house where Will goes for picking up a few files. That did it for me. I would have been surprised if Nick Todd or Pete Walsh had turned out to be the killer. :-)

Apart from this, a few mistakes seemed to have crept in despite proof-reading. e.g. in one scene, Emily is said to be talking to Will as he begins to drive and yet on the very next page he asks her something 'as he starts the car'. And there is no mention of them stopping anywhere in between :-) Oh, and BTW, 'Nehru' is not the first name but a last name in India so 'Dr. Nehru Patel' is unlikely to be a name of someone of Indian origin.

*** Spoiler Alert End ***

I agree with USA Today when they say that it 'should come with a warning: start in the evening and you'll be reading late into the night'. I almost ended up doing it :-)