Yellow Light
Monday, May 8th, 2006
Bananas are cool, I like em a lot.
Archive for May, 2006
Chillie Mangtini
Saturday, May 6th, 2006
I made what I think is a kinda cool drink today. I’m calling it a Chillie Mangtini.
This is how it goes:
100 ml vodka (I used Absolut. I’d have used Gray Goose if I had it)
50 ml dry vermouth
50 ml mango juice
½ tea spoon (and that’s a little spoon) Chinese chillie paste (I used Dad’s)
4 cubes ice
Blend in a mixer for a min., until the ice is totally crushed, and garnish with a dried chillie when serving.
It was really good, with nice kick.
Be warned, if you are not used to hot stuff, go easy on the chillie paste.
On the table
Saturday, May 6th, 2006
Gallery Cafe, Colombo, waiting for lunch.
I took this photograph, on an assignment for a magazine. I thought this was the best one of the lot, but they didn’t pick it — perhaps because they were after the food shots 
A few months, after I posted it here, Manshark, who is a very readable blogger, who also meta-bloggs on Kottu, wrote a carefully detailed and very sensitive reading of this photograph.
I really liked it.
Some sexy music videos…
Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006
On a lighter note, for your amusement and entertainment, here is a roundup of some of my favorite music videos. Includes stuff from from Tatu, Paffendorf, Tim Deluxe, and more..
Romance of Colombo’s Place Names
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006
by Andrew Scott , Daily News – Sat Jan 5, 2002Colombo has served the needs of many generations and it has a simple beginning dating back to the colonial era. The very beginning of Colombo dates back to 1505 when the militant Portuguese invaded the is…
Pineapple Wasabi Lamb
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006
As promised, here is the recipe for the lamb dish I’ve been working on.
Recipe.
(This is the first pass, please let me know in your comments what’s unclear, and what I’ve left out).
Okay things you need:
250g Lamb
Salt, pepper, vinegar, spices, a shallot & garlic.
1 Cup stock (or water)
1 Cup pineapple juice ( a slice of pineapple)
1 or 2 teaspoons of wasabi
½ cup of Arrack or Cognac
Debone, cube, and trim the lamb. (I use the boneless variety you get in those light green 250g frozen packs in Colombo supermarkets; so this is for one pack of 250g)
Season with salt, pepper a thimbleful of vinegar, and even less olive oil, just to bind the salt in. add a few cardamom pods, cloves and cinnamon stick pieces, if you like that, and set aside for at leave a half an hour.
Slice a big Bombay onion, which is a shallot, (kind of, or is it exactly, I’m not sure?) and a few cloves of garlic. Sauté in a heavy skillet, and when the onions are translucent, add the lamb, turning over until nice and brown. Then add about 150ml – 200 ml of stock or water, (I like to add stock, and I follow Barbara Kafka’s stock making method, but it works okay with just water even ((I tried it)– if you are okay with store bought cubes, then that’s cool also but store bought isn’t the same as home made, so there) deglaze the pan a little reduce heat, and simmer for about 40 mins may be more or less, covered, until the lamb is real soft.
Okay now it gets a little fancy, we are going to make a glaze. But its not hard, even I can do it!
Take the lamb off the fire, drain it with a fine sieve, and separate out that gravy.
Set the lamb aside, and add an equal potion of pineapple juice, and half a potion of arrack or cognac. {In Sri Lanka, arrack is cheap, and its pretty much the law, that we drink lots it — that’s a note for foreign readers, as they say in the book trade}.
Okay so if ya have a cup of gravy that’s a cup of pineapple juice and half cup of arrack.
Then you’ve got to boil this down until it is real thick and syrupy. The first 7 mins will be boring, and then it gets thick. This is where it can burn. Be careful. You need a heavy pan, a double boiler, or one of those thick, white plastic thingies I got from Arpico, that you can put in microwave, and let things boil in. (I will add a pic of this soon). Yes!
Even so, watch it — once the mixture thickens, its going to caramelize, because of the sugar in the pineapple juice, and you don’t want that.
While the mixture is boiling down, pick out the stray spices from the lamb, and any other stray bits of skin or not so nice stuff, that’s visible, and slice your self some tiny silvers of pineapple for garnish.
Then, when the glaze is done, add wasabi, (which is a horseradish paste, often served with sushi; I get mine in a tube, from keels or arpico, it not really expensive at all, because it will last for ever) one teaspoon at time, to the glaze, mixing thoroughly each time.
Now that’s a real teaspoon, which is teeny, morsel like thing. Careful because wasabi is hot, with a unique oh-wow! flavor, but you can’t over do it. Keep tasting until the sweetness of the glaze is balanced by the strength of the wasabi.
This sauce will be just right, when it is what my friend Jennifer calls morrish, which means you always want to have more of it.
Heat the Lamb up one more time and plate, with the glaze spooned over the cubes, just as you serve, garnish with pineapple sticks and a little more wasabi.
Try it out before you go live as it were, and hey, take bow if it works.
Mount Lavinia Hotel
Monday, May 1st, 2006
Almost one year ahead of our wedding day, we started to search for a venue for the occasion. It was a difficult task, as the venue should match all our requirements, including suitability to host a traditional wedding.When I started to climb the stair …