Poor Ending to a Lovely Program….

I, my family & few of my friends were a die hard fan of Zee Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. We use to be glued to our TV every Saturday and would love to listen to the young talents which had gone thru rigorous selection process to be left with last 3 finalists.

The final was to be on 13th Oct at 11 pm Singapore time. We all had planned for this finale and all of us were tired we were keen to see who was going to win and how it all would happen…. But it was going to be a drag and the most depressing final of all. All the time the Organisers had various ways of getting a new experience at each episode. But at the finale it was as if they did not put any effort in creating a grabd finale.. The program was very disconnected and uninteresting. There were too many ads in between and it was as if there was hardly anything left for them to show.

Worst thing of this program was when Himesh the Ugly, boasting & arrogant music director and singer started talking & praising everyone for no reason and at a wrong time. Ultimately when Aneek was announced as the winner, instead of letting the winners talk about how they felt, it was Himesh all the way opening his mouth. It was such a pain to hear him talk and not listen to the young talents expressing about their feelings on the victory and their journey.

My request to Zee Sa Re Ga Ma Pa producers for future shows will be to leave out Himesh out of the program. He is trying to get too much of footing for the wrong reasons. He is hardly spent much time in the Indian film industry but he is trying to act smarter than the legends in the industry like Asha Bhosle, Kishor Kumar, sonu Nigam.. and lot of other singers who have given better songs and music to us.. I guess the popularity and fame is getting to his head…. Watch out himesh .. time can run out for guys like you.. without.. you knowing it.. !!!

Moon Cake Festival Or Lantern Festival Or Mid-Autumn Festival

This festival, also known as the Lantern Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival, commemorates the 14th-century revolution led by Yuan Zhang who smuggled notes inside moon cakes and used lighted lanterns as a signal to launch the revolt. One of the highlights of the festival is the Moon Cake Fair where hundreds of festive stalls line the streets of Chinatown selling an astonishing variety of moon cakes, traditional paper lanterns, decorations and other delicacies. Children parade down the streets with their brightly lit lanterns in the Children’s Lantern Procession. The Chinese Garden becomes a fairyland of lights and colours for the Lantern Festival, and there is also a range of cultural shows and performances including lion and dragon dancing, Chinese instrumentalists and craftsmen.

One gets a cool flavour of this festival in Singapore at the Chinese Garden. The place is walking distance from the Chinese Garden MRT. The entry ticket is SGD 12 per person for adults and SGD 8 for children above 3 & upto 11 years. The whole of Chinese garden is lighted right from Chinese Garden MRT & usually there are different themes followed during the festival for the lighted showcase that is an attraction for all young and old at this place.

We, my family, Faisal's family & Chandrasekhar we all went for this wonderful festival & had a good time on friday evening. One good thing was there were decent food varieties available at the place. I remember last time I had almost starved walking around the place & couldn't find a place.

We took quite a number of photographs.. Few of them I have attached here. Rest I have uploaded on picasa.

Hope you can plan for this, its open till 30th September... Since it is lighted show one has to go in the evening. Hope you have a good time..capturing the Festival lights..with cameras...

My best Friend Cooks for us....

Anand and me have been together since childhood.. and we have shared our school days & studied together for our graduation & have always been there for each other. He has been married since a few years now and luckily he and his wife, Ranjeeta shifted to Singapore few months back as well & we usually spend atleast one of the weekends in a month together at their place or ours. This time they came down to our place.
Anand & Ranjeeta had a memorable trip to Thailand in Phuket & they had a wonderful experience of cooking with one of the Thai chefs in Phuket who taught them 3 recipes. One of them was Red Curry Chicken with Basil.. and we had a pleasure to have this made for us by Anand yesterday at our house. It was made like a professional and we ate it to our heart's full. I am sure the Chef would have given him 10 on 10 for the cooking skills.

I just thought of sharing this simple recipe for some of you who would like to try this themselves. It is very simple to prepare and tastes lovely with white rice.

Red Curry Chicken With Basil
Serve this classic curry over jasmine rice for a traditional Thai meal.
Yield: Serves 4 as a main dish
Time: 10 minutes to chop ingredients15 minutes to cook
Total Time: 25 minutes




Ingredients:
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 & 1/2 Tbsp Red Curry Paste
1 can Coconut Milk, shaken
1 & 1/2 lbs ( 500-750 g ) boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced into bite size pieces
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp Fish Sauce
1 red bell pepper, cored and sliced
10 large basil leaves, chopped


Equipment:
A large frying pan, which works much better than a wok!


Directions:
1 Heat the oil in the frying pan over medium heat.








2 Add the Curry Paste and simmer for 2 minutes, so that it is dissolved and foaming.








3 Stir in the can of the coconut milk. Cook over medium heat for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.








4 Add the sliced chicken. Simmer for 4 minutes.

5 Stir in the sugar, fish sauce and bell pepper. Simmer until the chicken is cooked, about 3 minutes more.









6 Add the chopped basil. Season to taste with more sugar or Fish Sauce as desired.









7 Serve over rice.







Don't forget to drop your comments about the recipe. ... and keep coming back to the blog for more scintillating recipes..& other stuff..