Filed under: Food, Movies, People | Tags: darjeeling limited, india, restaurant, slumdog millionaire
Last night I went to a restaurant in Providence called India, which was beautiful and luxurious, and didn’t really remind me a lot of the country. That’s only because I don’t really know what to think of the actual place, India, because of what I’ve seen from movies. In the past year I’ve seen 2 movies that give completely contradictory impressions of India, and I hope that I can someday go there and find out for myself what it’s like. But in the meantime I’ll try to reconcile the two views by way of finding a median.
Jason Schwartzmann, Owen Wilson, and Adrien Brody in The Darjeeling Limited.
The first movie is Darjeeling Limited, which I loved. As a die-hard Wes Anderson (the director) fan, I knew going into the theater that I was going to have a great time. Anderson’s movies are fantastical and he seems to view everything through the lens of a story-teller. His scenes are like drawings from a children’s book, with bright colors and patterns dominating the sets. Everything is filmed very simply, with straight-on shots and continuous scenes contributing to the sense that one may be reading a picture book instead of watching a movie. Darjeeling was beautiful because of the use of colors within scenes, but didn’t really give me an accurate idea of the place it explored. In the movie, India is a magical place where all the women wear jewel tones, all the children are friendly and innocent, and the country can be explored from the safety of a train car without actual exposure to the people. But Darjeeling, although it’s meant to do so, overly-romanticizes the place. I feel a connection for the characters, but not for the land.
The children from Slumdog Millionaire.
Conversely, Slumdog Millionaire, the famed Oscar winner, paints a much darker picture. The majority of Indian people live in the slums, with shacks for homes and dirt floors. Most of the characters are devastatingly poor or disadvantaged, and the only people who have risen above the poverty level are drug dealers. Children in this movie are drug mules, prostitutes, and their lives are nothing like a children’s book. Slumdog is beautiful but sad, and although the movie managed to garner a little bit of attention to the slums of India, the people living within them are still existing in a realm of squalor and oppression.
So the restaurant India didn’t really help me in my hopes to discern what the real India is like. The restaurant is very pretty inside, with silk archways and long cotton curtains separating the tables; Bollywood movies play on a large television next to the bar and belly dancers float around the aisles. It’s an India that doesn’t really exist except in the minds of Americans. There were two girls giving free henna tattoos, and I got one on my palm of a peacock. But even they didn’t really know anything about India. “Before Indian women get married, they get henna drawn on their hands, right?” They shook their heads and said they didn’t know.
The henna drawing I got last night.
I’m not sure how realistic the idea of taking a train across India is (as in Darjeeling), but maybe I’ll be able to experience it for myself someday. For now, I guess I can only appreciate what I know of India from movies, television, and of course, delicious Indian food.
Robin
The other day I found a website that simultaneously made me want to throw up and laugh and cry. No, it wasn’t Perez Hilton. It was the aptly-titled and somewhat disgusting website thisiswhyyourefat.com. The site is basically a blog of pictures and descriptions of horrible food creations people have come up with. Some gems include:
2-lb Cheeseburger
The 2-lb cheeseburger- clearly just 8 quarter-pounder-with-cheese’s stacked up between two buns. At least there are less carbs without the extra buns…?
The Elvis Donut
The Elvis Donut: A peanut butter glazed donut topped with bananas and bacon. Minus the bacon, this sounds awesome. Don’t get me wrong, I love bacon. But there’s a time and a place.
Taco Town Taco
This just seems like an abomination against tacos. I almost can’t believe the description given, but regardless, the Taco Town Taco is: a crunchy beef taco with nacho cheese, lettuce, tomato and southwestern sauce wrapped in a soft flour tortilla with a layer of refried beans in between, then wrapped in a corn tortilla with a layer of Monterey Jack cheese in a deep fried gordita shell with guacamole sauce baked in a corn husk topped with pico de gallo, wrapped in a crepe, filled with egg, griere cheese, sausage and portobello mushrooms, all wrapped in a chicago-style deep dish pizza wrapped in a blueberry pancake and finally deep fried with spicy vegetarian chili dipping sauce.
WHAT? Ok, I can’t think about that. Especially because the only food in my apartment right now is tomato soup.
The 30,000 Calorie Sandwich
Ah, the crown jewel of high cholesterol. This seems like the kind of thing you might think of when it’s 4a.m. and you’re drunk and hungry on the floor of your apartment trying to think of the fattiest, most disgusting foods you can with your roommate. Here’s the description: A sandwich filled with ground beef, bacon, corn dogs, ham, pastrami, roast beef, bratwurst, braunschweiger and turkey, topped with fried mushrooms, onion rings, swiss/provolone/cheddar/feta/parmesan cheeses, lettuce and butter on a loaf white bread.
A WHOLE LOAF OF BREAD. Ugh. One good thing, though: I started off looking at the site really hungry, and by now I’m so grossed out that I never want to eat again. It seems to me that most of the foods on there have 2 things in common: bacon and being deep-fried. So, note to self- stop deep frying bacon.
And now I’m going to go sigh discontentedly in front of my cabinet full of soup.
Robin
One thing most of my good friends and, actually, a lot of my acquaintances, know that i like cake. I think it runs in my family (hand-in-hand with my family history of diabetes… no coincidence, I’m sure) because my mom is obsessed with cupcakes, my dad loves ice cream, and my older sister is a complete vegan “except for cakes,” she claims.
Most people like cake, but it’s different with my family. We legitimately love cake. I mean, whenever we separately grocery shop, several of us will come home with Entenmann‘s. I constantly find myself feeling like Elaine in the episode of Seinfeld where she eats the cake her boss has hidden in his refrigerator, only to discover it’s a historical artifact from the 1930’s.
A friend of mine tried to make a cake in the shape of a guitar for her boyfriend, and ordered fondant online. Wikipedia describes fondant as “a cream confection used as a filling or coating for cakes, pastries, and candies or sweets.” My friend gave me the leftover fondant to eat/use for my own cakes, but I actually found it to be not terribly enjoyable on its own.
I’ve only gotten to eat wedding cake a few times, and all of those times I’d already enjoyed the open bar and so don’t really remember exactly how the cake was. I’m sure it was delicious, though. And recently I’ve gotten kind of obsessed with fondant cakes, as showcased on the Food Network show Ace of Cakes.
You can't even pretend this isn't amazing.
The example above should show the unbelievable shapes and ideas the cake chefs come up with. It can take days to make a cake like this, especially when using so much fondant; it’s sort of like clay. You have to roll it out, cut it, shape it, and not leave any fingerprints behind. In essence, this kind of cake-making is an art. The freedom this kind of baking gives the people who do the work can, however, cross over the line and into the unbelievably creepy. Take, for example, this horrifying cake of a baby:
Don't look directly at it!
OH MY GOD. I just passed out from looking at that because it’s so awful. A lot of people might find it cute, but at least someone out there agrees with me- the author of Cake Wrecks, a hilarious site dedicated to cakes gone wrong.
If you’re not that into cakes, I guess you could always dabble in cupcakes, another true love of mine. The amazing Australian ladies of Just Cupcakes! have their own Flickr page to display their treats. I promise it will keep you amused, if not just for the mouth-watering food but also for the sheer artistry of their creations.
lovely
So, if you’re a cake fan like me, or if you’re just having a sugar craving right now, you can always go to Australia and find my favorite cupcake artists or you could buy some Betty Crocker mix and just go wild in the kitchen.
Robin
It’s 7:04 p.m. on Valentine’s day and I’m cooking a chicken for the first time ever. I can pretty much only make soup and cake, and thought that cooking a chicken would be “romantic” somehow- in the sense that I’m being adventuresome.
Well, let me say something. My mom told me that the giblets (the guts) would be in a bag and I’d just have to reach in and pull it out by the plastic. I guess that’s only true for some brands because I had to actually stick my hand in and pull each internal organ out, one by one. I kept telling my boyfriend to stay in the other room as I wanted the meal to be a surprise but he came in when he heard me exclaiming to myself and right before I fainted.
It’s not that I am easily grossed out; in fact, I think of myself as having a high tolerance for the disgusting and grotesque. But there was just something about the cold and wet and very human-like skin of the chicken, plus the fact that I could feel its ribcage from the inside, coupled with my hatred of animal cruelty and usual vegan-ness that made me pass out. I’ve been a PETA member since 6th grade (although I’ve never attacked anyone on the street or crashed a fashion show) and live with my family and what could be considered a small farm. I love animals more than most people and would never hurt one.
That said, I can’t really tell why I thought I’d be able to handle cooking chicken. When I fainted, it was only for a second, and my boyfriend caught me and helped me out with the rest of the meal. I’d say I feel pathetic were it not for the fact that I pass out a lot and am kind of used to it. Oh well.
The chicken will be out of the oven in about 15 minutes. I don’t think I’ll be joining him in eating it, although the asparagus I made is looking pretty delicious at this point.
Happy Valentine’s Day,
Robin
Today when I logged into gmail a link popped up on the side offering to teach me how to make cake in a mug. Naturally, I wanted to learn…. and although it looks like it works, it also looks really disgusting.
It made me wonder about the physics of cooking an egg in the microwave. For some reason, I always assumed you couldn’t actually thoroughly cook an egg in the microwave, until a friend gave my roommate something called the “perfect omelet.” It’s basically a crescent-shaped piece of plastic that you pour egg into and microwave…. something my roommates and I have never built up the nerve to try.
Do you trust me?
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t trust eggs cooked in the microwave. There’s just something about it that doesn’t feel natural.
Robin
internet interest 