Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Yummy and Heavenly


These are some of the latest things that wifey baked.

She is always experimenting with her baking skills. Not that I am complaining, as I get to taste some real good stuff.





Last month I sauntered into the kitchen and found this big plate all piled up with mangoes which looked very pale. 
I asked wifey “Hey why so many mangoes and why are they looking so pale ?”
She said “its all sort of blanched”

Me : “Blanched?”

Wifey “ Well I don’t know if the technical word is blanched, but what I did was, put them in boiling water till they turned slightly yellow and then immediately took  them out and cooled them”

Me “ But who wants to eat boiled and cooled mangoes?”

Wifey: “I am not finished. Do you see that big jar down there? I have filled it with salt water. We have to slowly slide in those mangoes in the salt water one by one and make sure that all of them are submerged properly”



Me “then?”
Wifey: “then we wait”
Me “wait? for what ?”
Wifey: “for the right time to take them out and relish them one by one”

Me “ and when is that right time?”
Wifey “ well, it can be anytime from one month to one year. You see when we don’t have any suitable curry to go with our rice, we just fish out one and have them as an accompaniment. Its heavenly and yummy”
Wifey went about with her other chores and I kept staring at the “Blanched Mangoes” My photographic instincts told me that I should take some photos of them before they were turned into heavenly and yummy.
Suddenly I found that there were two voices talking to me. One from the left shoulder and one from my right shoulder.
The one from the left shoulder said “go ahead take out your camera and click some pictures. You can upload them on the site where you sell your pictures”
Right shoulder: Oh what is the use, any way its going to be rejected as usual
Left shoulder:  No no . . . . . . just go by your gut feeling, put all your passion into it. If you click a good one it will get accepted
Right shoulder:  Oh come on it’s a waste of time, remember how they reject with the answer “this is not what we are looking for
Left shoulder: Come on Joe you are a good photographer and you have an eye for it. Just make it happen. This time select your best camera
Right shoulder : Good camera ? Ha, that is a joke. Remember the last time you clicked with your latest costly camera. After submission what did they say? “Chromatic aberrations and purple fringing” and what not. They threw so much jargon at you that you did not understand half of it.
Left shoulder : Go by your instinct. Open your cupboard and pick up that eight year old camera of yours.
Right shoulder : Oh that one with four Mega Pixel? And after post processing and trimming how many mega pixels will you get? Just forget it and go and lie down on that easy chair and relax.




Left shoulder : There are ways to overcome that. Why don’t you take a good close up so that there is no need for trimming. This time use your tripod. Make use of the reflectors that you have. Click many pictures, so that you can select the best.
So I did just that. Listened to the Left shoulder.
I carried the plate of mangoes out onto our patio and placed it on a stool (in the shade) Fixed up the tripod and mounted my old faithful eight year old 4 Mega Pixel camera. Tried to place the object in the one third (or was it two third) of the screen.



Wifey from the kitchen “ Hey where did all my mangoes go?”
Me “ Its here honey, can you just come out and hold this reflector for me while I adjust the camera and set it up”
I put the camera on automatic mode and pressed the shutter and ran up to wifey to help her deflect the light on to the mangoes from the proper angle.
While I was trying to take some more shots wifey said “common hurry up, I am standing in the sun. By the way, why are you using that old camera. Why don’t you use your brand new one”
Me “Well you will not understand, its what the Left shoulder said”
My wife gave me an open mouthed quizzical look.
Once I was done with the mangoes, I lugged the huge jar onto the patio and repeated the same procedure to click pictures of the jar.
Later I did some simple post processing of isolation on white and made the mangoes look a little more greener (after all who wants to look at pale looking mangoes)
It too me some time for the isolation (but I had full confidence with the voice from the left shoulder)
As soon as it was finished I uploaded the mangoes (I had yet to do the post processing of the jar)
Now comes the waiting part with fingers crossed. 



The next morning when I logged onto the site, hey presto the Blanched Mangoes were accepted !!
I ran into the kitchen and hugged my wife lifting her off her feet “I love your blanched mangoes, they are heavenly and yummy. See I told you ……… we should always listen to the voices from our left shoulder. Now the photographs of the blanched mangoes will get sold and we can buy more raw mangoes and pickle them in salt water”

29 comments:

Crazy Life of a Writing Mom said...

This is hilarious. I LOVE cooking. Isn't it fun when the outcome is amazing, even if it doesn't go exactly as expected :0)

Anonymous said...

You are so funny :) And your wife is a good cook :D I am a lousy cook...so lousy for so many years I have only been feeding my husband aloo paranthas and paneer :D

And, left shoulder, right shoulder? That never happened to me, its more like too many hearts and voices that I hear talking...

hamaarethoughts.com said...

it was hilarious ...but ..the recipe is unique..never heard of mangoes this way...blanched and added in salty water!
should try this out!
thanks for sharing!!!

Anonymous said...

I never would have thought to blanch mango's! What a great idea! I'm so glad your picture was accepted! Yeah.

Betsy Banks Adams said...

What a cute post... Since I'm a 'lefty' --I was hoping that the Left Shoulder would fine... ha ha

Your wife is quite a talented woman... I'm sure you are enjoying some of that delicious food she is preparing.. YUM!!!!

Betsy

Connie said...

Congratulations to you, Joe, on getting your photo accepted so that it can be sold! How exciting and fun that must be. Success is a good feeling, isn't it. :-)

Hurray for your left shoulder! It won out and so did you! You should listen to it all the time.

Lucky you, too, that your wife is such a good cook and is willing to try new things.

Tomz said...

Great Joe..thats truly great...The way u express things is quite familiar to me..

Anuradha Shankar said...

Great pics! no wonder they were accepted! the recipe is certainly new to me! so how did they taste later? after dipping in the salt water?

Smita said...

hehehe...I love baking & those trays with delicious looking stuff is just yummy!!!

And lol @ your left & right dilemma so ultimately left was right ;)

Bikram said...

he he he :) made me smile and you know that JAR .. WE got exactly same one at home back in punjab and each year , mum fills it with Mangoe pickle and its so very yummmyyyyyyy

and as the obove comment Left was right then :)

Bikram's

Laura Jones said...

the pastry-things look really good! the story was entertaining, though blanched and salted mangoes sound a little odd. but i bet they were delicious! x

Stephanie said...

You had me at that first picture! When are you having us all over for dinner") lol

Swapna said...

The whole process was so similar to the traditional Indian process of pickle making, even the jars (according to me) seemed similar as used in South India. We use mangoes too:) Enjoyed the witty style of narration too.

walk2write said...

Who would have thought that blanched mangoes could be such a boon to your business? Lucky thing you listened to that left shoulder guy:)

Lowell said...

What a delightful post and great photos, too! Very enjoyable! Merci!!

Neelam Kamdar Bhamani said...

What a cute story to go with all these wonderful pics!! Loved it:)

Unknown said...

The pastries on top look delicious, I would try one right now! :-)

magda said...

Wonderful photos, piza and many-many humor!!!
Many greetings

GratefulPrayerThankfulHeart said...

A fun and lighthearted post :) The plate of food looks really yummy to me!

Kavita Saharia said...

A Perfect Post ! I loved it .

h said...

Congrats, that's great news! I like the mango photo :)

TinaRBK said...

Congrats on the photo acceptance! This post was definitely a good read, glad I stopped by.

Julie G. said...

A most wonderful post! Delightful narrative and photographs. Congratulations on having your blanched mangoes photo accepted. A joy to visit your terrific blog!

Manju @ Manjus Eating Delights said...

That was a nice read :) Liked the left shoulder , right shoulder part.
Thanks a lot for stopping by my space and thanka again for offering to do a guest post . Will definitely consider it soon. Let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Manju
http://manjuseatingdelights.blogspot.com

Gillian Olson said...

Interesting post, glad I stopped by, thanks for your recent visit to my post too.

Here I Am Carrie said...

Great story. Loved it. Sounds like your wife is a great cook also. The mango photo did turn out very well. Good you listened to your gut.

Marvin said...

Great story and delicious-looking photos.

sangeeta said...

Good food and good humour makes live so much more worth living :-)
Great post as always.

Mammasaurus said...

A funny story and super photos - blanching mangos = nutty genius!