Still trying to get the hang of the 58mm Zenit lens. Getting better, but need to clean a lot of dust out of it (as seen in the Burj Khalifa shot).
V
At my local chai refuelling station, this cat — the calmest, cleanest little thing you’ve ever seen sitting on the edge of a garbage can.
Apparently, the best thing to do when photographing a shiny new city like Dubai is to do it with an old 1970s Zenit lens…
I‘m not one of those people who is averse to what is generally known as ‘fusion’ cooking. In fact, if one thinks about the history of food then really everything is fusion cooking in one way or the other.
However, rarely do I attempt to combine things from two different food cultures — I’m still learning, but once in a while a bit of experimenting is good. So today’s dish combines two of my favourite dishes: Thai Green Curry and Italian Risotto. I’m certainly not the first person to make this dish — there are dozens of recipes online for the same — but I did go into it with a bit of trepidation. The results turned out pretty damn delicious, so here’s my recipe.
The basic method is the same as my usual lunchtime ‘one and a half pot risotto’, only with coconut milk and curry paste. But, since I’ve never written that recipe down on this blog, I’ll go over it as part of this.
Bring 1 to 1.5 litres of water or stock to under a boil, and keep it on a low flame (this is the ‘half’ pot). On a separate flame, into a heavy-bottom vessel add a couple of cloves of minced garlic to a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. When the oil is hot and the garlic fragrant, add in one finely diced small onion (about a fistful of mass).
Saute the onion and garlic on low heat until translucent. Meanwhile dice one carrot, one handful of fresh baby corn, and one small head of broccoli* about the same size as the onion. Add these to the frying onions.
*(The conventional wisdom is that you only use the broccoli florets and discard the thick stalk. This is lunacy, as the stem is perfectly fine to eat and very flavourful, so dice that up too)
Now, usually these vegetables would be fried in a pan without the onions & garlic and set aside — only added to the risotto at the very end — but I’m lazy and since I don’t use vegetable stock I find that this method imparts quite a bit of flavour to the rice that the plain water doesn’t, even if the results are slightly less than pretty. You can always reserve some of the fried veg for colour and garnish.
To the sauteed vegetables add two-three good teaspoons of Thai Green Curry Paste. You can make your own (plenty of recipes on the net) but I just use the store-bought one. It tastes fine to me. The paste will begin to brown and maybe stick to the bottom. Wedge it off with your spoon.
Once the spice paste has sauteed for a few minutes, add in the Arborio risotto rice. 75g per person is usually quite generous (especially since we have quite a bit of veg), and 100 is probably overkill. With the measurements for the vegetables, you can generously feed 2-3 people as a main.
Sautee the rice for a few minutes more, then add in one can (400ml) of Coconut milk. Stir and bring to the boil. Adjust seasoning, and put in a half teaspoon of sugar.
Now you have to cook the rice like an ordinary risotto, i.e. as the liquid is absorbed add in a ladleful of water/stock from you other pot, until that is absorbed, stirring frequently. The final consistency you want should still be runny, though quite creamy. It can take between 15-20 minutes for the rice to cook to however much you like it. When it’s done mix in a good pinch of chopped basil, turn off the heat, and cover for a minute or two.
Serve.
Om nom nom, etc.
V
Any photographer, be they professional or photo-enthusiast, will tell you that taking care of your equipment is one of the major concerns of the hobby. After all, it just wouldn’t do to show up and be in the position to take a great photo, and discover that your camera’s broken.
The delicate nature of cameras is something that has only been magnified in the move to digital. Where earlier light-proofing the film chamber was the biggest deal, now it’s keeping all the little electronics and tiny moving parts dust free and safe. Even the most rugged of SLRs is not something you want to toss around like a stuffed toy.
And so having a good camera bag is essential. I’ve just picked up one, and after tweeting about it (as one naturally does in this day and age) some people expressed interest in finding out more about it. After all, though there are a raft of products available to house your camera, it’s actually quite rare to find something that covers all your needs.
And my needs were more than just a padded box to house my Pentax K200D DSLR. I don’t consider myself one of those photographers who has tons of kit, but over the years I have amassed a fair amount. There is, of course, a camera (or in my case, cameras, as in addition to my DSLR I also carry around a Kodak C875 compact camera). Then there’s extra lenses for the DSLR, all of which need padded, secure casing for transport. After that, accessories such as battery chargers and extra batteries, extra storage such as SD or CF cards. There’s even stuff I don’t have yet that I plan on getting in the future, such as a tripod, external flashes, and supplementary accessories such as diffusers, gel packs and whatnot. All of these things add up.
And then of course, there’s the new technology, the reason I’ve been searching for just the right bag for ages now: a laptop computer. I first saw a camera bag that also had a sleeve for a laptop a year ago, but it was a prohibitively expensive Kata. I’ve seen cheaper ones since by Lowepro and Case Logic, but in each case they lacked something; either the laptop sleeve was not padded enough, or the placement of the compartments in the camera area just weren’t adequate or placed to my liking, or it just wasn’t comfortable to wear (a major consideration when buying a bag).
Today I picked up this one, a bag that seems to tick all the boxes for what I need. It’s small enough, first of all; smaller than a lot of the others I’ve seen, yet still able to take my bulky old 15 inch laptop. Then it’s black and therefore a bit more innocuous than some of the day-glo yellow and orange ones I’ve seen. It doesn’t scream “I HAVE A HUGE CAMERA AND LAPTOP INSIDE ME” to any would-be thieves, which is a good thing when travelling (the chief reason for getting one of these). It has several pockets on the outside , and all of them are secured under flaps or behind clasps — there are even ties for tripods and other oversize accessories.
Turning to the inside, and this is where the real action is. Each and every one of the black partitions in here are removable with strong velcro grips, which is a godsend for being able to arrange accessories and lenses. This, more than anything, is the reason I bought this unknown brand over other, fancier ones, all of which had limited flexibility (also it was cheap, about $50).
Once all the laptop chargers and extra hard drives and usb keys and general pocket lint are put in here, I can still imagine having space for expansion.
Now, I know most of you are probably thinking, “I still don’t want to carry around a large backpack with my laptop everywhere!” — and I know exactly what you’re talking about. I bought this laptop camera bag precisely for long transport. Overseas trips, weekend expeditions and the like. Instead of two or three pieces, I now have to deal with only one item of carry-on luggage at the airport. Of course, for day to day use, when you don’t need multiple lenses or chargers or other such things, I am still going to carry my trusty little shoulder-strap case. During afternoons out the big bag stays at home base.
All of this is fairly new to me, of course. If you’re careful then an ordinary messenger bag is adequate for securing your camera on an afternoon out (and in the case of smaller cameras, putting it in its softcase and dropping it in a handbag will do).
However, if you’re moving into the realm of DSLR photography, and going abroad or on a long trip, I’d definitely suggest getting a good, versatile, laptop camera bag.
V
Since I’ve been doing little else, I thought I might as well put up some photos.
V
Of late I’ve been trying to take more photos of the country I live in. After 12 years of living here, and coming from a place like India that is infinitely more visually chaotic, it becomes a bit of an effort to keep boredom from setting in. I can’t say I’m taking better photos here now than perhaps I ever did, and I still yearn for a place that isn’t just desert and buildings and malls, but I’m trying.
Recently I finally looked into this whole
They’re all a bit over the top — nobody said Indians were subtle and I am, in that regard at least, 100% desi — but I do like the strangeness the techniques bring to otherwise bland, brown and grey photos of the UAE. Here’s six more examples.
(Okay, I lied in the title — this one above is actually in Sharjah)
V
I‘ve been trying to get back into cooking again. Like a lot of things cooking is as much about practice as it is about something as indefinable as ‘talent’. So this, then, is three lunches I’ve made over the past week or two. None of them tasted as good as I would like, but hey, you know what they say about practice…
Thai green curry with vegetables
An all day breakfast-esque plate of sausages, spinach, eggs, and crispy fried breadcrumbs
Stir fry egg noodles
V
As is typical, I went to IKEA for one thing and ended up with something else. In this case, the one thing was a shower curtain (which I did end up buying, though I seem to have forgotten about it) and the impulse buy was a potted chrysanthemum plant.
It was beautiful. It was cheap. I mean, really: it cost less than a coffee at Starbucks. I’ve shied away from keeping plants at home since I live in an apartment with not a whole lot of sunlight. In Oman we used to live in a villa which had a fairly large garden, and perhaps in envy of those times I’ve never considered putting some in my new concrete jungle surrounding.
Recently, however, I picked up a little basil plant, and three months later its new leaves have been tiny, but at least it hasn’t died on me.
Next step, a trough-shaped planter for my sill, more herbs, and maybe even a few more flowering plants!
V
Possibly the most common sight in Dubai — the tail lights of several cars in front of you, that is. 🙂
Post-processed in the GIMP, using some of the GEGL Black & White Conversion Method I’ve outlined here, while keeping th original colour layer, adding in some more on top and generally freewheeling it until it looked right.
V
I‘m very much an 80s kid. I grew up with Transformers and G.I. Joe, not Rugrats and Ed, Edd n Eddy. Though I did spend a good chunk of my childhood in the 90s, growing up in Muscat, away from the twin cultural juggernauts of India and the US, meant that some things arrived later, and stayed around more. And 80s cartoons, and a love of the toys that came with the subculture, is one of those things.
Now as an adult with a minor disposable income and questionable taste, I can indulge myself by getting some of the toys I just couldn’t as a kid. Alas, living in Dubai now means that toys are horrendously overpriced (seriously, one of those big Optimus Prime toys that cost $50 is over twice as much here), and I don’t really want to bother with shipping them in, because I have too much stuff anyway.
Still, once in a while I’ll pass through the supermarket’s toy section and come upon some cheap range of toys that are surprisingly good, if kitsch, and pick one up. The last time this happened I got the awesome Dark Warrior toy.
Today, I picked up this ‘Transbots’ action figure. It’s not particularly well painted, but the original mould (I’m guessing it was an official Transformer once***) is solid and for something that costs AED 24 it’s not bad at all. I literally haven’t played with it yet, but in robot mode it’s very poseable, with nicely jointed legs.
I have some Revell paints left over from when I bought a Star Wars jedi starfighter kit, and may repaint this guy at some point. And maybe I’ll even pick up another from this set to go with it.
So maybe I don’t have all the fancy toys I’d like to; honestly, I can’t say spending my money on a huge toy collection is a great idea. But I do have an increasing number of strange Chinese knock-offs, and they are for me what toys should be: fun.
V
***(UPDATE: Identified the original as a Starscream toy from the Transformers: Cybertron ‘Galaxy Force’ line. This knockoff has basically stripped a few of the more complex clear plastic parts)