Friday, September 21, 2007

A nice day with a horrid meal at the Intercontinental Hotel

Today was such a nice day. For starters I managed to get quite a bit of work done, and then around 10.00 in the morning Jehan called inviting me out to lunch. We met at the Galadari but decided to go to the Intercon instead since from past experience the Cafe Emerald the food has been pretty good.

It was lovely to see Jehan again. He had lost of bit of weight and quite proud of it too. He’d brought me presents from Kenya….. I can hardly wait to go home and open them up. I snuck a peek and there’s a gorgeous package of perfume though! The rest will HAVE to wait till later.

I must say I was deeply disappointed in the menu that was on for today’s lunch at the Emmerald CafĂ©. The spread was minimal, a couple of cheap salads, veges that I don’t normally eat ……there were no cold cuts, the soup was pumpkin and another of noodle… not as good as it looked unfortunately. EVERYTHING tasted so darned bland…. How disappointing! The meal for me was redeemed by the mashed potatoe and the cuttlefish.

The deserts on the other hand were as good as usual. There was a decent array of sweets including the hated bread pudding.

It was nice because we met up after such a long time, but the meal didn’t add anything at all to the occasion, though I suppose it DID give us something to grumble about. I certainly won’t be going back there anytime soon.

Monday, September 17, 2007

The Daily News Cookery Book

The Ceylon Daily News Cookery Book was a book I’ve seen and heard about from the time I was a child. All the great cooks I knew (all my aunts were absolutely fabulous cooks) seemed to have a copy of it. I, for some unknown reason, attributed their cooking skills to the recipes in the book. So at the beginning of this year I thought I too should get hold of this marvelous book. When Jehan wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday, I promptly remembered the book and asked him to get it for me.

Having gotten hold of it, I eagerly scanned its pages for ‘makable’ recipes. Imagine my disappointment when quite a few of the instructions seemed to be vague or missing or left instructions to experience or imagination I guess. I tried the ‘Chocolate Cookies’ and what I got was a horrible looking mess which I fed to the dogs… seriously.

I tried several more of the recipes in them….. and what I figured out is, that the book is either

a) HORRIBLE

b) Is meant for more experienced cooks (then why would they need this book pray tell?)

c) Leaves a lot to the imagination (what about those who lack imagination then?)

d) Written by people who don’t want you to actually succeed (???) doesn’t sound right does it?

e) I certainly can’t make any of those recipes (that sounds more like it – I thought)

Well, on my recent visit to see cousin Emma, who by the way is another great cook (and her husband is a well renowned chef to boot), we got talking about this particular book… and guess what???? She told me precisely the same thing..…. So maybe I was not too far wrong in my thinking then!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Ruani of Professionally Yours Magazine

Something made me smile today. I was walking along the Cargills corridor when an older gentleman stopped me and said… ‘excuse me… but are you Ruani….. of the Professionally Yours Magazine? I have been reading the past few issues from Beryl and recognized you and thought I must say hello”. We chatted a minute and parted, but he quite made my day …. Ruani of the Professionally Yours Magazine! Wow!!!