adventures in cooking

Yesterday I decided to try cooking vadai, which are a sort of savory South Indian doughnut. So I soak the dal, make some coconut chutney, grind the dal into dough, add the flavorings, shape some little doughnuts, and start to fry up the first batch. They're nearly done and I'm flipping them to check the brownness when one of them explodes. Literally explodes, making a loud scary explodey noise and splattering hot oil all over my face (fortunately I wear glasses, so none got in my eyes), chest, and right arm.

I'm okay. Just some red patches on my skin that were quite sore yesterday but not too bad today. But I'm very aware of how lucky I am, how easily I could have been badly burned. (In particular, I'm haunted by the thought of how easily, when I jumped back in automatic reaction to the explosion, I could have knocked a pan full of hot oil all over the floor and my bare feet.)

I did not fry up any more vadai, though I actually had to argue myself out of the attempt because I really really dislike wasting food.

My guess is that the oil was too hot, sealing the outer crust of the vada so well that steam built up on the inside until it burst. Yeesh. This kind of thing is why I've always been reluctant to deep fry. Definitely no more deep frying for me until I buy a thermometer.

non-exploding post

Last week I rented Railway Man, the second recent Colin Firth film I've watched lately that has made me think Mr. Firth needs to be pickier about the roles he accepts. (The other was The Devil's Knot.) Railway Man isn't a bad film, but it's not as good as I was expecting. It's hampered by a script that has to accommodate people's ignorance of what happened to FEPOWs, and also by the fact that the war-era flashback sections necessarily feature younger actors. Poor Jeremy Irvine has the thankless task of playing young Eric Lomax, which means he has to play Colin Firth playing Eric Lomax, and while he tries valiantly his performance feels constrained. The most thankless task, though, goes to Nicole Kidman as Lomax's wife Patti, who in the script isn't so much a person as a romantic fantasy and a catalyst.

More seriously, the story suffers from the biopic tendency to idolize its subject, to the point where it's sort of implied that Eric Lomax's suffering was uniquely terrible. ( Not really spoilery, but cut, also warning for references to torture )

Also recently watched: Philby, Burgess, and Maclean, a 1977 Granada production starring Alan Bate as Philby, Derek Jacobi as Burgess, and Michael Culver (who played Major Brandt in Secret Army) as Maclean. The script is a bit stodgy and the music and other effects are almost hilariously overdramatic, but the acting is good. Jacobi gives Burgess a louche charm, and Culver is amazing as the unstable, doubting Maclean. Philby, the sanest character and therefore the least interesting, is unfortunately the focus of the story and I don't think Bate (not helped by the script) quite conveys a sense of hidden depths. Not something I can recommend unreservedly, but worth it if you're a fan of any of the actors, and there are standout scenes with Burgess and Maclean together and of Maclean's wife confronting Burgess.

And now, a pairings meme! Grabbed from flo_nelja.

( click here for questions and answers )