My cake baking rendezvous!

What are your first thoughts looking at this picture? Are you thinking on the lines - looks yummy, so well baked, wanna dig your teeth into it?

But wait..hold your horses. The phrase "Looks can be deceptive" fits so aptly here. This cake was a total fiasco.

So what went wrong? For one, it had very little sugar so it kind of tasted very bland. Second it just didn't rise. Reason? Even I don't know :|

But you know what? My Betu still eats it with enthu that it just melts my heart. He goes "Wow! Cake" and gorge on. His expressions are priceless. As if he is really really enjoying the cake and as if the cake is really really delicious. That makes me feel so guilty because he so wanted to eat a cake and I told him I will make one instead of buying. And eventually it turned out to be such a flop show :(

Betu, next time I promise I will bake you a better one.

P.S. Its a Chocolate Yogurt Cake.

A fractal broccoli!!??

How cool is that?

Read the details here.

Is it just me?

Or do you all also find it funny when people wear layers of woollens inside the shirt and they appear as wearing only a shirt and pant during feezing winters?

Why doesn't wearing sweaters OVER the shirt seem like a good idea to them? I wonder...

~~ Keep Smiling! ~~

Sent on my BlackBerry®.

Celebrating Lohri

Not so long ago I had posted how we celebrate all the festivals of all the religions at our place. We went and celebrated Lohri with our punjabi friends today evening. Betu was super excited and when he saw we were among the handful ones who had arrived at the celebration point, he started to shout at the top of his voice "Happy Lohri". When I asked him to be a bit quiet he told me "Sab log so rahe hain. Lohri manani hai na isliye sabko bula raha hoon." I had no words looking at his enthusiasm and I let him shout and call out to everyone :)

Here are the two pics from the celebrations -

BookMeABook.com - the book rental company

Talking to someone who recently read my book review posts asked me where am I sourcing my books from. Whether I'm buying them or renting them? Its then that I realised I'vent written about the book rental company from where I'm sourcing my books from.

In September 2008, I had received an SMS advertising for this site "BookMeABook.com" where they were giving books on rent after you register with them and paid some refundable deposit to people in New Delhi and NCR region.

I have always been fond of reading but somehow always preferred borrowing them rather than buying them to read. Reason being, books need lot of care and lot of space to be maintained. The space was the main constraint why I preferred to borrow them and this company seemed to be just perfect for readers like me.

I went to their website and they had couple of plans on offer depending on how many books would you want in a month. I opted for the easiest plan available i.e. the one where they offered 2 books a month. After browsing through their website for about 5 min, without thinking much I went ahead and got the subscription for it. Then I proceeded to add books to my queue from their catalog which I wanted to read. The same evening I got a call from them and next day my books along with a bookmark were there at my doorstep. (Its another story that the bookmark has been duly chewed away by betu ram from one corner. ) I went WOW with their promptness. And so far they have kept the WOWness intact except that they do no deliver the books in the same sequence as I've specified.

I wrote to them about it and they had their reasons that all the copies were out in circulation and thus the preferred sequence of books cannot be adhered to. To some extent it makes sense but I still can't help feeling a bit disappointed when the book I'm looking forward to doesn't arrive.

So this is how their system works. I've provided a delivery address at the time of registration. I specify the list of books that I would like to read and sequence them. The next step is to click on the button "Order Pickup". For a first time user, it basically means "Send me the books". For a second time and subsequent time user, it means, "I've read the books you had sent and please send me my next lot of books". Once you have submitted your "Order Pickup", a guy will come personally and take the read books from you and give you your next lot. In the envelope that they send the books in, they also send a self addressed envelope for us to keep the books back in before handing them over to the delivery boy.

Its obvious that they had put enough thoughts about the system before implementing it and they have been able to keep up to it. The books I've received have all been in good condition.

They have quite a few books in each genre including for kids although couple of books which I've looked for once in a while I haven't found there. I'm planning to write to the librarian with those book titles so that they can add them to their collection.

So far I'm pretty happy with their service and I hope they keep increasing their collection. I've already figured out the books I want to read for the whole year and am looking forward to read them all.

So any of residing in you Delhi and NCR can make good use of this site if you are fond of reading.

So happy reading everyone!

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I finished reading "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini on the Saturday that just went by. I managed to finish it flat 3 days compared to the weeks I usually take to read books these days.

After reading and hearing such rave reviews from so many people including some of you from the blogworld that I just had to read it. It is a wonderful tale of two little boys from Afghanistan and their journey of growing up and moving on with their lives. How from being such "pukka" friends they drifted apart and they could never see each other again.

The book was very well written and kept you glued to it. The emotions, the turmoils in the lives of the main characters of the story seemed so real that you could almost relate to it. There were 2-3 points in the book that made my eyes wet.

After I finished reading it, for about half an hour I kept thinking about the characters in the book. About their lives and the whole story as such. It made me sigh. It was a mix of sad and a happy sigh. It touched me a lot.

But still I feel his other book "A Thousand Splendid Suns" was much more intense and overpowering than this one.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

I had read the book "The Historian" more than a month ago but never sat down to write down my views on it. Until now :) I won't call it a review as I am not sure I know how to write reviews. I don't now what it should have and what it shouldn't so that it doesn't become a spoiler.

This novel by Elizabeth Kostova is a tale of a quest for the 'Vlad the Implaer' who is none other than the Dracula or 'Drakulya' as called in the novel. It has been presented as a first person account and it reaches through the past five centuries with the story settings all over Europe.

Although the book was a bit thick, about 650 odd pages, but I really enjoyed reading it. The story was quite gripping and thrilling. The author kept the curiosity maintained almost throughout the book.

And after reading the book I really wanted to travel to Budapest and Istanbul. The way the author described both the cities I was quite intrigued.

So people how like a bit of history, a bit of horror and a bit of thriller its a good read.

Lego Sculptures - Aren't these amazing?

I was so awestruck looking at these sculptures. Aren't they just so amazing??!! See more here.

It has been a long debated topic

and still it never ends. The topic in question is about women and treating women well if not equally.

My thoughts on this were triggered by a post that I read recently where they had shown this label:

As I said lot has been talked about and debated on this topic and I've nothing more to add. But it always makes me wonder how long will this continue? When will the people actually think maturely?

Like the author I didn't know whether to get angry or laugh at it. I just rolled my eyes and left it at that.

Does this make you drool?

It was really yumm and polished off in flat 5 mins by Beturam, Hubby and moi.

Click here to view the recipe.