Improvised Spinach Sauté With Potatoes

Sautéed Spinach With Potato

It’s been years since I’ve done anything resembling actual food preparation. Not that I’m a klutz in the kitchen or ignorant about the secret ways of the pot and the pan, but I’ve simply not found the necessity nor have had the specific inclination. Holidays, however, are meant to put you in new situations and so tonight I found myself in possession of two bundles of spinach, limited additional ingredients, and the need to concoct some form of dinner. This sautéed spinach with potato mix is what resulted.

Nothing too complex, rudimentary, in fact. A bit of oil heated in a broad saucepan. Cumin seeds (jeera) added to sputter. A pinch of sugar to help in the browning of the potatoes added in small pieces. After that it was a matter of adding what was available, salt, some turmeric powder (haldi), a few slivers of fresh ginger, and then finally when the potatoes were sufficiently brown, a healthy dose of the spinach, cut into rough pieces. A very little water to help it along once the leaves had reduced, and some chaat masala and a pinch of amchur to add some flavour.

Worked out very well, mostly because the potatoes were well cooked without being reduced to mush. It would have been better with onions, and some fresh garlic, but considering it was improvised from what was available, a flavourful success.

Samir

Death is Not Welcome

Flowering tree - Death is Not Welcome

In ten days, it will be ten years since my Mother died; A few days ago I lost a friend, someone I will miss dearly for all that we shared over the years. Whether death comes after a long illness or in a sudden blinding flash of circumstance, no one wants it. Death is thrust upon us all, no matter how expected, logical or reconcilable the causes and the train of events leading to it. Death is never welcome.
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Logo Design For a Marketing Blog

Marketing Remixed - marketing blog logo design

Getting the opportunity to design a fresh logo for a new and focussed blog is not as common as you’d think. It’s true that I don’t actively pursue such projects because they are often under-planned and the clients have unrealistic budgetary expectations (Read: want it done for peanuts), but new blogs with a plan and a clear purpose are not born everyday. Those that are often have previous branding or design identities to follow and work from. So when Amit Suvarna decided to use the power of nepotism to choose me to design a logo for his newly planned marketing blog, I jumped at the chance.
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Logo Design For a Makeup and Hair Stylist

Vanity Rose - makeup artist and hair stylist logo design

I recently finished working on a logo for a make-up and hair-styling business. Rosalyn Manuel, the proprietor and stylist in question, found me through a mutual friend. She wanted to create a mark that would best represent here particular take on beauty and make-up. As with such things, we’ve been working on and off on the project for months, because other things often come in the way and priorities shift, but we did get back to it eventually and thus Vanity Rose was born in full.
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Vector Painting of an Elven Princess

Elven Princess - vector painting

“How would you draw a face in Inkscape from scratch?”, is the question I was asked, so to demonstrate it, I started drawing a random face in Inkscape and this is what resulted over the following four days. This portrait of an elven princess turned out to be a good demonstration and also a good reminder to me about the strengths and quirks of vector illustration. I’m asked about vectors, and Inkscape particularly (which I recommend often to people who want to get into digital art), quite often, because while vectors provide a wonderfully forgiving way to explore digital art, they also involve a way of thinking quite alien to the average person. Understanding the thought process needs work and explicit demonstration at times.
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Inside the Canon G9

Canon Powershot G9 - inner workings

I‘ve owned the Canon G9 for several years now and for all that time it has been my main camera. It’s a tough little beast and handles most of what you throw at it, but it’s not the most weather and dust-resistant thing. Every time I’ve been off the beaten track in India, I’ve usually come back with some visible dust spots on the lens and near the sensor which have needed cleaning up. This happened a few times within the warranty period, which Canon took care of for me free of charge, but the same happened on my recent trip to Bombay and this time I did not want to spend the large service charges on my ageing camera. So obviously I decided to do it myself.
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Wood Nymph Drawing in Pen

Wood Nymph - a drawing in pen

About a year ago, a friend saw my original fountain pen drawings of figures and wanted to take some off me to put on his wall. Those were done on regular A4 copy paper and done in regular school-grade blue ink, so I wasn’t too enthusiastic to part with them. I promised I’d do something more elaborate for him on better paper and a larger size in a similar vein for his wall.

As it is with these things, my attempts at drawing figures in that particular pen and ink style didn’t really continue into the rest of last year, although I did plenty of drawing. But when it was time for my friend’s birthday, I decided it had been a long enough wait and worked on this pen drawing of a wood nymph on A3 drawing paper.

This was done with the very same school fountain pen I’ve used previously but this time with black ink, and working on the heavier drawing paper and on the larger scale really helped. I’ll be putting up more process pictures and details in time, but for now, I’m glad to call this project done, and the results are quite pleasing.

Samir