Au Hasard Balthazar: A most powerful movie

Though not well-known to the general public in the US, Au Hasard Balthazar is one of the best movies ever made. As the name suggests, it's a French movie. It was directed by Robert Bresson and released in 1966.

So much has been written by movie and art critics about this movie and Bresson that it's hard to say anything new. I focus my attention to the last 10-15 minutes, the final scene of the movie that made me cry like nothing ever has. There is no music in the final scene. All you see is a donkey on a gently sloping grassy hill (like Kentucky's rolling hills) move about, sit down and die. No words are spoken and you see the donkey die, while other animals around it go on with their business. I saw it and I thought to myself if that's how I would die. We all have to go one day; would we go without even a whimper, all alone, having accomplished nothing to look back upon -- not leaving any legacy, anything behind us. Go that way after a life of cruelty that the world inflicted on us, not fighting back, moving around like a dust speck that hovers and wafts in the slanted shafts of morning sunlight, coming to rest no idea where? Who even thinks about it?

It was a really powerful moment. I understand the whole movie is allegorical, and I am not religious, but the sheer force of those moments stayed with me. And I decided to spend more time with my family, to listen more to others, to see if I can enrich my life as well as those of others. It's a little bit like the lines from T. S. Eliot's poem named A Song for Simeon

...
Grant us thy peace.
I have walked many years in this city,
Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,
Have taken and given honour and ease.
There went never any rejected from my door.

Who shall remember my house, where shall live my children’s children
When the time of sorrow is come ?
They will take to the goat’s path, and the fox’s home,
Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.

...

Indian food is not just curries

I sometimes grow tired of hearing wannabe world citizens that are not of South Asian origin, say that all Indian food is a variation on curry. And by curry they mean meat and/or vegetables in a red/orange/yellow thick liquid. As recently a Chinese colleague of mine put it: Indian food does not have much variety. It's all the same. Now I know better than to engage such people in an argument, but it annoyed me.

Three Stages of Cooking an Indian Dish
An art in Indian cooking is braising. Braising is a cornerstone of Chinese cuisine as well, and basically means cooking meat or vegetables with small and variable amount of liquid. A lot of Indian dishes are prepared this way. There are three stages of cooking. The typical Indian pot for cooking this kind of food is called a Karahi or Kadai which unsurprisingly is very similar to the Chinese Wok.

1. First one sears the vegetables or meat at very high heat (presumably locking the flavor in, but I don't completely agree) to give them a firmer texture.
2. After the initial searing, you cover and cook on medium heat for another ten minutes. As you cook your dish covered, the steam does not escape and water or other juices materialize at the bottom of the pan.
   
3. Finally the heat is reduced to low until the dish is finished. One reason behind reducing the heat is to retain the moisture and liquid. The end result is more flavorful than steamed vegetables -- a unique blend of crisp outside and succulent inside.

Anyone can make a liquid curry
Anyone can make a dish with a lot of liquid. Since heat is passed by convection in a liquid, which results in slower transfer of heat, it is very forgiving. Braising is not always forgiving. You can burn the food in the first step, or make the food mushy if you're not careful. I find that many Indians living abroad do not make braised foods, because they cannot be bothered to make food that takes some effort. On the other hand, you can dump everything at once in a fair bit of liquid and voila!

Summary
Good food takes effort, no matter which culture you consider. French food takes a lot of effort because it is often prepared from scratch. Same about Persian Food. And it is the same about Indian food.

Wendy's Sucks

Wendy's advertises its fare as being better than fast food, but I find that is just for appearance's sake. It is no secret that I eat fast food only occasionally. A few months ago, a new Wendy's opened up across the road from the community where I live and we thought we'd give it a shot. Bad mistake.

Their spicy chicken sandwich was sandy and fried too long in a batter too thick and oil unfit for frying. The result was a clovis knife of a sandwich with so much salt that you were left gasping for a river. The fries were cold and had the weird taste of having sit too long in too much salt and oil. We had another sandwich which was equally bad.

We emailed our complaint with all the details to Wendy's. It's been six months and no reply. We are not eating at Wendy's again. I can understand an occasional misstep in fast food preparation, but the complete absence of consumer relationships is awful.

On the other hand, we were not completely satisfied with a pack of Emergen-C Heart Healthy sachets around the same time as the misadventure with Wendy's. We heard from Emergen-C within days and they mailed us a replacement pack with the flavor of our choice, for free. Now that's good customer service. You can bet that I would stay with Emergen-C.

Shame on you, Wendy's.

Creating the ultimate shopping experience

Taken from a speech I delivered a few months ago to the local Toastmasters club

SHOPPING: WHY DO WE DO IT?

CREATING THE ULTIMATE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE

Shopping. It is the most American of activities. Consumer spending amounts to two thirds of the GDP of the greatest economic power in the world. Humans have been shopping for the longest time, but shopping these days is driven increasingly less by basic needs, but more by the emotional needs it fulfills. I will focus solely on the retail sector, and to be precise, clothes retailing. I will discourse about the four modes of shopping (the whys) and suggest ways to make the shopping experience memorable, fulfilling and fun: just what makes shoppers return even when there are no sales (the what and how).

The first and obvious driver of shopping is need. We need our daily bread, milk, shampoo, toilet paper and underwear. It is a very brutal market in needs retailing. Wal-Mart is the clear winner here, but many prefer Target over Wal-Mart. Prices for staples are quite similar in both, but Target provides a cleaner, brighter and more orderly shopping experience than Wal-Mart.

The second driver is features. Small innovations in providing customers with that little bit extra works wonders to attract more customers. One way to deal with it is through carefully controlled special editions that give an air of exclusivity to what you wear. The second is consistently superior quality.

The third driver is affordability. With the retailing market akin to the tower of Babel, it takes a lot of time and determination to know how much every item in every store retails for at all times of the year. And despite obsessive aisle prowling, customers know little about inventory. Some stores deal with it by never having sales, and some, like Wal-Mart by having cheap prices every day. You have to be mad as a hatter or rich as Croesus to take a definitive stance on it.

The largest, though imperceptible driver of shopping growth is the emotional needs a product, a brand and a store fulfill. Luxury today might be a need tomorrow, but that’s not where the growth is. Study upon study has shown that customers are irrational when a product or brand stands for something they want to be associated with. Many women eat brown bag lunches for months just so they can afford a flowing robe from Anthropologie. Many men forego Saturday six-packs to afford an iPod or iMac. Even children forego some luxuries to get their toy or an icon of tween fashion. Because it makes them happy, like a cat that’s just eaten a canary. It’s not all about the product. What matters increasingly more these days is the “experience” of shopping in a store. Take Nordstrom for example. People love shopping there, and why? If there is something in stock, they will happily and cheerfully find it for you. Walking spaces are broader. The store is orderly, clean, relaxing and just luxurious. People spend time there, they feel valued and the experience is rewarding. The loop begins.

Now that we know the four drivers of shopping, how can retailers use this information to improve the shopping experience for customers, while not catering to a tiny niche and becoming a boutique? I offer four suggestions:

Lighting

Clear as daylight, the obvious aspect of lighting carries connotations. Most stores use fluorescent lights, but that light is not flattering to people’s appearance. If the lighting makes every imperfection in your face or body dominate the aesthetic value of an outfit, it is self-defeating. Studio lights are the way to go, as you see in Abercrombie & Fitch, offering a warm refuge from the hoi polloi outside.

Music

Music to my ears! Retailers have not figured out that loud, commercialized punk rock and punk rap deter customers rather than engage them, for sure among customers that wield the wallets. More people leave a store because of music than stay longer. The retailer is free to choose the message they send with the kind of music they play, but it must be in the background, and not make you feel you’re at a rave. Abercrombie & Fitch does this poorly. The music is too loud and gives the impression that they don’t want the customer to hang out, to touch and feel the merchandise.

Direct the traffic

You want to offer the customer a natural way of wending his way through the store, where every kitty corner corresponds to a concept, an expression, a story vignette. Janie and Jack does this very well, as does Pottery Barn Kids. With a carefully designed store, the sight lines take in all the store has to offer – and every section is coherent and somewhat private.

Keep it personal every day

There is no substitute for great, unobtrusive service. Have you ever wondered why they ask you for your name at Coffee bean and other aspirational places? So they can address you by the first name when your latte is ready. They are not going to remember you name if you return in 3 hours. This is hypocrisy, and makes me as red as a tomato. You want retail staff to be like a seasoned server in a five-star restaurant. Out of your sight and shopping experience, unless you need him or her – at which point you realize he/she is knowledgeable, prompt and friendly.

In summary, shopping is all about the experience. Retailers have to create an experience that is warm, personal, regularly surprising, relaxing and rewarding. Stores like J. Jill get it right with their suffused lighting, earth tones and secluded spaces. Happy shopping and happy retailing!

Anxiety Hotline!

I was surfing the website of IIT Kanpur, and found a link to the Anxiety Hotline. I felt puzzled as to why would you need a hotline for anxiety. We all know Suicide hotline or Depression hotlines, but anxiety is such a piddling little thing. Anxiety is natural; we all get it from time to time -- if it gets too bad, it's called panic.

However, a reading of the text on the link made it clear that the goal was to prevent suicides. Everyone who attended an IIT for a Bachelor degree and many those who did not are acutely aware of the tremendous stress that IIT undergraduates face; most of it arises from a huge amount of needless information that's shoved down their throats day in and day out. I knew several students who committed suicide; some were successful, some were not (they later dropped out). I remember that in the four years I was there, there was at least one suicide every calendar year.

Mental health is still taboo in India and many pretend mental disorders are genetic and signs of weakness. So, while the attempt has been made to help suicidal or depressed students cope with their C, D and F grades, the name is disingenuously benign. I am sure the intention was to make it sound less pejorative. I think you ought to call a spade a spade. Another weird aspect was that they list names of professors who can help. How many of them have been trained to deal with this? Do they know enough to identify how much help someone needs? Most Indian professors hold the view that effort succeeds. Obviously, that's often untrue.

There is too much unnecessary pressure to perform academically, and it is unhealthy. There is stress at MIT and Berkeley, but nothing compares to IITs: it's time they do something about it. MIT did something about it, and is now paying attention to how an applicant will handle the stress when on campus. The IITs should do something about it as well. Four or five suicides every year is just scandalous.

Chicken Fricassée

There is great joy in preparing food from scratch, without any artificial flavors and have it taste marvelous. One thing I cook reasonably frequently is Chicken Fricassée broadly based on the recipe by Julia Child in her seminal book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I tend to make my own tweaks, so I use black pepper because it tastes better, I use breast meat only because the thigh meat has a strong flavor that does not go well with the delicate sauce. Sometimes I add paprika for a pink dish, which is cute. I typically skip the mushroom garnish because it takes too much effort to fry mushrooms, and my kitchen is small, which means I have to fry them in batches in my largest pan, which cause a lot of spattering.

I have found it tastes best with somewhat sticky rice, like what is used for making Sushi. Even Jasmine rice is not suitable with this dish; Basmati is just too nutty. I have found that pasta does not go well with it. It is a favorite in our household, and I find it easy to make. It takes about 10 minutes to cut the vegetables and get everything ready, but from that point on, cooking continues in one pot. You have to be careful with the final egg yolk-heavy cream enrichment. If the egg yolks are heated suddenly, they curdle. That ruins the appearance of the sauce, though the taste is not affected.

For an Indian flavor, you can add clove powder, chopped almonds, raisins, cumin powder, fenugreek leaves, green cardamom and coriander in addition. Saffron strands are also something to consider, but they make the dish earthy. Please do not use curry powder, I hate recipes asking for curry powder.

The joy of deep frying!

Deep frying in an ancient method of preparing food. It is all around us, like French fries. Whole franchises have been built on the art of deep-frying (KFC anyone?) Yet time and again we are presented with deep fried food that is soggy, dank and makes your esophagus revolt. Why? I think people have lost the art of deep frying.

For a long time, I had an electric deep fryer. It did an OK job frying French fries, but it bombed with other things such as Pooris. I decided I had had enough and tossed the deep fryer and started frying in a huge cast iron wok. It made a world of difference. The food came out crisp, light, bright and refreshing. That is because one of the major purposes of cooking, no matter how it is done, is to get rid of the water in the food. When the oil is as hot as it should be, the water in the food is transformed to steam and gushes outward at such speed that oil can't get inside your food. Oil can only penetrate the outermost layer of your food. Deep fried food is not necessarily more unhealthy. I fry only in peanut oil, which has no trans fats and does not decompose into gunk when it's heated. If you have the money, you can use clarified butter for deep frying, which is the best. However, deep frying can be expensive.

I am attaching some photos of deep fried wontons I made recently. I know I used Gyoza skins instead of proper wonton skins, so they don't have long ears.