Inspired by Nirmala's yellow dal soup, I made this lentil soup without my favorite herbs, garlic and onion. I used what typically constitutes a bouquet garni—Italian parsley, fresh thyme, and bay leaf—with diced carrots and celery. To add complexity to the flavor I added Italian tomato paste with Italian parsley and California sherry whose alcohol content burned away with the cooking so should not affect the sattvic quality of the soup. The chives and parley sprig are edible garnish.
I am shame-faced to say that I had not organized my digital photo collection until today. Amazing, huh? I had a sense of the year the photos were taken and would search in Bridge to find them. Actually I usually didn't view the photos I took away from home when I got back home! This is from our 2004 trip to Central Europe. We visited Hungary, the Czech Republic and Austria, basically staying in each country's capital city. In a way I am glad I had not worked on these images. I know more about how to process digital images today than I did when I started shooting with a Sony Mavica digital camera in 1999!
I was at Nirmala and Thakor the other day. As usual, before I could leave, Nirmala had a bag of food for me to take home. I had them for lunch yesterday and called her later. The cauliflower and broccoli flowerets were wonderful! They had a fresh taste, simple, without a hint of the Indian spices that she loves to use with her food.
The secret was to put a little oil and salt into the water in which I boil the vegetables, take them out when still crunchy, and voila! She uses soy oil but it tasted fine with the canola oil that I use. Simplicity wins the day! The oil brings out the flavor in the vegetables. Nirmala told me the technique works for carrots and potatoes, too, except they'd need a little longer boiling.
This image is from an unfinished photo shoot with Greg and his girlfriend, Jazmyn. More from this shoot on http://www.flickr.com/photos/karuna71/
It's a lazy, summer's day. The air conditioner is humming away at the ninety-degree heat outside. I went out to the pharmacy and came back to the cool as soon as I can. Time to catch up on processing images. More of these images are posted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/karuna71/
The best meal sometimes is what I put together in a rush. This was chicken salad in olive oil stuffed with Romaine lettuce, green pepper, and ranch dressing between two thin slices of Italian sourdough bread. Magnifico!
The Lumix continues to provide me with images with which to learn to use the Camera Raw 5.3 Tone Curve, to use the basic adjustments for shadow and highlight. I especially like the effect of increasing black to make the colors richer and balancing that by increasing brightness a little.
Summer is in full swing. Just days after the summer solstice, it stays light past nine o'clock when the dark then suddenly falls. The light for an hour or so just before the light disappears makes for wonderful images. Summertime, the song says, when the living is easy but in the middle of the day the sunlight is relentless and cruel. I have to water the tomato, pepper and basil plants on the deck nearly everyday or they wilt in the intense abundance of sun energy.
