I haven’t watched this musical in a very long time, and I managed to pick it up at the library recently. A modern day (for its time anyway) version of Romeo & Juliet, it’s beautifully written, wonderfully choreographed, and with music by Leonard Berstein, who could go wrong? This is also Stephen Sondheim’s first musical, the lyrics of which he’s written. Even before I watched this for the first time, I’ve already known of memorable songs such as “Tonight”, “America”, “Something’s Coming”, “I Feel Pretty”, “Somewhere”, “One Hand, One Heart”, and “I Have A Love”. I finally understood the full meaning of the songs when I heard them in the movie tonight. If you haven’t quite got over West Side Story yourself, check out The Official West Side Story Site.

Regina bought this for me for Christmas 2005, and I just received it this past week. I finally got round to watching it last night, and gosh, it was hilarious! Barbra plays a smoking addict who seeks a doctor, hoping she can be hypnotised out of smoking. It also turns out she was Melinda in her past life, and well, you’ll just have to watch it! Pure comedy!

It’s all in the title. That one short word “Drag” that suggests so many possibilities. The first meaning is an obvious reference to k.d. lang’s gender bending persona, but on closer look, it’s also an album of songs that are about smoking: Smoke Dreams, My Last Cigarette, Smoke Rings, and songs like The Air That I Breathe, Theme From The Valley Of The Dolls, and Till The Heart Caves In (a torch song tribute to Roy Orbison), which have smoking references. There’s a smoky quality to k.d.’s voice, too. It’s a favourite k.d. lang album of mine, one which Regina and I cherish. You’re really missing out if you haven’t heard k.d. lang in Drag.

I remember watching this on SBS the very night that Regina was watching k.d. lang in concert at the Esplanade: Theatres on the Bay, Singapore. Our friend Jaki is the caucasian woman performing at the Hungry Ghost Festival on this program. Anyway, I’ve been looking to borrow the DVD at the library, but I finally found it at a steal of $10 at 78 Records, Perth last evening. Bargain! Except I realised every online store is selling it for $9.95 now. It’s certainly an eye-opener, and I found out things about Singapore I’ve never known before, like the Singapore Restroom Association and its Golden Toilet Brush Award, and I’m quite ashamed to say I’ve never had the experience of watching Kumar’s cabaret show at the Boom Boom Room. Jaki’s performance still gives me goosebumps though. What were they thinking?

I got paid today, so given that I wasn’t given an engagement diary for Christmas, I went out in search for one today. Cheap, but true. Anyway, after a month of deliberating over which one to get, I stumbled upon this one today when I was at Garden City. I have the UK (and probably International, by the looks of it) Edition, which is titled “This Diary Will Change Your Life 2006”. Apparently this is the third edition, and it’s a chockful of crazy stuff to do throughout the year. Well, I got it because it’s got plenty more space for writing in appointments, but I don’t think I’m going to regret my purchase. It’s funky, I like it already! To find out more about my new diary, check out This Website Will Change Your Life.com.

Nick and I got this from Miles and Teresa for Christmas this year, and I totally got into it from Day One. As Teresa’s sister, Karen, is visiting from Adelaide, we decided to have them over for dinner post-Boxing Day. What can I say? I went all out and cooked three Indian dishes yesterday, two of which are from this new book. It took me all day, but the Chicken With Green Masala (Galinha Cafreal) and Beef Vindaloo (Bife Vindalho) were a success! I got compliments all around, Karen saying I’ve beat her partner Greg on the curries, and her friend Jane commented she can’t remember when was the last time she tasted curry that was so yummy. Hurrah! I was nervous as hell, having stuck closely to the recipe and wondering if it would be too spicy for everyone, but they enjoyed it immensely. I also cooked Paneer (Cottage Cheese) With Peas, which I’ve done before, but I got away without frying the cottage cheese this time. I look forward to trying out new recipes from this book. New spices to experiment with, so much to drool over! Yum!

This was one of the CDs that I lost when I was burgled in March this year, and I recently bought a replacement via eBay. A collection of duets which Barbra has done over a 40-odd year career, which have been great milestones in music. I found myself singing along to every song (well, that’s me), at times to Barbra’s vocals, then along with her partner’s. She sang with Ray Charles very early in her career, long before he did a whole duet album before he passed on, and isn’t ‘I Finally Found Someone’ with Bryan Adams the perfect love song? You’ll find a whole range of musical genres on this album, and love her or hate her, she’s THE VOICE. You’ll even find Barbra on a duet with herself on ‘One Less Bell To Answer/A Chair Is Still A Chair’. The disappointments probably come with the new songs, duets with Barry Manilow and Josh Groban. Ironically, they don’t sound sit too well among the various duets, and sound dated at times. Now she had included the duet with herself on The 1994 Concert’s Yentl medley… but that’s just me trying to weave Yentl into everything.

I’ve been using a recipe from this book many times, and I thought I’d share it here:

CHICKPEA SOAKING TIME: 8 hours or overnight
PREPARATION TIME: 10 minutes
COOKING TIME: 1 hour
YIELD: enough for 4-6 persons

1 1/4 cups (310ml) dried chickpeas
4-5 cups (1-1.25 litres) water
3 tablespoons (60ml) olive oil or ghee
1/2 teaspoon (2ml) mustard seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons (7ml) cumin seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons (7ml) minced fresh ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons (7ml) fresh green chillies, seeded and chopped
10 fresh curry leaves
1 3/4 cups (435ml) ripe, finely-chopped tomatoes, about 5 medium tomatoes
1 teaspoon (5ml) tumeric
1/4 cup (60ml) chopped fresh coriander leaves
1 1/2 teaspoons (7ml) chat masala
1/2 teaspoon (2ml) garam masala
1 1/4 teaspoons (6ml) salt
1 tablespoon (20ml) butter

1. Place the chickpeas in a large bowl and cover them with 5 or 6 cups (1.25-1.5 litres) water. Leave to soak for 8 hours or overnight.
2. Pour the chickpeas into a colander and drain them. Place them in a 3-litre/quart saucepan over high heat with 4 or 5 cups of water and a dab of oil or ghee. Bring the water to the boil, reduce the heat to low and cook for 1 hour or until the chickpeas are butter-soft, but not broken down.
3. Meanwhile, in a 2-litre/quart suacepan, prepare the tomate glaze as follows: Warm the oil or ghee over moderate heat. When fairly hot but not smoking, drop in the mustard seeds. When they crackle and turn greyish, add the cumin. As the cumin darkens a few shades, drop in the ginger, chillies and curry leaves. Stir-fry the spices for 1 or 2 minutes or until the spices are fragrant. Add the chopped tomatoes, tumeric, half the fresh coriander, the chat masala and the garam masala. Cook, stirring occasionally for 5-7 mintues, or until the ghee or oil oozes out and the tomatoes are broken down and saucy.
4. Drain the chickpeas, reserving the cooking water. Stir the chickpeas into the sauce, reduce the heat to low and cook for another 10 minutes more, adding a little chickpea cooking liquid, if required, to keep the chickpeas moist.
5. Remove the savoury glazed chickpeas from the heat, add the remaining butter, salt, and the rest of the herbs. Serve hot with wedges of lemon or lime and the breads and accompaniments suggested above.