The Holiday

Every Sunday for the past few weeks, I've been sorting out my movie collection. I check the DVDs for any damage, wipe'em clean and play them. Today, I watched "The Holiday(2006)" starring Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Cameron Diaz and Jack Black with Eli Wallach. One of the best movies to deal with relationships and heartbreaks, The Holiday explores relationships for five lovelorn individuals and how they cope with various expressions of love. This is a perfect movie to help move on. 

So we have Kate (the narrator), a victim of unrequited love; Jack, a music composer whose girlfriend cheats on him; Jude Law, a recent widower experiencing the "joys" of single parenthood and re-entry into the dating scene; Eli Wallach a long time widower still pining for his wife and Cameron whose boyfriend dumps because she is emotional handicap - she just can't cry.

The Holiday

Amanda (C.D) and Iris (K. W) are two diametrically opposite women, at two end's of the world. They differ in everything.. house, cars, jobs, but for the fact they have both gone through a break up. They differ in that too. Amanda dumped her boyfriend, Iris was dumped by her's. They exchange houses for a couple of weeks and the rest, as they say, is history. Amanda meets Iris's single 'brother' while Iris finds a friend.


It's a beautiful movie. One of the Rare Ones, that is both funny and romantic. A real rom-com. The music is lovely. It's kind of what you'd expect to hear in a rom-com and it doesn't let you down. The narration is a li'l patchy but makes up for it, with lots of zeal and absolutely familiar characters.


Kate is quite neat as a love torn English lass-next-door, while Cam is sexy as a fiesty American gurl. Jack Black is quite believable in his 'composer-music director' role but Jude Law actually steals the whole show "I cry ALL the time" act. Eli Wallach as Arthur... can't say much about him; he's always been great. Edward Burns is completely wasted though, as Cam's ex-boyfriend.


No matter how many times I watch it, I always cry at the end - esp. when Amanda cries for the first time. It reminds us of something at that we probably forget in our fast lives. That Love can, and will sneak in whenever you are least expecting it.

Poached Eggs a la Sagarika

I watched 'Julie and Julia (2009)' a few days ago. Like Julia (Amy Adams to the ignorant souls) I, too, am an avid cook and love to create or re-create recipes at my own discretion. When I watched her poaching an egg, I was like, "How come I've never eaten a poached egg before?" So, the very day next I went to this amazing resto-lounge near my college, Aroma's, that has a great variety of food and ordered a 'poached egg'. I kind of liked it, too.

That day I decided to try my hand at poaching. Now, the movie mentions that Julia Child said that the eggs must be fresh and the recipe book asked for a high skillet. I don't have either.

We get two kinds of eggs here. First is regular broiler variety that are factory grown, large size eggs with huge yolks but less whites. Or there is the local farmer (Gavraan) variety with less yolk but quite a bit of white and costs about 1.5 times the regular variety. Though I am not into Calorie-Counting or any other kind of health eating, but I love egg whites, so I decided to go with the Gavraan eggs.

Firstly, I boil water in a regular vessel on high flame. Adding a pinch of salt to the water works wonders. For Dummies (like me) who want to poach an egg, here's an easy tip: There's no shame in admitting that you cannot break an egg with one hand. Break the egg in a bowl; use one bowl for one egg, thats easier and a lot less messy. Keeping the flame high, gently tilt the bowl (with egg) in the vessel. For more than one egg, immediately add the second egg, or you will end up over/under cooking one of them (Experience, they say, comes only after you need it). Now, here's the most important part. Don't shut off the stove. Using a slotted spoon, spoon out the eggs, onto the plate.

I liked poached eggs, but my mom hated it. After poaching eggs 2 daily for 5 days in a row, I can safely say that I have no intentions of poaching eggs for a long time. Now, I have moved on to 'Scrambled Egg a la Sagarika'