Ingredients

Vegetable oil or some other neutral oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 bay leaf
1 large yellow onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 inch fresh ginger, grated
1/2 tsp red chili powder
1 tbs tomato paste
1 pound raw prawns, shells removed and well rinsed
Salt to taste
Two large handfuls fresh spinach, roughly chopped
1 heaping tsp garam masala
2 tbs cream

Steps

Heat two glugs of oil over medium-high heat. Add the cumin seeds and bay leaf; stir and cook until the seeds start to crackle. Add the chopped onion and cook for around 10 minutes.

Add the ginger and garlic; cook for another 2 minutes. Add the turmeric and chili powder, stir, then add the tomato paste. You may need to add some water to allow this mixture to cook for a bit (you will want to cook the tomato paste until it has mellowed).

At this point, add a bit of salt to taste. Don’t make it too salty – the garma masala will add much flavour in just a little bit, and you can always add more salt at the end.

Now add the prawns. Stir them in and keep stirring on-and-off for approximately 5 minutes. Add the garam masala.

Turn down to medium heat. Add in the spinach, stir to coat with the mixture, and cover to let the dish steam.

Uncover, add the cream, and stir to incorporate. At this point you can either turn off the heat, or if your dish is a little too wet, cook out a bit longer. Be sure you don’t over-cook the prawns.

This can be served with rice, although I ended up accompanying it with a rustic sourdough toast.

First ride of the summer.

Breeonne on Pinterest

In the news side of things, an interesting article by Business Insider that is titled “Pinterest’s Hype Bubble Has Burst, And Now It Is Actually Losing Users”:

Monthly active users are down from 11.3 million on March 1 to 11.15 million on April 1 to just 8.3 million today[...] That coverage likely motivated a lot of try-out-the-latest-hot-thing types to try Pinterest during February and March. Many of those people seem to have decided the site is not for them.

(hattip to Tristan Jutras  for the link)

I agree with the assessment that Pinterest isn’t for everyone. I’m not certain it’s for me. My brief experience with it is that it skews heavily North American female (with all the stereotypical interests that entails), with a certain lack of context that doesn’t prove to the value-added for someone (like me) who spends their life focusing on the written word.

Still, the business model could go fascinating places, so in spite of the hype bubble being pricked, I’ll keep an eye on Pinterest.

Oh well. Like with all the other things on the Internets, one can always go back to watching cat videos.

In case you don’t want to decipher that on your own:

Peer Reviewed Bathroom Graffiti

I WANT TO LIVE IN A DRAMA (<- what does that even mean?)
THOSE PEOPLE NEVER LOOK AT THE PAST. (<- but they’re so often history that this line disagrees
THEY WISH AND THEY DREAM (<- don’t you now)
LIKE (of) SECRET DESIRES THAT FLOAT ON (<-you didn’t actually write that, did you? this has to be a joke) (<– I know, ever tried to make something float on really rough water?)
TROUBLED WATERS.
WHY ARE GROTESQUE OBJECTS BEAUTIFUL? (<- this poem doesn’t count)
WHAT IS WRONG WITH HUMANS? (<- #1 apparently we write terrible poetry <- and peer review bathroom stall poetry) (#2 humans are human, that’s what’s wrong)
I TAKE DEEP BREATHS AND IT TRIES TO ERASE EVERYTHING. (<- hey, Yo. Your subject and verb called me and they’re having a pretty big disagreement. Maybe you could work something out between them?)
-RAIN (<-isn’t he from My Lady Peace?)

How to Dance Goth from APBS on Vimeo.

Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers cover Hall and Oates’ I Can’t Go For That, and make my day so much better.

While I try to remember what I was going to post about, have some news stories:

• CNN: Japanese boat washed away in tsunami spotted more than a year later
• Everything 90s is new again: CBC: Canadian bands from the ’90s enjoying digital era freedom
• … and that’s all that is interesting today. I’ll post a cat video later to make up for it.

Now, off to do my parents’ taxes.

After the Christchuch earthquake, marmite production shut down. At this rate, New Zealanders will be stuck with the inferior Vegemite.

The horror.

Winner? Everybody.

As I said on Twitter last week, that’s where I’m a Viking.

And because I love you, here’s my homework for your reading pleasure.

Warning: multimedia-heavy

A  visual history of social media:

3.       An infographics aggregator site. Highlight du jour?

• From my new academic heartthrob, Michael Geist: 12 to-dos on how to “fix” Bill C-30

• You  totally need to read this of the day:  The Mounting Minuses at Google+ (Wall Street Journal article), focusing somewhat on app developer and advertisers “disappointment” with the lack of pickup.

Now I can’t claim the dog ate my homework after all…