Baking turned out to be a "piece of cake" for Dr. A

It was a fabulous birthday weekend. It all started with my aerobics classes, leaving behind dad and son spend some quality time with each other. By the time i could return they had finished the weekly grocery shopping too, how sweet! Grabbed some breakfast and off we were to the Grand Canyon , said to be the largest mall in the Mediterranean area. We walked and strolled into almost all the outlets from Toys r us to Office Depot to Swatch to those tiny nameless shops around the lobby area and near the elevators. A small handbag/purse shop caught my eyes. Common don't we women love purses ? I spent a full 30 minutes trying them all on my shoulders standing in front of the mirror and chose the below two! All these days and months and years i have been carrying those big tote kinda bags, now its again time for the small and chick ones. End of those diaper and wet wipes era in my purses. There's only room for keys n' cash and mobile baby!





In the evening, after a refreshing cup of chai at home, Dr. A comes up with this idea of baking a cake for me! OK, the birthday cake's no surprise now. But we were totally unprepared. There weren't any cakey things at home. After a round of CSI - Cake Scene Ingredients investigation, we discovered he could simply do a chocolate brownie with the available butter, choco chips, flour, eggs and sugar.



He beats and stirs and bakes and then yummmmm appears the royal chocolate brownie! At 6:30pm local time, his creation comes out, this was the biggest surprise of the day. It looked amazingly beautiful, tasteful and the whole house was smelling of butter and chocolate. Neither did A or I expect it to look so shiny and wonderful, the very look n' smell told us that it was going to taste great! We looked at it like a new born and Dr. A it's Brahma, i couldn't have appreciated him more. But, alas! it was his birthday cake for me, and we had to wait for the clock to show the 00:00 hours mark for me to have the cake and eat it too. That night, we kept our dinner very very light - 2 plums and a peach each, since we knew our dessert was going to be v. heavy. We waited and waited, it was only 9pm, at 9:30pm, Dr. A after all those visits back and forth the dining table for those little peeks of his creation and making sure 'it' was doing OK and thoroughly resisting his temptation to taste his creation - comes with this brilliant idea! "Hey, its 12 o' clock in India, why not cut it now" I did not even think or wink or waste a millionth of a second, i just sprang over and was right in front of the cake waiting for a knife to be given to me. In all that enthusiasm and eagerness to taste the cake, we totally forgot to take pictures. We sang a fat-forwarded "happy birthday to you" and then atttttaaackk! It was yummm!!! It didn't taste like a first timer's bake at all. After we had nearly finished 2/3rd of it, appreciating and narrating and re-describing of how he made it and how well it had come out, we realized we did not take any pictures of the whole cake, of me cutting the cake... none at all! Those 30-40 minutes, i had forgotten all about my birthday and it was more of a day celebrating A's debut with the brownie baking !! Managed to save those last few pieces and took a pic to share with family and friends. That's the cake part of it.





On the d-day, wishes pouring in from all near and dear ones around the globe, outside - it was a gloroius bright and sunny day and we decided to go to Zikhron-Yakov. Zikhron is a small picturesque town on a hillock about 35 km from Haifa. To be precise, the look and feel of the town is like Auroville ~ Pondicherry - the promanade, art and handicrafts shops, shoes and accessories, lovely homes converted into coffee shops and wineries adorned the town. Their windows amused me the most.


The below is actually a bank.




Someone's residence.

An underground coffee shop!



A full fledged apartment converted into a mall.


This place is famous for its wineries too...


The main walk way,

MJ... He set you free...

Jackson dies, almost takes Internet with himHow many people does it take to break the Internet? On June 25, we found out it's just one -- if that one is Michael Jackson.

The 16 young yet mad men

Ha, they even had the guts to post their pictures and declare in public, their love for Rakhi Sawant. They call the program 'Rakhi ka Swayamvara', is this some kind of a spoof ? I think NDTV is just trying to bring up the viewership by casting programs with the so-called controversial bomb shell.

http://movies.rediff.com/slide-show/2009/jun/25/slide-show-1-the-men-who-want-to-wed-rakhi-sawant.htm

LOSERS! And even worse are the folks who are going to sit in front of the idiot box and watch it!
Arrrrgh!

Rajini 'Chang' Kanth

What's in a name ?

Reading this article, i was reminded of a lame joke from the movie 12B, when Vivek says, "excuse me" the other foolish friend of his who is name-hunting, chooses 'Excuse me, thanni kondu va', 'Excuse me, blah blah...' and on and on.


http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?sectionName=NLetter&id=f2e22148-cda9-4263-b9d1-24b7a9c74a8e&Headline=What%27s+in+a+name%3f


There was also this time when parents wanted their kid's name to be a combo of their names like, Nilima+ Harshit = Nihar, Veera + Nisha = Varsha etc. Had we followed this, we would have had only 2 names, Umar or Arunima kinds. I dont even know if the 1st one is a boy or girl's name, all i know is, its arabic. A friend of mine once asked for some name suggestions, and his only condition was "pera ketta chumma adhiranum", i had nothing to say but, "apo Sivaji nu vei".

I think for many a parents these days, naming the baby is a far bigger discussion and debate than to have a baby or not!

Talking about little A and our name hunt, it was all simplified - Srikrishna was already given to us. It was like our ears were being bombarded with that name from all around. To me, names like Arjun, Krishna, Vishnu never lose their fancy. All of the thatha,paatis, kollu thatha paatis, independently and unanimously mentioned "Krishnan-a" (its a krishna ?) when we said its a boy! It is very common and more cliched to address a new born as Krishna down south or even all over India. Added to it was when the paediatrician(a die-hard Cuddalorean and JIPMER alumni) , gave the tiny little one to AA & to me saying, "kutti krishnan porandurukkan" (little krishna is born), as if we didn't know =) Brannon and Rogers had already told us about it! And he uttered the same "kutti krishnan porandurukkan" when he showed the new born to his grand parents who were chanting "narayana, narayana, krishna, krishna" waiting outside the labor room. AA & I wanted a name with 'Sri' too, later, we started saying out names in alphabetical order and the very first name we both uttered, chose and liked, went well with Srikrishna, our jobs made easy, we said so be it and everyone liked it.

Father's day and Carrot Cake

Happy Father's day to all those wonderful, kind and loving dads in the world and the soon-to-be-dads in the year 2009.

Father's day and carrot cake ? Well, this is just an other excuse for me to bake something and tell little A and his dad, "only for you". Speaking about Father's day, it all started when we went to hostel. Till then it was a day like any other day. We could say it as westernization or effect of 123greetings.com or what so ever, all these days and dates started getting some importance in everyone's life when the families started living apart. These dates attained more significance through the Woman's day, Father's day, Mother's day sales and special offers in all the outlets.

Anyways, what did i do for father's day ? I sent an SMS to my dad, "Happy jappy yappy Father's day" to which he replied "Tan q". I myself find it quite funny, because we are the funny kinds, my dad's more like Anupam Kher the dad in most bollywood movies. We are not the psenti-emotional kinds. When we get together, it is mostly fun, gossip and more fun! But the two factors that can make any soul get emotional are age and distance! Our phone conversations do not last long, unless of course there is some real vambu (!). It would always be the usual and at the end he says, "eat well, stay well".

True to that advise, i made carrot cake the healthy way to eat well and stay well.





Ingredients:

For a good 12in * 2in carrot cake

* 2 medium sized carrots - grated
* 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup all purpose flour
* 3/4 cup sugar ( brown or white)
Folks with high triglycerides count may substitute this with 1/4 cup honey and add more raisnins and dates as below to add that sweetener.
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 1 tsp ground cinnamon
* 3 tsp olive oil (note: you can use any veg oil or canola or even butter, as a healthy aspect i used extra virgin olive oil)
* 1 egg, just the white
* chopped walnuts, pecans, dates, apricots, raisins (any number and variety of dry fruits in proportion ot the flour)
* 1 tsp vanilla essence
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 175 C/350F.

Beat the egg's white alone, throw away the high-cholesterol yellow. To the beaten portion, add sugar, vanilla essence, olive oil, baking powder, salt, cinnamon powder and mix well. Add the flour and the chopped dry fruits as much as you desire. I actually added 5 walnuts, 5 pecans, 4 dates, 4 apricots - all chopped. Now add the carrots and mix well . If the batter is still thick, add the milk little by little to loosen it.

Pour into a greased pan or aluminum foil. Bake for 40 minutes.

One can add icing if they wish, but i feel the icing makes my healthy cake, unhealthy :-).

Eat well, stay well and have a great day all of you who have been blessed with great dads and those to whom God has been unfair to, i know the loss is irreplaceable, I'm channeling all my love and energy to you so you can have a great day too recalling all those pleasant memories.

Can the world get smaller than this ?

http://www.google.com/goog411/index.html

Holding Babies

Indian thatha-paatis (grand parents) will have a heart attack if they see someone carrying a month old baby this way. Babies below the age of 3 months or atleast till the stage their neck becomes stable are said to be handled with great care. First time mother's would listen to those advices on ' art of carrying new borns' umpteen times a day from their parents, grand parents and more from the 'adutha aathu' (from the neighbourhood), 'adutha theru' (next street) vambu maamis (gossip aunties) and paatis. These jobless vambu maamis think they are the God sent mesiahs to preach child care or the mid wife incarnations always pouring those unwanted and embarassing advices. The conversations when they are around pretty much go like the age old Woodword's gripe water advertisement. Wondering what will have to say when this picture too ?!!

1954 Prediction - a computer in 2004

Attempted Pita Breads...

They are best had with Hummous & Tehina, so they say!

But for a die hard desi, it goes the best with Tomato pickle and Raita...yumm!!!

The mode of preparation, i followed as is from the link,

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/pitabread

used - instant yeast+salt+honey (no sugar)

flour - whole wheat flour 2 cups + 1 cup white flour

The story behind MS Blue

http://www.nallisilk.com/nallib2c/history.do

1951

"One crisp summer morning in 1951, the late M S Subbulakshmi, one of the greatest names in Carnatic music has ever known, walked into a Nalli store with a blue thread in her hand. The thread was of a particular shade of blue, on that she wanted a sari fashioned out of. As that particular color was not commercially available. Nalli experimented with dyes in their own workshop and true to Nalli's reputation, she got her wish. from then on. that particular shade of blue came to be known as MS blue."

The brushing song!

In order to make brushing his teeth a pleasant and a happy thing for him, i came up with a song. I always stood beside him in front of the mirror and sang and danced as he brushed. The song is as simple as ,

"side to side, side to side
side to side, side to side,
on your left, front back,
front back, front back,
on to your right front back,
front back front back,
up and down, up and down,
up and down, up and down,
side to side....up and down (how many ever times, till I'm satisfied with his brushing)
splash as you spit, grrrrrrrrrr garggle and splash as you spit "

By 'splash' I just meant the sound of water gushing out of his mouth as he spit but instead he used to spit and splash literally all over the mirror. I used to just control myself and not go ballistic about it - ain't matter now, since i feel hygiene comes first and then follows discipline involuntarily. May be it was my mistake and i should not have uttered splash at all in the first place. But it was too late, since he liked my composition and knew the song fully and i was afraid to make any changes. And moreover brushing his teeth was more important than the mirror getting wet. Kids do understand a lot, all we need to do is TALK. We explain to him that he needs to brush twice everyday in order to get rid of the bacteria. And if he drinks his milk before brushing in the morning, the bacteria is going to go into his stomach and cause stomach ache and blah blah blah. He understands this fact! Over understood to the extent that he got too finicky and when ever he ate an ice cream or chocolate or anything sticky, he would want to brush. Anyways, after a few days of splashing all over the mirror, he came up with the question, "When i spit, is the bacteria going to go to the mirror ? Mirror ku edanum ayduma (is anything going to happen to the mirror)?" I rolled my eyes and said, "Yes, Mirror paavam daane" and that's it, he is a very clean spitter since then ;-)

OK, above is all old story, now, the reason behind this post is, i was downloading some peppy Hindi songs in order to burn a CD for the car, so we can enjoy some non-stop desi music during our weekend road trips. I played a few remixes as i got going with some house hold chores and side by side doing some bollyrobics choreo ;-). All of a sudden he comes running to me, "Amma, yaaro unnoda paatu padra shano shano-la" (mom, someone's singing your song on shano shano) He became so sad, he almost couldn't digest the fact that someone else was singing the same words that i sing for him. Just too possessive! Seriously, i never knew that such a bit existed in that song, since, all along we were listening to the original track and only today i played the remix.

Here is what he listened to between 0:49 and 0:53,

It only took half a decade for that change

I saw Khalnayak "only" yesterday.

We were in high school and the super duper 'controversial' hit song, "choli ke peeche.. (1993)" was a big no-no in the house hold. I personally loved that song for that wonderful choreography (spare the 'kuku kuku' parts which is very silly) by Saroj Khan and am a big fan of Madhuri dixit. The age old chitrahaar on wednesday nights used to cast that song once or twice in a month or in Rangoli on sunday mornings. That once in a month darshan of madhuri's hit song was itself a big thing and where do we ask for the movie ?




In 6 years time, came "nimbuda nimbuda nimbuda.. (1996)", where Aishwarya danced the ditto sequences of hip swaying, dhak dhaks, knee up kick kick sequences - the same Saroj Khan choreography and the same-to-same steps one after the other. And guess what, i still remember Saroj Khan winning the Filmfare for best choreography for both these 2 dances which were more or less the same, net-net she got an award for her original composition in 1994 and then copied it over to once again grab the award.



Anyways, all that ain't matter now. What am trying to figure out is, when Madhuri did the same number, the song was not accepted by any parent, neither was it a song for those school day/annual day celebrations. Everywhere it faced a 'no', school to college to home to parents to grand parents. Only because, it starts with "choli ke peeche kya hai". Ofcourse, the very next line makes it clear to the perverted minds, "choli mein dil hai mera". So, what was the big deal ?

When Aishwarya, wore the same kind of clothes, did the same hip sways, it became a family thing,a family movie. Why ? Because Nandini was from a very traditional background of musicians ? Because Ganga danced for the villian whereas Nandini dance for the hero ? Or has the attitude towards dressing changed ? Have the Indian families become more liberal in just a span 5 years ? Choli was a sinful word ? But, every bride these days wears only a lehenga - choli for her wedding reception ? Effect of westernization ? But lehenga-choli is very much Indian, so do we call it Northernisation within India, where the the whole of India accepted the north indies (rajasthani here) dresses ? If such is the case, may be i should argue as, for the rest of India to agree upon and accept north indian dresses, has it taken them holy 50 years time from 1947 ?

Yes, of course now they are and have adapted to the westernization because every kuppan and suppan has crossed the Atlantic. Post Y2k, the world has shrunk and so has everything on and in it. Its a mad mad mad world, no one knows why and when and how people change and what makes them change.

That 2 minute notice

... before he sank into the deep waters of Mediterranean.

Garma garam whole wheat cookies, anyone ?