Popsicle –> PepsiCola – so much cooler than popsicle no?
Time please –> Thupplis (is what regular junta called it). Thames (is what the hep crowd called it).
Zigzagzee –> Jeejaajee (hold your breath for the rest of the song).. kabhi upar, kabhi neeche, kabhi aage, kabhi peeche.. can’t remember the rest of the stuff. No wonder the elders shooed us every time we sang that one.
What did you speak in school?
“I have to do something before I turn into Adnan Sami”.
This was my favourite line while discussing my fitness plans (that never saw the light of the day) with all and sundry. Till one day, when on a whim, I went and bought a weighing machine. And as per the damned machine, I am ALREADY an Adnan Sami. So after a few sleepless nights with nightmares of me having a heart attack, I finally started doing something about it.
I now have a fitness regime and I have started eating sensibly. Even though I really want to, I can not tell you what the regime is, ’cause I don’t want to jinx it like the jinked the packetless diet (didn’t last a week even). So its been 5 days of hard work, sweat and too much climbing on the weight scale, and the weight has NOT budged by even half a kilo. I have weighed myself at dawn, before a meal, after a meal, before potty, after potty, with shoes on, with minimum clothes on, all to no avail. Someone please tell me all this effort is not going waste. I think its PMS. After all, when all else fails, it has got to be PMS.
When one wants to read, the other wants to catch some sleep.
When one is getting ideas, the other is fast asleep.
When one buys a furry blanket, the other has an allergy.
When one is sweating like a pig, the other is cozy in a quilt.
When one wants the lights off, the other has to have them on.
When one wants a soft bed, the other gets a backache.
Whene one wants a fan on highest speed, the other is getting chills.
When one loves cotton bedsheets, the other swears by satin.
When one prefers the windows closed and curtains drawn, the other says “I can’t breathe”.
And if that is not enough, we now have a baby who really has a mind of his own. It is really a wonder how we – all three of us, manage to sleep in the same room, really. How do you manage?
Pesarattu is a breakfast dish from Andhra Pradesh – a healthy dosa made from whole moong and rice. I tried it out of curiousity from vahchef’s youtube channel and it has slowly and steadily making it’s way in our regular breakfast menu. I love making it when we have friends of family arriving in the morning. It is a filling breakfast perfect for occasions when you’ve not had proper dinner the night before.
To make pesarattus (for 2 hungry people), you’ll need -
1 cup whole moong (whole green gram)
1/2 cup raw rice
Ginger, grated- 1 tbsp
3 green chillies
1 large onion, chopped finely
1 tsp jeera seeds (cumin)
A few drops of oil(optional)
Soak the moong and rice together in plenty of water, overnight or for 6-8 hours. Drain out the excess water. Add 1 tsp jeera, 2 chopped green chillies, 1/2 tbsp of grated ginger, optionally 1 tbsp of chopped onions and grind in a blender to a smooth consistency.
Combine the remaining 1 tbsp grated ginger, finely chopped onions, 1 finely chopped green chilly in a cup and keep aside. Heat a non-stick tava and spread the batter to make a dosa, using a flat steel katori and spreading the batter in a spiral motion, starting from the centre. Since pesarattu batter is slightly thicker than that of the dosa, the katori helps the batter spread evenly. Sprinkle the ginger-onion-green chilly mixture that was kept aside. Once the dosa is golden brown, gently peel it off the tava and serve. Ideal accompaniments are ginger chutney or coconut chutney. Though I usually serve with my all time favourite tomato chutney.
Yaiy!! I have been tagged by lostonthestreet to do a tag about books. I am very impatient with questions, but I have tried. Also, I am big on books but not necessarily big on books with literary value. I read all sorts of books that I enjoy. Of late, I have developed an allergy towards pure fiction and books that overdose on big words fail to hold my interest any more. Like one of the recent books I read – You are here. It is a breezy, chick lit sort of book that I did read end to end. But I am done with my fair share of chick lit and entire books dedicated to crushes and breakups and boyfriends. Okay that’s all. Here’s the tag.
1) What author do you own the most books by?
Rohinton Mistry
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Freakonomics (I bought the second one just a few days after I bought the first one, cause I had forgotten about the first one by then)
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
No.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
None right now.
5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
The Dilbert Omnibus and my entire C&H collection. I am being honest here.
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Guessing that it would’ve been Gijubhai Badheka ni balvartao series.
7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Eleven minutes and The Alchemist (and everything else by Paulo Coelho)
8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Waiter rant: Confessions of a cynical waiter by Steve Dublanica. Also, Grains, greens and grated coconuts by Ammini Ramachandran. This year I have been ODing on good quality recipe books that provide cultural and historical context and not just plain recipes.
9) If you could force everyone to read one book, what would it be?
Any of the Calvin and Hobbes. Come on, it’s a book!
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for literature?
Rohinton Mistry
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
None. By the end of a good book, I usually have my own idea of how the characters walk, talk, look, smell like and the movie director’s view of the world is usually completely different from mine.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Read point 11.
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Don’t quite remember though I do get a lot of weird dreams where I transform into one of the characters or start living with them or something.
14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
One night at the call centre by Chetan Bhagat. More recently, You are here by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan
15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
None after I graduated. Thank God for that!
16) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
None.
17) Austen or Eliot?
None.
18) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Oh lots. But I don’t even intend to read Shakespeare or anything that I am not going to enjoy but is supposed to be high quality literature just for the sake of it.
19) What is your favorite novel?
None.
20) Play?
It’s been really long since I read one actually. Recommendations anyone?
21) Short story?
Same as point 20.
22) Work of non-fiction?
To sir with love by E R Braithwaite. Not without my daughter by Betty Mahmoody.
23) Who is your favorite writer?
How many more times are you going to ask this? It is ROHINTON MISTRY, okay?
The banana walnut bread is one thing I absolutely love to bake, because not only does it taste moist and divine, it also leaves the house smelling sweet like a bakery. I have baked quite a few banana walnut breads, but the recipes I like the most is this one by Medha.
It takes just a few minutes to assemble the batter if you have the ingredients ready in your pantry. Also, there are no fancy ingredients so it is quite likely you’ll find everything you need for the banana walnut bread lying in your pantry right now!
To make banana walnut bread you’ll need:
Preheat the oven for. Mash the bananas using a blender. Add the sugar, curd and whirr in the blender once more. Add the butter, salt, flour and baking soda and mix well. Add the milk, vanilla essence and finally add the walnuts. Grease a bread pan with butter, especially the corners and edges of the pan. I used a basic aluminium bread baking pan. Dust it with a little flour and pour in the batter. Bake it for 50 mins at 170 degrees C. Check by poking the bread with a toothpick to see if it comes out clean. Invert the bread on a wire rack for 10-15 minutes. Once the bread is at room temperature, slice it and enjoy. :)
I tasted my first paneer bhurji at the then swanky Hiranandani food court, when I was studying in Bombay. Eventually it found its way into my kitchen because the husband loves it equally if not more. If you’re a beginner in the kitchen, this is one recipe that is so easy you can never go wrong. This recipe is based on one a dear friend shared with me from her PG days in Delhi. She used to prepare it with soya paneer which is easily available in Delhi and is perhaps healthier and economical compared to regular paneer. I have tried substituting paneer with tofu, but I am did not like it all that much.
Paneer bhurji (For 2-3 people)
You’ll need
Heat oil in a kadai and once the oil is hot, add mustard and jeera seeds. Pop in the finely chopped green chillies and onions. Sprinkle a little salt and let the onions saute on medium till they are slightly browned. Add the grated ginger, crushed garlic and green peas and saute for a minute. Then add the chopped tomatoes and cook till the tomatoes are tender. Add the turmeric, chilly, coriander, cumin and garam masala.Then add the grated paneer, adjust the salt and switch off the gas. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve with hot fulkas or parathas.
.. ya laali, who can stand up and say that life has always been fair to him? That everybody and everything he’s undergone has always been just what he deserved or more.
If the world is unfair and everyone seems to be crying that they got a raw deal, who are these other people who got lucky? For it has to all add up to zero, isn’t it?
What is with the my-misery-is-bigger-than-yours game that everyone seems to playing and playing hard, but no one seems to be winning?
I have a very generous lady for a neighbour, who keeps plying us with goodies like laddus and polis and dahi wadas, every once in a while.
Our way to return the favour is by gobbling everything up real quick and by repeatedly telling her how fabulous the food was and of course return the bowls. I tried filling out the bowls with something I’ve made while returning, but it didn’t last long. The bowls had to wait for long in the shelves waiting for the day I filled them up with something edible. So I’ve stopped trying. I’ve just gone back to returning the bowls with a smile and a thank you aunty!
Today I have sinned. While pulling out a turai from the fridge, I broke the bowl (and with it the precious laddus in it).
Now I am on a mission to find a replacement of the bowl. Please wish me luck. And also tell me if you know of a shop in Bangalore that stocks La Opala bowls with small reddish flowers on it. An ice cream treat guaranteed!
What’s a good girl to do when she is swamped with work, is hours away from a deadline and severely sleep deprived? Make a random post like this one.
So how’s the packetless diet going? Well I am still alive. Seconds after writing that post and publishing my decision to follow the diet, I realized what trouble I had gotten myself into. I excluded a woman’s most fundamental right for mental and physical well being. I excluded pani puri. Wait… maybe I could eat it if I made it at home, which is very painful, but what’s a few hours of hard work against a cruncy puris, topped with boiled potatoes & chana, dipped in yummy, tangy, minty paani? But then I realized that by banning processed items like rava and maida (the two main ingredients in making puri) I had locked myself out of any hope. Remember this diet also doesn’t allow Maggi. It’s a terrible diet really.
Seriously though, it has been manageable. I have been a good girl and have been cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner at home. Simply because if I don’t cook, I starve and that’s not doing good things to my temper as everyone around me tells me. In moments of temptation, I always turned to mangoes and thanked God for creating them, each time. And it has worked. Oh and home made curd so kicks Amul Masti dahi’s ass! Also, I am raiding the local subziwala’s every single day for the freshest, bestest haul of vegetables and fruits, two times a day. Well, I like to take the quality of my supplies very seriously.
Coming to the bottomline, I have figured out one loophole by now. That is my diet can include vadas and french fries. How many diets can boast of something like that, huh? As long as I make it at home!!! With a full time job and a toddler at hand, I will probably never get the time, that’s another story. The thought itself is propelling me forward. Wish me luck!