Chimizh

Chimizh

I like to keep my gifts simple and practical but I notice that there are too many creative ideas floating around for gifts and sometimes I need a user manual before I can start using them.
For example a cousin gave me this beautiful piece. A cute little thing which looked like a container for kumkum called a Kumkuma Chimizh in Tamil. (I love this word and hence the title of this post!!) In my opinion Ganesha's image is the cutest among the Hindu Pantheon and I loved the six mice around the central Ganesha with images of ganesha emobossed on their back.
Trouble began when I realised that the Ganesha in the middle was not welded and could actually be unscrewed to open the mice top to make this piece into something like this:
This was not an accident - so there was certainly a design idea. As everyone knows the 6th rule of commonsense is that if anything can be unscrewed, there is a purpose behind it. So now I had to find a purpose for what I had assumed to be an innocuous chimizh. So what was it?

Perhaps a portable Puja with a figurine of Ganesha and small sections to hold puja essentials like chandan, kumkum, haldi, flower and may be a little prasad like sugar crystals.I know people who like to carry prayer things while travelling.



And then you could close the box and lock it with the Ganesha and put it back in the luggage. (Might be very useful in case of hijacking - oops I am blaspheming.)









Or perhaps, you could use it as a total Puja Solution in today's context of small flats and if you'd like to keep your faith private. You could just have a niche in your room and have your god, Rangoli and lamp rolled in one in a hole in the wall, i mean, a niche in the wall. Voila, your pooja room personalised and ready for use!


















As readers of this space know, I am a simple person and definitely no Sherlock Holmes or Edward de Bono. It looked pretty as a lamp and that is how I decided to use it.
Recently another cousin explained to me what its original intention was supposed to be and I was stunned.


Any guesses on what this artistic piece was used for among the royals of yore? The beautiful exterior was meant to distract attention from something sinister that it contained. If there was a war and if the conquering enemy advanced upto the royal household, they used the contents to die with honour! Yea, this was the equivalent of poison rings and cyanide amulets containing enough dosage for a family of six. ("one family pack please!" they must have said!!)
It is understandable considering the humiliation that awaited them if they were caught alive by the enemy.

Pursuit of imperfection

Pursuit of imperfection

Dasara (dussera) is a special time at my cousin's place as my cousin and her daughter are very skilled and everything on display is made with their own hands. And some of them cannot be made in advance like the dolls she made with vegetables this year (Pictures - previous post) and are created on the day of the display.This year I took a friend along - she is from the North-east and is visiting Bangalore and I thought she might enjoy this new experience.
Everything went well - we went, we saw, we admired; got our share of sundal and haldi, kumkum and some goodies.On our way back I received a call from my cousin telling me to come back as I had left my spectacles behind. Now without my spectacles I cannot read anything that is less than font size 20 but I keep removing them all the time and leaving them everywhere and about 25% of my day is spent looking for them. And since my cousin lives 25 km away and this takes a 25 minutes drive plus 50 minutes wait through jams,( yes, welcome to Bangalore!) I decided to return and reclaim the glasses.
I planned to get the glasses and start immediately so I left the keys in the car. But in a series of unplanned actions,we found ourselves locked out of the car. It was a Sunday afternoon and a festival day to boot and not any festival but Vijaya Dasami and hence it was daft even trying to look for a garage or a mechanic. We borrowed keys from other Santro owners in the neighbourhood and tried to force it open. No luck. Luckily the duplicate key was in my house and my son was in the house. So we decided to wait until the duplicate arrived. Meantime regretful self-reproach commenced among others: "oh if only I had not..." "No, I should have.." "No, no, it is totally my fault."
And there I was , totally detached from this guilt trip - calm, happy in the thought that we have a solution in sight. And I was telling them: "These things happen. Look at it this way, it could have been worse. I could have carried the duplicate and they could be in the bag inside the car right now. Or Siddhu could have been at work and we would have had no one to get the duplicate." (Husband was already out of town.) And the best part was that I was not doing this out of politeness or just to relieve their guilt. I honestly felt this way and I thought we were actually in the best possible scenario under the circumstances.And I surprised myself.

I do not know when I became like this because a few years ago,I would have been the first person to start fretting in such a situation. I would have thought of everything I should have, could have, ought to have done to prevent this and blamed me for not doing each of those. There would have been anger at myself and a sense of shame. Shame because in our circle all such goofs became legends with your byline by being narrated at every family gathering, in excruciating detail. One was surrounded by people who prided themselves on their perfection and lapses and mistakes were frowned upon with the contempt reserved for the incompetent.
For a while, when I was young it was important for me to be considered competent and infallible. But then one fine morning I woke up and said:"it is alright to make mistakes as long as they do not hurt anyone, are not harmful and can be corrected." I think that was the day I became an adult!

Things can go wrong despite the best intentions and meticulous care. And when they do, what can be worse than to obsess about them and flog yourself? How do you learn if you never make a mistake? I may be wrong but I believe that people who believe that things can go wrong are better at crisis management. Until a few years ago, I have noticed that in India the government owned airline was super efficient at handling delays while the new and naive private airlines staff were clueless if anything went wrong.
Additionally acceptance of what is less than perfect allows you to experiment and try out the untried and untested. As they say, a man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault. The good thing about life is that it in most cases, it offers you second chances and everyday need not be planned or executed with the precision required for a space flight.

I sometimes think that my obsession with lists and memo pads might have its roots in trying to ensure nothing goes wrong or nothing is forgotten or overlooked - basically trying to ensure that there are no mistakes from my side. But things can and do go wrong sometimes like they did on Sunday and it was nobody's fault. In the bargain we got to spend an hour more together chatting as there was nothing to do but wait. And if nobody makes mistakes, why are there duplicate keys?
Nowadays I don't mind being laughed at for my mistakes - if mistakes make my life colourful and enrich my experience, I'd rather choose a more colourful and enriching life than a boring perfect one.

Pursuit of perfection

Pursuit of perfection

These are pictures of Golu or the display of dolls during Navaratri at my cousin's place.
The theme this year is dress and everything on display has been made by my niece and my cousin.They have amazing talent and patience and above all the enthusiasm to do something totally different each year.

Overview








The bird that came out of this EGG (plant)
And that's the healthiest ice cream cone - large doses recommended for dieting!





sLIMEy smileys.









you know what to do if you want to release the prince(of capsicum)from his curse!






Notice something fishy about the aubergine?





alu-chicken and monster alus.




Pasta,rice and dal in a delicious....kolam



And my niece makes the prettiest ponchos and cutest booties and sweater sets for kids. Let me know if you have ideas on how to market them.

Marleys and Munnis

Marleys and Munnis

You are in the commercial centre of the city for a film and while you are in the vicinity you decide to drop into the bookstore and also squeeze in some long pending shopping. On the way back you are caught in the traffic and finally you are happy to be back in the 'comfort' of your own home after 5 hours of crowd and noise.
And your heart melts when a bouncy dog greets you at the gate and receives you with manic display of affection. Isn't it wonderful to know someone missed you so much? Life seems so beautiful.
Your want to slip your tired feet into the pair of comfortable slippers you use indoors and where are they?
"Munni, chappal?" and the maniac happily bounds off leading you to the back of the house. On the lawn are an assortment of slippers and socks along with your hairbrush and the dupatta you had worn that morning.
And the garden itself looks as if a`wild elephant just passed through it - plants pulled out of the ground and pots, lawn dug up in four places and the garden hose chewed up in several bits.
You try to catch the culprit and she runs all around the garden thinking it is playtime and she is all set to play "catch me if you can."

What about the other inmates of the house? How did she get up to this? what were they doing?
As expected,you find the son at the computer table and the husband behind a pile of newspapers - positions from which they might reluctantly budge if the roof falls on their heads. The acorn didn't fall too far from the tree - well that would have been too much of an effort for those genes.
"Hello, do you know what Munni has been up to?"
"Oh, she has been very quiet all this while. No problem at all."

The battle can wait. A cup of tea first. So you head toward the kitchen or what used to be the kitchen for now it resembles TV pictures of a scene after a natural disaster. The garbage bin has been carelessly left open for Munni to sneak in and play with its contents.And while sweeping the floor you pick up a long piece of black pasta which you would recognise later to be the remnants of your mobile phone charger!

Welcome to a "normal' day in the life of the owner of a thoroughly spoilt dog.

The scene could be straight from that charming tale of Marley, the world's worst dog - Marley & Me. Some of us are blessed with special kind of dogs. They never obey a rule, they never learn a trick and even if they learn, they will make you lose face by ignoring the command when you are proudly trying to show off. These are dogs that are deluded that they are humans and that they are so special that they can get away with their worst.And they usually do because they have the extra ordinary gift of making their home with hopeless dog lovers like me and John Grogon, the author of the book 'Marley & Me'

If you love animals for what they are and not for what they can do, you will love Marley & Me. The book is full of amusing anecdotes involving the huge, dumb, disobedient and yet totally adorable Marley - but every dog owner knows how 'amusing' these must have been at the time they happened. It takes unconditional love and unending supply of patience to put up with some of their childish shenanigans and it is a lot of extra hard work but worth every bit of it if you can draw up the balance sheet and see what they give you in return. As John Grogon says in the book:

"Was it possible for a dog - any dog, but especially a nutty, uncontrollable one like ours - to point humans to the things that really matter in life? I believed it was. Loyalty. Courage. Devotion. Simplicity. Joy. And the things that did not matter, too. A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbols mean nothing to him. A waterlogged stick will do just fine. A dog judges others not by their color or creed or class but by who they are inside.A dog doesn't care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his. It was really quite simple,and yet we humans, so much wiser and more sophisticated, have always had trouble figuring out what really counts and what does not."

He might tear a wall down when left alone in a thunder storm or ruin a handwoven Persian carpet but then he would also follow his master everywhere,climbing stairs not minding the ache in his legs and knees ravaged by arthritis till his last days. That kind of devotion is something you cannot buy for any amount of cash.
For everything else, as we know, there is master card.

Marleys and Munnis - they make us see the essential aspects of life and try to make us better human beings.

Ella Dining Room and Bar

Ella Dining Room and Bar

1131 K St, Sacramento, CA 95814, (916) 443-3772

I may be the lone voice of dissent on this restaurant, but here it goes...After all the hype, all I can say about Ella is that it failed to deliver & I walked away quite disappointed with the experience. Upon setting foot in the door, I wasn't sure if I had walked into Selland's new venture or the discarded set of an Alice in Wonderland filming. It appeared that the proprietor decided to go with an eclectic hodge podge design of white wrap-around billowing curtains that went from floor to ceiling lending an institutional look to the establishment, along with a multitude of shutters covering the ceiling...yes, the ceiling. Appearances aside, the initial impression of the service left a lot to be desired. There were two ladies working the front desk & neither bothered to look up & offer a greeting to our party of three. It wasn't until one of my dining companions finally took a step forward & advised that we had a reservation that we were acknowledged. And by acknowledged, it was a brisk , "Follow me," no "Hello, "Welcome," or "Thanks for waiting." Now granted the place was busy for a Wednesday night, I still believe when one takes the time out beforehand to make a reservation; it should merit a decent table. Instead, we were unceremoniously plopped down at a high-traffic area table that was also just a few mere feet away from the hostess stand & bar. In addition, the restaurant has a cavernous, echoic feel. My friend was sitting just on the other side of the table & I couldn't hear a single word she said during the evening without one or the other of us shouting. A lot of the conversation during the night amongst the three of us went like, "What?" "Did you say something?" "Were you talking to me?" It also probably didn't help matters, that there was a very intoxicated woman in the bar that kept yelling & clomping down her stiletto like a braying mule.

Our server, Darren, was the one of the few bright spots of the night. He was attentive, friendly & offered recommendations. We started off requesting the citrus poached prawns; however, the expeditor brought out the grilled prawns with creole barbeque sauce instead. When we pointed out the error, he smoothly advised us to keep the wrong order on the house & he would have the correct dish brought out shortly...he followed through & the citrus prawns were quite tasty. They were served cold with a sauce that appeared to have a "bite" at the finish. The Creole BBQ prawns, on the other hand, were quite lackluster and made me glad that we weren't shelling out the $13 for it. Next, we moved on to the baked oysters. Word of advice? Don't. I think we're still kicking ourselves that we didn't opt for the raw oysters in the half shell. The baked oyster starter reminded me of one of those heavy cheese covered dishes at TGI Friday's. There was so much cheese slathered on there that one had no idea what kind of mystery seafood he/she was ingesting. The lackluster oysters were followed by the heirloom tomato & burrata cheese salad...now I have no problem throwing down for a good meal but $9.50 for half a tomato? Are you kidding me? That tomato better do magic tricks.

At this point in the meal, all three of us were a bit glum that we had chosen Ella's for our night out. So far it had amounted to mediocre food at NYC prices. Maybe our fairy godmothers felt sorry for us because at this point, Darren brought out a scrumptious plate of baby beets. This was my favorite dish of the night. I was seriously thinking of ditching my dinner order and just ordering another round of the delectable beets. But as they say hindsight is 20/20. My friends both went for the NY strip & were quite content with their choices. I chose the road less traveled...but unlike Browning, I came to regret my decision. Prior to placing our entree orders I vacillated between the duck & the rack of lamb. Both sounded divine. The server assured me both dishes were wonderful, he even noted that normally he did not enjoy duck but he liked Ella's version of the quacker. So I went with the fowl. Bad choice... the most common mistake with duck is that it's overcooked and dry. Well, Ella's version was quite moist...but the dish lacked any flavor whatsoever. Our conscientious server came by & inquired about our dinners. When he got a sad shrug from me he immediately offered to replace the dish with another entree. I declined as I had eaten most of the swiss chard and figs by then and my dining companions were almost done. Moments later the mgr/sommelier came by making the same gracious offer. When I declined again, he politely advised that dessert would be on the house. Although not needed, it was a thoughtful gesture on his part. At our waiter's urging we split a chocolate & macadamia nut cake. Overall, our server did a great job of trying to iron out the wrinkles of the evening, but even his super service could not convince me that Ella's fare justifies its upscale pricing.

8/2012- Update

An update. we went to Ella's Saturday night for dinner with some friends. Setting my opinions from 10/07 aside, I really wanted to like it this go round. I love Selland's and The Kitchen, plus Ella had recently hired a new head chef so I was going in with an open mind. To avoid being seated in a high traffic area under an air vent like last time, I made reservations and requested a nice table near a window or a booth. When we arrived the hostess sat us at a nice booth in the rear of the restaurant, where it was quiet. For our starter, Mr.S. and I split the steak tartare which was delicious-it was finely minced, had a nice subtle hint of french mustard and was paired with a fresh egg and a few torn garlic popovers. Both of us liked it. For our main courses, Mr.S went with the pan seared tuna and caponata (a cooked vegetable salad made of roasted eggplants, squash, tomato and raisin caper puree). He commented that the tuna was seared perfectly (rare) but was quite a small portion for nearly $30. I had opted for  the salmon which came served over a helping of succotash. The salmon was tender but the succotash was slightly mushy. Overall, we both liked our meals although they weren't anything exceptional. The disappointment for the evening was mainly concerning the service. We had three different servers that night and it was like a page from Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Our first waitress (a very tall redhead) seemed annoyed that we were even seated at her table and treated us like we were an awful hindrance to her evening. She appeared to be one step away from rolling her eyes every time we ordered anything. At one point, she stepped on Mr.S.'s foot extremely hard and didn't say anything. Not a pleasant dining experience. Luckily for us, her shift ended or something to that like because we were handed off to a friendly waiter (young, African-American gentleman with glasses), he was absolutely wonderful. Super personable and on top of everything. As we edged towards the end of our meal, he checked back with us a few times but we were mainly assisted by a petite brunette waitress who was friendly. She took care of our after dinner drink orders and our check.

Later that evening, Mr.S. and I had a conversation about the dinner at Ella's and decided we probably won't go back, although we'll still continue to dine at Selland's and The Kitchen. For a $220+ meal for four, it just wasn't up to standards, we would rather spend the money at Mulvaney's or Waterboy.

कोथिंबीर वडी (Corriander Tikki)

कोथिंबीर वडी (Corriander Tikki)

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

Today when Ajoy returned back, i wanted to cook something with kothimbir considering he loves kothimbir and here i cooked a mom's recipe.. It tastes awesome and very very easy to prepare.. It goes well in starters and can be a hit item in the parties...


Ingredients
2 cup corriander leaves
1/2 cup Besan
1/4 cup rice powder
1 spoon red chilli powder
Oil
Salt to taste

Method

• Wash and chop the corriander leaves very fine
• Mix besan, rice powder, chilli powder, salt and a spoon of oil with these finely chopped corriander leaves.
• Add little water if required and form a cylindrical ball with this mixture
• Grease it a little bit and cook it on vapour in pressure cooker for 15 - 20 min till the knife comes out of this ball without mixture sticked to it
• Let the ball cool down and then cut it into thin pieces
• Deep fry the tikkis and serve with sauce

Notes
If by any chance you happen to add little extra water add more besan so that it forms tight ball
Add salt with care as this mixture tends to get salty even with little salt

Gajar Halwa

Gajar Halwa

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

This recipe is something very easy to cook and i had been cooking this very often lately.. mainly because it is delicious, it has lots of milk and carrot which is good for health and plus very easy to cook.. esp in microwave.. Even for stove recipes i tried diffierent methods and here is the one that tastes most delicious...


Ingredients
5 cup grated carrots
4 cup milk
1 cup sugar
5 spoon dry fruits
4 spoon ghee

Method

• Heat a pan and add 1 spoon of ghee
• Add the grated carrots and let them fry a little for couple of minutes on lowest possible flame
• Add a cup of milk to this and let the carrots cook on medium flame with constant stirring
• Once the mixture starts drying out add another cup and keep on cooking, follow this till complete milk is added and carrots cook well
• Once mixture dries out, add the sugar and again keep on stiring and let the mixture mix well and dry well
• Add 3 spoons of ghee from side and fry the halwa on it
• In another pan add remaining ghee and fry the dry fruits well and then add them to the halwa

Notes
Frying halwa on the ghee at end makes it nice and delicious.
Adding frying fruits add to the taste.
You can optionally add everest milk masala into the halwa for better taste

Sol Kadhi

Sol Kadhi

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

This is very famous item from konkani cuisine and it tastes awesome.. And above all its very digestive and also helps a lot in acidity.. You can drink it like it or can eat it with rice.. in all combinations it tastes awesome :) So here is the recipe


Ingredients
8 kokams
1 coconut
1-2 cloves of garlic
salt to taste
corriander for garnishing

Method

• Soak the kokams in 1/4 cup of water
• Preapare milk from coconut, while preparing it add garlic cloves as well so that only its falvour is in coconut milk and not the pieces
• Add this coconut milk to the soaked kokam water
• Add salt to taste and garnish with the corriander

Notes
If you do not like garlic taste you can prepare coconut milk without garlics, but garlic gives it nice taste
You get very good kokams in goa, they are red and sour which give nice red colour to the kadhi
You need to customize number of kokams according to their sourness. I have very old kokams so i need to add them in little extra quantity and even then it doesnot give the colour to the curry though it tastes good. you might need 1-2 kokams less if your kokams are red, sour and new.

Stuffed Tomato

Stuffed Tomato

मराठीमध्ये वाचण्यासाठी इथे क्लिक करा

I was not sure how this will turn out when i decided to try this out.. Its kind of own recipe when i wanted to prepare something totally different with paneer. I had seen stuffed tomatoes in a cooker adv when i was kid and since then i had that facination towards stuffed tomato.. Though i never told mom.. so this is first time i was trying stuffed tomato and i wanted something very different as stuffing.. something without potato :D So here is the recipe...


Ingredients
4 mid sized tomatoes
1 small onion
1.5 cup grated paneer
handful of corriander leaves
1 tea spoon jeera
1/4 spoon black pepper
2 spoon butter
salt to taste

Method

• Cut the small round portion from the tomatoes head and save them
• Take out the inner portion of the tomato and store it in a cup
• Heat pan and add butter to it
• Fry finely hopped onion on it till its done
• Add tomatoes inner portion that we stored earlier
• Once the mixture is dry take it out in a dish
• Add the grated paneer, finely chopped corriander leaves, jeera, black pepper, salt to taste
• Now add this mixture to the hollow tomatoes and cover them with their head that are stored
• Grease the tomatoes a little and bake them or cook on vapour in a cooker

Notes
You might want to add mushroom to this while we fry onions to get a different taste
Baked tomatoes taste nice but the ones in cooker give it nice colour as well as taste