When I promised to write about a light and frothy subject - I was referring to my favourite sport - Cricket. I was planning to discuss about the high and lows this game has brought into my life..
But after that heart breaking 1 run loss by Mumbai Indians against Kings Punjab.. I don't think I can summon up enough pleasure to discuss the game :(. Poor Sachin.. Why is that he always ends up with teams that fall like a pack of cards (or a line of cycles as Sidhu says) whenever he gets out! :(
Well.. I'll save my cricket story for another day..
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
Travails with Rock Salt
It all started with our packet of iodized salt getting over. As it happens all the time, we forgot to replenish our stock of salt. So my intelligent and ever resourceful Mom decided to use Rock Salt (Kal Uppu in Tamil) to cook our daily meal.
The food turned out to be a lot better than normal with just that extra bit of salt. The aloo karamadhu(curry) turned out excellent last week :). So far so good. Then Amma decided to do most, if not all her cooking using rock salt..
Now rock salt is very unlike the normal free flowing powdered salt that we use. I am told 1 1/2 teaspoons of normal salt is equivalent to about 1/2 teaspoon of rock salt. Anything extra might just make your food inedible ;).
My Dad, a competent cook himself decided to experiment and added rock salt to the Idli batter. There started the problem - the batter turned out salty and the idlis saltier! Now to salvage the batter, we added onions and chillis and made dosas.. they were no better! Dad ate them with a straight face ;). No comments :)
We then added water to the existing batter, my mom's logic - the water will absorb the salt and then we can spill the excess water and use batter to make more idli's :). After all this natak.. what remained was a watery white liquid that can be only thrown away :D. I believe I glimpsed happiness in my Dad's face when he did that :D
And when Dad started making upma, he added all the ingredients.. took the salt, thought about it and called out to my Mom..."Please come and add salt for this upma!". Mom and I couldn't help ourselves and we started laughing out loudly :))
The food turned out to be a lot better than normal with just that extra bit of salt. The aloo karamadhu(curry) turned out excellent last week :). So far so good. Then Amma decided to do most, if not all her cooking using rock salt..
Now rock salt is very unlike the normal free flowing powdered salt that we use. I am told 1 1/2 teaspoons of normal salt is equivalent to about 1/2 teaspoon of rock salt. Anything extra might just make your food inedible ;).
My Dad, a competent cook himself decided to experiment and added rock salt to the Idli batter. There started the problem - the batter turned out salty and the idlis saltier! Now to salvage the batter, we added onions and chillis and made dosas.. they were no better! Dad ate them with a straight face ;). No comments :)
We then added water to the existing batter, my mom's logic - the water will absorb the salt and then we can spill the excess water and use batter to make more idli's :). After all this natak.. what remained was a watery white liquid that can be only thrown away :D. I believe I glimpsed happiness in my Dad's face when he did that :D
And when Dad started making upma, he added all the ingredients.. took the salt, thought about it and called out to my Mom..."Please come and add salt for this upma!". Mom and I couldn't help ourselves and we started laughing out loudly :))
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Words
தீயினால் சுட்டபுண் உள்ளாறும் ஆறாதே
நாவினால் சுட்ட வடு
குறள்129
The above is a couplet from Thirukural. I read it for the first time on a PTC Bus in Chennai and immediately mugged it up enough to search through google and get the write verse.
Meaning - Even if you get a fire burn, it will heal inside, but a bad burn(words) uttered by you will never heal.
This is something I feel very strongly about. I hate bad words and more so negative words. I think uttering negative words like "You won't do it, You will not be able to complete this unless... ,I don't have the knowledge to do it.. etc", they all subconsciously contribute to us being unable to complete the task. Well, I haven't done any scientific analysis on it to say its always true - but I believe I am right. You pick any self-help, personality development book and the first thing they say is think positive and a positive person will never utter the above words! So probably, we need to work at our vocabulary first for success!!
I hate to utter bad words and detest somebody using one against me. There have been numerous occasions where I have talked off a friend/ room mate for saying something as silly as "Dog" (Naye in Tamil). I agree they never meant to offend, but I don't like it and I don't think its healthy. I never say them and don't say them to me. Many a times, I fight with my Dad for speaking negative... He has the right to guide me/advise me, but he should not say I would not be able to do it!
From the looks of it, I guess I have projected myself as some saint! I am not, I do use some unmentionables, mostly in English..! The other day I couldn't stop myself from cursing an auto fella in the choicest of expletives.. He cheated me :(. In hindsight, I guess it affected me more than anything else!. Anyway, the point is I make a conscious effort to avoid speaking such words. I do fail sometimes, but its a struggle worth doing.
Anyway, I feel strongly about this, so the topic found its way into my blog! The next time around, I will discuss something light and frothy ;)
Bye then!
நாவினால் சுட்ட வடு
குறள்129
The above is a couplet from Thirukural. I read it for the first time on a PTC Bus in Chennai and immediately mugged it up enough to search through google and get the write verse.
Meaning - Even if you get a fire burn, it will heal inside, but a bad burn(words) uttered by you will never heal.
This is something I feel very strongly about. I hate bad words and more so negative words. I think uttering negative words like "You won't do it, You will not be able to complete this unless... ,I don't have the knowledge to do it.. etc", they all subconsciously contribute to us being unable to complete the task. Well, I haven't done any scientific analysis on it to say its always true - but I believe I am right. You pick any self-help, personality development book and the first thing they say is think positive and a positive person will never utter the above words! So probably, we need to work at our vocabulary first for success!!
I hate to utter bad words and detest somebody using one against me. There have been numerous occasions where I have talked off a friend/ room mate for saying something as silly as "Dog" (Naye in Tamil). I agree they never meant to offend, but I don't like it and I don't think its healthy. I never say them and don't say them to me. Many a times, I fight with my Dad for speaking negative... He has the right to guide me/advise me, but he should not say I would not be able to do it!
From the looks of it, I guess I have projected myself as some saint! I am not, I do use some unmentionables, mostly in English..! The other day I couldn't stop myself from cursing an auto fella in the choicest of expletives.. He cheated me :(. In hindsight, I guess it affected me more than anything else!. Anyway, the point is I make a conscious effort to avoid speaking such words. I do fail sometimes, but its a struggle worth doing.
Anyway, I feel strongly about this, so the topic found its way into my blog! The next time around, I will discuss something light and frothy ;)
Bye then!
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