the highs and the lows of learning

I was averse towards developing myself technologically.. probably just a mental block.

So last year I decided to stop depending on others and learn to do things by myself.

So here is what all I learnt :

1. uploading images from a camera (after aquiring a digital camera)
2. loading the ipod (after acquiring one - a gift from A)
3. burning/copying CDs (after being given a laptop in my last job)
4. Scanning documents

I have considered them small achievements looking at the value they brought into my life just like driving did 4 years back.

I gave up my new job and landed myself a new one. Most of the stuff I will be dealing with is stuff I have never done before. I had arrived at a learning plateau in my old job. The situation scared me. I don't know if it was a lack of learning opportunities or the unwillingness to find them. anyway it was time to move on.

Today I learnt to chat. I chatted with my ex colleagues and my brother while going through a pile of resumes..like a true wet behind the ears chat(ter) I used emoticons with every sentence I typed..

I have just finished reading 'pitching the tent' by Anita Diamant. The book is about Anita's life, her first and second marriage, her relationship with her daughter and her jewish faith. Loved the book though it is a bit of overdose on Judaism.
learnt about the concept of 'marital love'. I was releived.
A and I have drifted to state of being, which I used to think was abnornal despite feeling fairly contented.

Marital love is..
1. sharing cupboards
2....hobbies
3. KIDS! and gloating over them
4. buying presents which are not wrapped and have price tags attached and seeing nothing wrong with it.
5.being objective about each other and still wanting to live with A
6. looking forward to A coming back after business trips and going back to sleep as soon as he lands after a quick hug.
7.exchanging glances across the room and knowing exactly what he is thinking.
8. not being able to fib to each other. getting caught when we do!
9. being able to laugh about fights
10. organizing surprize birthday parties.. once in 7 years.
...... well you get the drift.
a lot of water needs to flow under the bridge to get to this stage. A and I have been through a lot in the last 8 years of marriage. There are issues we resolved, some we have'nt and still others we never will.
Life goes on .. day after day, month after month, year after year.. some things never change.
I don't think I would have anyone else cook sichuan food for my birthdays.. ever .
State of being. I like it this way.. at least for some things in life.

once an author always an author

Just finished reading 'cat o nine lives' by (sir) Jeffrey Archer.As with every other Jeffrey Archer book I've read, I found it extremly engrossing.

Jeffrey Archer landed in jail accused of various illegal activities- providing false alibi, insider trading and few other things.And guess what the man does - continues writing publishing book(s) on stories he sniffed out, from his fellow inmates, in the high security Belmarsh prison. Though his political career ended with his conviction, he continues raking millions with his best sellers, some of which were written during his prison term.
Cat-o-nine lives is a collection of short stories of criminals of various kinds.Some seasoned, some novices. The though that it is fact and not all fiction makes them even more interesting.
Enjoyable reading!

the year that's gone

Year 2006 has been good to us.
Here are things that made me smile that year
1. junior's wise cracks.. seem sharper by the day.
2. Cinderella changed and her step-up article.
3.A's new guitar
4. Junior's attempt to play piano and guitar
5.our new Toyota Corolla
6. Dad in the media
7. Mulshi after the rains
8.Driving to Goa.
9.three new job offers (all doubling my current salary)
10. my certification
11. realization that I love chocolate.
12. walkathons
13.Dr T.
14.my new bose wave music system- a surprize gift from A after I oogled at it for 6 years. I am still confused about what made me happier : that A remmembered I wanted it or the bose itself.
15. Wagah border :closing of the gates ceremony.

Cinderella makes us proud

I watched her handle herself at the Sasoon hospital. I felt really really proud of her. She seemed to know how to behave, how to dress (faded salwar kameez), how to organize.She suddenly seemed grown up, responsible, self assured. And she stood out.

Bob Geldolf Fans

The husband bought a Yamaha C70 guitar.I came back home one evening from work and found the husband and Junior strumming their respective guitars with their feet up. I think A was always a closet musician.

He harboured hopes of forming a Basu band..till I dashed them by refusing to learn any form of music.
Music has always been an integral part of our household.The CD wall is the most used storage space in the house. So I guess it was only a matter of time till we moved to the next level.. jamming at home.

cinderella says, couscous is growing on her

I made some couscous salad with the leftover couscous in the refrigerator. We all loved it. My first ever attempt and my very own recipe. Here goes :
1 cup couscous (before cooking), cooked in a little chicken stock and butter.
a bunch of very fresh corainder leaved
freshly ground pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
1 red onion thinly sliced
half a cup of green peas, blanched
half a cup of button mushrooms chopped into 4
half a cup of chopped green onions - very fresh
3 pods of garlic
1/2 a cup of red and yellow peppers chopped
olive oil
salt to taste
1. saute the garlic and red onions in olive oil. When the onions start to change colour,add the mushrooms and then the peppers.
2.once the vegetables are nearly done(they should not be well done) dunk them in a salad bowl with the couscous.
3.throw in the corainder and the green onions, season with salt and pepper.
4. add lemon juice
5. Toss well and serve cold.

At the moment I feel I can eat couscous everyday.

Couscous is originally a dietary staple in the Mehgreb or the north African countries like Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Algeria. Couscous is has now become popular in the middle eatern countries and France. The American call it pasta but excuse me, I beg to differ.
Couscous was traditionally made from the hard part of the hard wheat triticun durum which resisited grinding with a primitive millstone.The couscous grains are made from coarsely ground semolina (coarsely ground durum wheat) which was once a labor intensive process but has now been mechanised.
Steamed couscous is usually served with a meat or vegetable stew in the countries of it's origin or mixed with greens or fruits as a salad, in other countries.

the new James Bond

Cinderella and me saw Casino Royale on Saturday night. I think Daniel Craig makes a great JB. He still can't beat Pierce Brosnan though.
Things that worked well with Daniel Craig were :
facial expressions are almost perfect
almost sophisticated
he looked tall
great BOD!
felt human - Bond cries!!
felt human - he actually falls in love!
Things that could have been better
sophistication
Could have looked more intelligent, he almost looks like all brawn and no brain kinds.
(Pierce Brosnan takes the cake even in a black shirt and denims in talk shows)
Bond is Bond effortlessly. The new Bond has worked hard to be Bond and it shows!

Casino Royale has this retro effect through out the film. Somehow that adds to the charm. On the whole a good watch.

Dhoom 2 seems to be taking the multiplexes by storm. the night the movie premiered it seemed as if the entire state had come out to see the movie. Al multiplexes are running a min of 6-7 shows a day of the movie.Finally saw it today with Cinderella. There is a lot more intelligence used in making the film. though one almost does'nt notice it because of a whole lot of eye candy. frankly the film would have been just fine without Bipasha. It is Hritik all the way. I realized that Hritik was a great actor while watching one of his worst films ever - Main prem ki dewani hoon or something. Even in a pot boiler like that one can't take eyes off him.He is soo mesmerizing. I enjoyed the film though I am still wondering whether I liked it better than the first one or not.

this and that

I have always liked movies of any genre based on real life stories.
The latest one I saw was ' The Ron Clark story'. It is a story of a dedicated teacher who lands up teaching a bunch of kids at a school in Harlem, NY. The story is about how he turns around a bunch of kids labeled as under-achievers in to high performing students

Ron Clark seemed real to me even before I discovered that he was for real. I always thought Mathew Perry was one of the best out of the 'friends' lot. He seemed much more versatile than the others in the sitcom. After being seen as Chandler all these years, I must say he does justice to the role making Ron Clark come alive on screen.

The film is a simple, straight forward and touching.


moving on, the maid is on French leave. We seem to be doing fine at the moment though.

eerie coincidence

As a part of my assignment I had to create an ad for a hotel to boost sales! (what else, IGNOU assignment writers at their best)
I looked through a conde nast issue I found in my old magazine chest and cut out a picture of a majestic looking hotel on a cliff overlooking what seemed to be miles of ocean. It was The Ritz Carlton, Half Moon Bay, California. Frankly, anything you wrote as a headline or a copy would have been a waste. The picture said it all. You suddenly wanted to be part of the picture.

I flicked on TV and decided to watch Discovery travel and living. In a feature on hotels, today's episode was on The Ritz Carlton, Half Moon Bay!!

Saturday..

Still doing my assignments.. groan. They get more and more bizzare.

Saw 'being Julia' yesterday. Annette Benning in all her splendor. All others pale in comparison. This was the second time I saw the movie. Loved every bit of it.

A is travelling again. He always manages to think of some interesting things for me to do every time he travels. This time having his Bose headphones delivered to Mumbai to some place en route the international airport. oh! and there is a small condition attached : the driver should not be sent to deliver them.

the bong leanings

I am not technically a graduate though I did sort of graduate from college many years ago. The course I did, did'nt make you a graduate though it did make you slog and pay much more than other undergrad courses. The government decided to correct that,and has now asked all the ex students to do a small course and get their graduation degrees. I enroled a couple of months back.
I am ecstatic! In my family you needed to be a post graduate to be considered human and a science graduate to be considered educated. I was neither. Though neither of my parent's ever made me feel that way, I always felt like the black sheep as far as education was concerned.
So after 10 years here I am furiously writing pages of assignments. The only things I have written in the last 10 years is lists, practice sheets for my 6 year old and cheques . This is an experience an half.
Though it has taken my multitasking to a new level, I'm not complaining. It is also taking me closer to a post graduate degree which I always aspired for .

The deadline for my assignments is the 31 st. I have completed 4 1/2 out of the 6 that I need to do. The last 1 1/2 are really dragging on. Groan!

My friends called me a quasi bong. Maybe that is why all this is so important to me.

paella for everyone

I made the paella for Shalu's party last week.I made loads of it. Shalu says her guests loved it.
I send a batch to Sumi as well. She and her mom had it for dinner one night. Her mom has had the real thing.. in Spain. She said mine was awesome and very close to the real thing. I scored well on that one!

The mighty paella

Sofrito










my paella- yum!

Cinderella got me some charming gifts last time she went to Spain. Some paella mix/seasoning, saffron and a fabulous cookbook. I read the book called ' kitchen in Spain' religiously. Somehow I was sort of apprehensive to do it the first time. So a couple of weekends back I mustered up the courage. The chorizo sausages and the serrano ham arrived, picked up dutifully by A from Selfridges food store on his way back from London.

The Paella, as I know has many variations. You can put practically anything into a paella : eels, wild duck, rabbit, snails, chicken, clams, squid whatever. A few basics one needs for paella : a flat bottom cast iron pan & short grained bomba rice (you can use any non starchy rice like arborio), some nice sofrito ( a mixture of sauteed ingredients that flavour the paella) so here goes..

Fiesta paella with chicken and shellfish

Rice 300g
stock/cooking liquid for rice 1lt
500g prawns
500g chicken peices
300g squid
150g pork (I used serrano ham)
garlic
green peas
tomato
chorizo sausages (2 in my version)
Saffron
pimentos

cook the prawns in boiling water. reserve liquid. peel some of the prawn and keep the rest as it is.
Heat the oil, saute the ham, squid for a few minutes.
Add the green pepper and garlic and saute. (your sofrito!)
Add tomato and increase heat.
Add the peas and the liquid (mine was a mix of chicken stock and prawn liquid)
Once the liquid starts boiling add the saffron and the rice. Add black pepper, salt and bay leaf.
stir a couple of times to distribute ingredients.
Lower heat till the liquid is simmering and DO NOT stir again.
once the rice has cooked, arrange the whole prawns on the top and garnish with the pimentos.
Wait till the liquid is absorbed and serve paella in pan and serve with a wedge of lime.
Yummy!

Stew kolkata style

One of the purposes of posting photos and recipes on this blog is also to immortalize my mother in law's recipes. So here is the first one.

When the MIL was in the hospital recovering from her surgery, I offered to get stew for her one day for dinner. She gave me this recipe, it was an instant hit with the family.




ingredients
1/2 lb chicken boneless cut into small bitesize peices
1 lb vegetable mix (you can use anything, I used raw papaya, carrots, beans, potatoes, parvel or potol- I don't know what they call it in any other language, cauliflower or brocolli and cabbage leaves), all these vegetable have to be cut into large peices
2 tb ginger grated or paste
1 1/2 small onion gratde or paste
garam masala : cloves, cardamon, cinnamon, bay leaf
chicken stock
milk and
1 tb refined flour

method
1. heat a little oil in a pot or deep pan, heat till it smokes. Put the garam masala and let it splutter. Then add the onion and the ginger and saute till it brown a little on medium flame.
2. Put all the chicken, vegetables in, in the order they are cooked (potatoes first followed by carrots, raw papaya, parval, brocolli and cabbage). Saute for a couple of minutes once they are all in.
3. Pour in about 1 lt of chicken stock and let the the vegetable cook in the liquid.
4. Once the vegetables are nearly done, add the milk and sprinkle a the ref. flour in it. This is done to make sure the milk does'nt curdle and also thicken the liquid a little.. If the stock looks a little too liquidy, add a little cornflour to thicken it a little. The consistency of the stew should be thinner than thick soups. Put in a couple of bayleaves at this stage and voila! your stew is ready.
If you want ot make a veg stew, just leave out teh chicken and follow the same recipe with veg stock.
Serve hot with bread or pao

and now let's talk about food

my blog has a tag line that says food, kids and the mom. I have spoken a lot about the last two so now I decided to concentrate on the first one.
Food is religion for us. If you ask my 6 yr old, who cooks in your house ? he will say, " Sindhu aunty (our cook cum housekeeper), baba (A), mama (yours truly) and me.
Food is what brought A and me together. Our first conversations were on food, when our marriage showed signs of cracking, we started cooking a lot at home and building up our recipe book collection. When we go on holidays, the times we enjoy the most are those spent exploring and dining in restaurants. the only things we shop for when we travel abroad is food/food ingredients. In the recent years, the most loving looks I got from A were on the dining table or in the kitchen and not in the...
We consider cooking an art. Our core competencies are in south east Asian cuisines. My husband cooks only SEA food. I am a little more adventureous. I have tried my hand at Indian (mostly bengali and south Indian), continental (european food, though this translates into Indianised french/english food in most Indian restaurants and Anglo Indian food in Kolkata), chinese, thai, vietnamese, laotian, north african (provided I get my hands on the ingredients, this cuisine is not very popular with my family though)..
My mother in law is easily the world's greatest cook as far as bengali and kolkata style anglo indian food is concerned. She lays a good table, remmembers the food preferences of each and every individual she has ever cooked for. She has also been my tutor for kolkata food (which is essentially anglo indian, bengali, mughlai). Her enthusiasm for food is infectious and her kids (my sister in law and my husband) have inherited both her love for eating as well as cooking.
My sister and brother are also foodies. They would appreciate and enjoy a well cooked meal from practically any part of the world ! Like A, this is how I bonded with my brother deeply, as an adult !!
So you see food is well ingrained in my being. and now for the real thing..

Will be posting a lot on food once A returns my digital camera..

Internet connectivity is misbehaving. Even with 2 broadband connections and one dial-up connection. Would like to post more often but can't, regrets!

Nostalgia..

I bought Mr. Galliano's circus by Enid Blyton for junior or maybe for myself. Reading the book out to junior brought back some happy memories of my childhood. My sister and I thrived on Enid Blytons..the famous fives, five findouters, the school series of St. Clares, Mallory Towers and dozens of others.We lived in their world. We wished we were in boarding school too. Our pretend play had lot of the Enid Blyton elements. That was globalization for you in those days when we only had Doordarshan and Radio Ceylone.
That's how I got to know what a caravan is before I saw one during a vacation in germany.
That's how I got to know what ginger ale tastes like and warm scones taste the best with clotted cream.

My first pic, yipee!

English tea at Selfridges. A pot of Darjeeling tea with scones served with conserves and clotted cream.
A suggested I could have the real thing at the Ritz.I passed.. after looking at the price tag : 300 pounds!

P.S. Thanks for the madame butterfly blouse, plumpie!

60 students in a class

Went to junior’s school today. His teacher looked at me a little accusingly and started to tell me how he needed writing practice as he was very slow. Midway, she realized that I was actually listening and asking her intelligent sounding questions like ‘ what do you think is the problem’ , ‘does he seem sleepy or tired’ , ‘do you think he does’nt understand’ or ‘is he distracted with something'..Usually she hears things like , ‘I make him practice at home, he seems fine then’ or I don’t know what to do, he does this at home too. She suddenly asked me if I work . I told her I was a training manager and worked full time which is why she did’nt see me at school more often. She seemed suitably impressed. It was as if a crown had suddenly sprouted up on my head. I promised her that I would get junior to practice regularly this term.
Here is what I really need to do : make myself more visible as a parent, offer to volunteer, you know, make charts to decorate the classroom etc, seem very concerned as a parent and ask her for a feedback every now and then, and oh! then maybe, actually help junior with his writing a little bit. His grades will be much better next term and I don’t know how much the writing practice would have contributed.

Junior was born in the city of his father’s birth – Kolkata. A went to St. Xavier’s, regarded as one of the best schools in the country, by many. That was the school A and I had hoped junior would be in one day.
Then we moved to Pune. We decided to send junior to the school he goes to today. This was a school known for academics and sports. Though junior shows more signs of being a showman than a sportsman right now, he thoroughly enjoys school. We hope the school would give him a grounding he would have never got if we chose to send him to one of the new age international schools where the school fees runs into lacs and they have AC school buses and classrooms.
By Indian standards we lead what I may term a ‘priviledged life’. We have a housekeeper (who likes to call herself a ‘governess’ these days, I not too sure she knows the difference) , a gardener (for our 25 pots) , a couple of maids and a chauffeur , multiple cars..we stay in a up-market building, holiday abroad almost every year, eat in fancy restaurants, stay in fancy hotels have multicuisine dinners at home, put up Christmas trees every year with the same élan as we light our diyas and so on.
My husband and I work hard for the life we lead and by default the kids have become a part of all that too and as Shahrukh Khan had once said in an interview, "If I am driving around in a rolls royce, I can’t ask my son to ride in an auto"
We chose the school we did, for junior, to make sure he met and learnt to appreciate people from diverse cultural, social and economic backgrounds. And I think we are pretty much on the way there. His class has 60 students and the teacher knows very little about each child till a parent decides to show up in school and makes sure the child gets ‘the’attention one way or the other.
My son is an avid reader. At 6 he reads and understand books which most children almost twice his age usually would’nt, without any proding from us. He has the gift of the gab and loves performing. Somehow she has'nt seemed to notice that!
There are two choices I have : like most other parents make sure the teacher gives him an opportunity to use his skills or let him learn to fight for his place. My motherhood instincts push me towards the first but I would feel more at peace with myself if I did the latter..