Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The "Inconsistent chicken curry"


How do you cook chicken if you have to eat it mostly every week?

Would you add the same spices? Or would you tweak the quantiites here and there? Or would you find new ingredients from the kitchen shelf to change the taste?

It is an endless journey to find new recipes from the hundreds of cuisine in the Indian sub-continent to reach your spouse’s heart through his tummy.

How will he understand the planning behind a chicken curry – a Sanjeev Kapoor recipe or a typical Kerala chicken curry, with or without coconut milk, do I use the shopwaala ginger garlic paste or should I use my mortar and pestle to grind fresh ginger and garlic?

How do you succeed to make him eat out of your hand?

At least, avoid judgment of how inconsistent your chicken curry at the peak hours in the kitchen when you are making chapatti, boiling milk and cooking dal to the perfect consistency on your three- burner gas stove?

God save you, the Indian woman – working or home-making!

But remember, no one else can provide food so healthy and tasty as you do whatever comments come through. Nor can anyone match the taste of your cooking, because you cook with love…

Have a yummy day!

I love my hair - I pledge it!

I love my hair – I pledge it! Indian woman treasure their hair like nothing else. It is a symbol of beauty, feminineness and so many other things. And for that reason, we end up spending a lot of money, effort and time transforming our curls into straight ones and perm and curl the straight ones. We google for remedies for all our hair problems, if any and also for silky smooth, long and strong, black and shiny, you name it, we want it all! Haircuts mark important events in our life – may it be a heartbreak, marriage, pregnancy and motherhood. And for this era of makeovers, we drastically change our style to make a statement. Unfortunately for me, before I pay the credit card bill for a designer haircut, my hair grows to make it undone. Does anybody else think so? Okay, apart from all this, how would it feel to donate hair for a cause you believe in. Changing lifetyles, pollution and all new research findings need not tell us Indians are being more and more susceptible to Cancer. Stories of those who battled with Cancer and won makes us proud indeed, but do not forget there was a stage in their treatment course when the lost all their tresses and felt weak because of that, with the same intensity how we felt proud with our long, shiny tresses like a Rapunzel. Here is where the movement of Hair for Hope – India makes a difference. If you have at least 10” of hair to donate, go ahead, do it. For you, it will grow back and bring a smile to a chemo patient. Mass donations are being driven in schools, colleges etc and celebrities join the cause to make it look even better. As for me, since I have layered my hair drastically, even if I donate now, some portions will not match up to the requirement. So what I plan to do now is to go for a straight hair cut and grow it out so that I can donate the same and be proud of it. I am writing this so that that I don’t back out and change my decision to grow my Hair for Hope!