Last couple of weeks have been awful on the work front. I have only been sorting issues which seem unending. So, I personally have not done any cooking.

Today, D made some lovely bread. Here is a snap.......

Looks good right...thats what we are having for dinner today....bread, fried chicken and veggies.

Today, while travelling to work saw some kids playing in the park.I see them everyday, however most of the days I am with my head inside a newspaper. Today did not have one, so had the opportunity to look out of the window.

It got me all nostalgic about ''when I was young we used to play on the roads, in the so called parks or simply in our compound''.......I know i keep doing this so often nowadays....guess as and when one gets older one starts reminiscing about the old days. But seriously, there is nothing better than going out and getting yourself dirty. Its so much fun.Just take yesterday.....autumn has begun in London...and days have started getting shorter...so its difficult taking A to the park once I get home. So we just have to play indoors.She started jumping on the bed and looking at her I too felt the need to do it...but obviously could not lest the bed breakdown.But it was so evident that she was enjoying herself so much in a simple thing like jumping up and down....its amazing how the simple things in life can be so pleasurable and they don't cost money. The next house that I rent have decided to have a trampoline.......a big sized one so that D and myself can also use it....:-)

Its been crazy the last few weeks.....and all I want is a break. Work has been stressful.....I just want to get out of all this politics.....everyone is out to score a point and its so pathetic....I just wish I could exit teh rat race....but then who will pay the mortgage.....I like my job....but wish I cd avoid the bloody politics which sickens me to the core......but I guess its a part and parcel of modern work life......

just needed to voice it somewhere......

now am off to get some exercise.....

We were on a baking spree last week......happens sometimes......D buys a date and walnut cake from Sainsburys....I am extremely finicky abt cake.....there are few cakes which I really like....this was one of them.....its the texture, the moistness, colour and that umami feeling when u take the first bite.....

So I decided that we should try it at home......and it really turned out well......

We made some Cantuccini last week and decided that we need to take some snaps so that we remember how it looked.....this is the first time I am photographing food......but I guess its not all that bad.....

Read an article about ''Barfuss walking''.....what is Barfuss....its basically walking barefoot over awkward terrain...like pebbles, icy water, mud, stone etc. Supposedly this is good for general wellbeing......

Its funny how things which are so common for under developed countries become therapy for the west. I remember during my childhood, we used to be constantly running outside barefoot...even in school we used to have races barefoot....no expensive nikes and adidas..... Its so comforting walking barefoot on the ground.
When D makes A wear sox all the time, I wonder whether she will ever be able to enjoy these simple things in life.....walking barefoot on the grass, feeling the earth beneath your feet, going out in the rain and getting drenched....these simple 'pleasures' are so therapeutic.....and u don't need money to enjoy them.....

Sis and mrinal here for 10 days ...yeah I kept telling them that spending so much money for 10 days in London is hardly worth it.....but supposedly they don't have leaves.

They reached on Friday...and believe it or not the flight landed 20 mins before and in 15 mins they were out of immigration. I could not believe it. I was supposed to meet Sat (my sister's soon goin to be SIL) and bith of us were to take the tube to Heathrow. Now, when you meet a stranger you generally do not think she would talk non stop......but then there are normal people and there is Sat.....sucha non stop chatterbox...so the tube journey was anything but boring.
The weekend just flew off ...Sis has already been here, but it was Mrinal's first time, so he seemed to be interested in knowing about how we live here. Thats something which I like....rather than being touristy and doing things as such...I prefer to follow my host's day to day life as thats what give syou the true feel of the place......so I like going grocery shopping, markets etc etc.....yeah I know it sounds crazy.

Yesterday night they left for Scotland and will be back after 2 days. Ofcourse Sat also was with us over the weekend and as you rightly guessed it was a laugh having her around.....does that woman ever stop talking......the answer is No. So she will be back on Friday and we plan to do soem day trips around london provided the weather permits us to. Plans are Isle of Wight, Leeds Castle, Bournemouth beach.

I am so tired of politics....Thats all I do nowadays...fight politics. And its draining me....I have always had a problem with my mouth...supposedly I talk a bit too frankly. But, I cannot help it...so now I ma supposed to control my mouth and tone it down. Basically what that means is I cannot say that a person is crap....now thats difficult isn't it?

But supposedly if I want to grow I am supposed to control my temper and not get emotional.....
:-))...how the hell am I supposed to do a good job if I cannot get passionate about my work....what they call emotion...I call passion....totally different schools of thought...isn't it...

Anyway, since I am never goin to start my own business....I just have to control my mouth...which is OOOOOO so difficult....I love telling people what I think of them....and now I cannot.....I am goin in to depression.......and I am not very happy......

A month back....D decided that our balcony looks very drab...so we should try and make it more pleasant looking. So we bought a couple of pots and flower saplings and boy the craze just caught on between the 2 of us.Seeing the flowers bloom outside we decided to get some plants for inside as well.......so now we have a green space inside the house.....It is very calming actually...I especially notice it on sat/sunday mornings (I generally wake up earlier than D and A)....so I get an hour of peace to just have a cup of tea with a book. Since we have had these plants I can just stare at them and have my tea.....it really calms me down.

I ahve always wnated a garden where I can grow my own food......now expecting that in London is like expecting a bit too much......but I decided to try planting some stuff in the balcony......so we planted tomato, lettuce an dbeetroot seeds and withing a few weeks had the little saplings.....now we plan to have the various herbs as well....like mint, coriander, sage etc etc......None of them have given us any fruit as yet but just the effort makes me smile......

Last couple of days have been house hunting......but till now nothing that really grabbed us......For me the home is something which I cannot compromise on....I want a good locality, green, easy to commute (since I don't drive....and don't intend to learn unless I am cornered), close to local amenities ....so now is it a wonder that I have not found any place as yet.....D keeps telling me that with my expectations its going to be next to impossible to find something which has everything......

The most important things is that when I enter the house.....I should be able to visualise living there....which happened when I viewed this place.......

So the hunt is on......

Mother and daughter......doesn't the mother look beautiful........

now...I wonder who the daughter looks like.....D and me have not been able to yet identify who she resembles.......

Ananya and her dad.....Experiencing the dad and daughter bond...and its brilliant

Ananya......in a thoughtful mood......

I have been having this wild desire to make my blog a bit colourful.....and personal.....so what better method to do this than add a few pictures.....so here goes

Jackie tells me that I should have born in the last century. Reason is :

1)The pestle and mortar to the food processor
Well.....food ground in a stone pestle and mortar is so much more tastier than the ground masala in the food processor. I do not think anyone will deny the taste ....people are just do not want to make the effort to do it.
2)I do not use a microwave.
Well....I ain't convinced that chemical waves do not affect the constitution of my food. So I would rather heat it on the flame.
3)I do not use the washing machine
Well....I just like the process of washing clothes with my hands. It uses less water and I think clothes are much cleaner. I remember when teh washin machine was down, D was so distraught about it and it hardly bothered me as I never use it :-) which used to make her more angry.
4)I try and avoid the chemicals in cosmetics as far as possible
Isn't this the right thing to do.....since its so easy to get the natural butters like shea butter and make some on your own....its economical and you can be assured you do not have nasties in what you put on your body.
Shea butter, Almond oil, Jojoba oil for skin
Shikakai, Amla and Areetha for hair
5) I want to grow my own fruits and veggies.
I do not know when this will be possible....but someday I am sure it will be.
6)My old fashioned cookery
I prefer making my own masalas rather than the shop bought ground masalas, prefer making my own pickles and other condiments. Currently we have started baking our own bread as well. D tried a milk bread the other day and it was brilliant.

Now when I read what I have written...I too feel that I should have been born in the last century...:-) But doing things the old way does give me a deep sense of satisfaction and obviously I would want to live as per my satisfaction....:-)

Myself and Jackie....my boss...were talking about the old days...no I am not as old as Jackie....but things back then....were really different.
It got me in a nostalgic mood. Today when I think about those days it gives me a warm feeling and I feel so bad for Ananya that she will never be able to live that kind of a life. One can call it the old fashioned life ...but as compared to today's modern monstrosities taht we call life it really was bliss. We used to live in this old british styled bungalow houses in Pune. Actually, our compound had a 1 main house and 1 outhouse which was the servant's quarter during the British Raj.

The compound was full of fruit trees like red guavas, white guavas, papaya, jamoon, alphonso mangoes, coconuts and custard apples. All fruits used to ripen at different times of the year and so through the year we used to have a supply of fruits directly from the trees. You cannot get it fresher than that can you.

In summer I remember I used to spend half my time on trees, plucking mangoes...making a mixture of chilli and salt .....taking the first bite of the raw mango and spitting it out and then dipping the white flesh in the chilli salt mixture and in to my mouth.......just writing about it has got me salivating.

That was bliss......my dream is to have a house with a lot of fruit trees so that we don't have to satisfy ourselves with the awful crap that comes to the supermarkets.....tasteless fruits full of chemicals.

Those days we did not have a luxurious lifestyle.....but now when i think about it...I miss it. I remember coming back from school, eating some thing and then running out to play. Everyone knew everyone and if one child was missing on a day, all of us used to go to his house to check up whether he was ill. We did not have our parents monitoring us then.....today we cannot even think of allowing our kids to play unsupervised looking at all the horror stories that we hear and see in the media. Is it a wonder that children are growing up too quickly nowadays.....children hardly have a childhood....they are toddlers and then in a couple of years they start behaving like young adults....its a shame that innocence has to be traded for modernisation.

I look at my body and see so many scars and touching the scars gets back memories. I wonder whether Ananya will ever have a scar to touch since today children are not allowed to take risks and play due to the danger of getting hurt. Isn't getting hurt a part of growing up?

Wow, I can't believe that I have not written since September......I was in India in Nov and then in Jan, and then things just got busy so I just wasn't in the mood to get here and write.....I know....there is only one word for it and thats 'being lazy'.

Finally, today I dragged myself to start again and will try and be regular.

I have spent so much time in the kitchen since September that I have lost count of all the new stuff that I made. Still...let me try and remember atleast a few things that I made :

1. Chicken and Mangotout in plum sauce
2. Chicken fried rice
3. Nan Katai
4. Chicken in blackbean sauce
5. Mango Achar
6. Kimchi

Thats all that I can remember and I am sure there were more.

Kimchi

This is a Korean pickle....a lot like Sauerkraut, just without the spice. I first tried this from Japan Centre and I loved the pungent odour of feremented cabbage and chillies. It does have a strong smell so you can either love it or hate it.

Here is the wikipedia link to Kimchi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimchi

I continued buying Kimchi from Japan Centre for months (1 packet lasts a week or so). I was just browsing the web and I came across home made Kimchi. So I thought...why not try this at home. The recipe looked a bit tedious as it needed the cabbage to be fermented for 8-10 days, but I still decided to try it out.

I made the Baechu kimchi which is made with Chinese Cabbage. You can buy the cabbage in any supermarket.

Kimchi Ingredients

1 Chinese Cabbage

1/4 cup Rice Vinegar

1/2 cup of salt

1/2 cup chilli flakes (or as per taste...I generally like spicy kimchi)

A few cloves of garlic (I used 5-6 big cloves)- sliced

1 bunch Scallions

1 piece Ginger -medium size - sliced

1 carrot shredded

1 cup water

Wash the cabbage and separate the outer leaves. Cut the rest of the cabbage through its heart in to 4 quarters and separate the leaves from each of the quarters. Take a wide spread bowl (wooden if available) and spread a layer of the cabbage leaves and sprinkle salt liberally on the layer. Cover it with another layer of leaves and sprinle the salt and repeat till all leaves are used up. Cover it and use a heavy weight on top of the cover so that the leaves are tightly pressed together.

Leave it for 7 days stirring it every day so that the top leaves end up at the bottom and vice versa. You will notice a lot of brine -salt water collected. This is good as it aids fermentation of the cabbage and will prevent the cabbage from going bad.

On the 8th day, wash the cabbage repeatedly in cold water.This is very important as the saltiness of the prepared kimchi depends on this step. So wash it and taste it till you get the right salty cabbage.You can leave it in cold water overnight.

Next day squeeze out the water. Chop the scallions, shred the cabbage, slice the garlic and ginger.Mix it with the cabbage. Mix the chilli flakes, water and rice vinegar. You have to be cautious with Rice vinegar as its very pungent and a little bit goes along way.Add this mixture to the cabbage mixture. There should be sufficient liquidto drown the cabbage else it can go mouldy.

Store it in a jar and keep it in the fridge for another week. Now the kimchi is ready to be used.

It looks difficult, but believe me its real easy.

Have it with steamed or stir fried rice.......i have it with just about anything.

Its damn good for your stomach as it promotes production of good bacteria in your guts. All teh ginger and garlic prevents flatulence......supposedly Kimchi is one of the 5 most nutritious foods in the world.