Unresolved Hair Issues!
Remember the discussion on Debbie’s hair we had the other day… well, apparently, there is a shift in perception of late…
Today morning, I looked at Debbie’s hair, and patting the wild curls, I asked her, “What is this, baby?”
With a wide grin of amusement (perhaps she anticipated my reaction!), she uttered these words of wisdom, “Amma, this is noodles!”
Wide grin of amusement:
Go figure…
Top Stuff I Can’t Cook Without!
March 12, 2010
Filed under Food, Random thoughts
Tags: Debbie, easy cooking, excuses, observations, recipes
I’m no good at cooking. Let me make that absolutely clear, going forward. But then, I guess, it is pretty obvious, if I have to write a post on stuff that I can’t cook without. A good cook makes a feast out of anything! Also, most daughters can never be as good as their mothers… or is it ONE daughter…. yeah, I think this rule pretty much only applies to me…. and I will stop this meaningless rambling now, thank you.
Anyway, there are some things I cannot cook without. Especially since I am supposed to create ethnic South Indian dishes which taste good, are suitable for my spice-intolerant daughter (btw, that is not a real allergy, just 2-yr-old tantrums!), and do not set off the ‘Eat Only Healthy Boring Food’ Radar of my better half! So, I have a list of stuff that always goes into my cooking…logical conclusion? We eat the same food pretty much everyday!!! This is going around in dizziness-inducing circles. So…
Onions – I cannot cook without onions. Please tell me no one else can, too…pretty please?? I have to start every meal by chopping an onion. Unless I throw some onions into cooking oil and stir them around, I feel an ominous foreboding that things will go wrong! I feel this every time I make Rasam. And I’m usually right 😦
image: http://www.petinsurance.com
Chilli Powder – I have to have all my food glowing red!! Otherwise, I feel it does not qualify as real food. Also, I have to have my food tasting super spicy! so, when something like Vegetable poriyal calls for green chillies only, I feel apprehensive. Some times, I sneak in a pinch of chilli powder, and usually the above-mentioned RADAR goes off.
image: manjulaskitchen.com
Tomatoes – Tomatoes are so beautiful, so colorful, so necessary. And I can’t cook without them. Unless I cut up a tomato, and throw it in, squishy pulp, seeds and all, I feel I have failed myself greatly! Tomatoes were totally banned at home for a while, due to health reasons of the residents, and I WAS LOST. Yes, more LOST than the people in LOST! So, I just made rasam!! … (Go back to ‘Onions’ and read again… gaaah!!)
image: valleygroves.com
Cooking Oil (lots of it) – Okay, I know it is bad to have too much cooking oil. Cholesterol, and all that stuff. But, hey, try scraping burnt stuff off the bottom of your kitchenware after leaving it on the stove, to go assist your kid with potty, and you will resort to a LOT OF OIL too! I now use less oil, and more tomatoes… (go back in circles…your eyelids are getting heavy…you are feeling sleepy…you will now zonk down on your simmering gravy!) By the way, my favorite cooking oil is GoldWinner Sunflower Oil (and no, I’m not paid to say that.)
image: http://www.hindu.com
Rice Batter – this is a white batter made from rice and urad dal, used to make dhosas and idlies. And I cannot do without it. Why? Simply because we have dhosas or idlies most everyday! If you are a South Indian working mother-cum-juggler, juggling five different things…oh, you know…life and all its ingredients…well, you definitely know the advantage of making idlies! Shout out to all the mommies with whistling idli cookers…forget the iPhone, I think we should deify the man (or woman…probably a woman…Men don’t care either way, I think!) who invented the idli cooker!! Pour the batter into little idli plates, mount it on the stand, lower into said cooker, close, light stove, forget. Listen for the whistle and turn it off. DONE!! Time invested: all of 10 minutes. Result: hot idlies for breakfast, probably even dinner… Others in the house: Not Happy. Me: VERY VERY HAPPY! 😀
image: agritech.tnau.ac.in
Spices – viz. Coriander, turmeric, chilli powder (the super 3!!!) I do not know how to make the food have any kind of flavor, if I don’t use these three…Okay, right now, I am slightly beginning to feel sorry for my family…the poor consumers of my half-hearted sorry excuse for cooking. So, invariably, everything kinda tastes the same… If I don’t add tomatoes…you see my predicament? Cooking is really hard, I tell you!!
turmeric powder
coriander powder
chilli powder
Wooden Spoon – Okay, this is technically not an ingredient, but I hate the scraping sound that metal spoons make on cooking ware. And, when I cook, I really need to stir a lot, and peep into the dish or pot…just to reassure myself that everything is going as planned! So, I cannot do without my trusty wooden spoon. It is one of THE BEST things my Mom bought me! I love my wooden spoons, and fiercely guard it from runaway 2-yr-old hands wanting to clank wooden spoons on metal plates and generally be noisy, and grown up men who generally allow 2-yr-old daughter to make ear-splitting noise and drive mommy mad in the kitchen, so that they can get some time alone on the computer!…Sigh…where is this going?!?!?
image: webstaurantstore.com
Television – Okay, this is probably high on the quirky-bizareness meter! But I have to have the television on. I love the house we recently moved into, because the kitchen is right next to the sitting room, where the TV is situated in a nice angle, easily seen if I stand at a certain angle near the kitchen sink…rented house SCORE!! Also, the recently added soft couch means that after every paranoid stir of the gravy, I can literally run out the kitchen, directly into the said couch, sit under the fan on super-fast, wipe away the free-flowing perspiration (direct result of the sweltering South Indian heat that is sucking away my life-energy for the past few months!), and watch So You Think You Can Dance!, or some romantic comedy on StarMovies…anything goes…
image: merinews.com
So…There you have it..stuff I cannot live without, in my kitchen…What’s your favorite stuff that brings out the gourmet chef in you…or simply helps you tolerate the task of making a meal thrice/frice (my word for ‘four times’!) a day?
“Baby Einstein Made My Child Dumb”! Yeah, Right!
October 29, 2009
Filed under Random thoughts, Reviews
Tags: Debbie, learning, observations, school, technology reviews
Learning begins at home. I am a staunch believer of that view point, and take my responsibility as my daughter’s first teacher very seriously. My husband and I try to fill our house with fun-yet-educational toys, lot of colorful books, and educational DVDs. Debbie is perfectly happy looking at her books or playing with her toys. She also has loads of time to play outdoors, and loves running around the house hollering and chasing a ball as much as playing a tame game of ‘cooking’ indoors.
She is also a BIG FAN of children’s videos on YouTube, and educational DVDs. She loves Baby Einstein videos, Sesame Street songs, Dora the Adventurer (her favorite!), and anything with lots of toys or animals, colors, and loud music! I admit that I have a very selfish reason for letting her watch them… that’s the only time I can get her to stop hating food long enough to eat it!! Don’t get me wrong, we do have really fun eating time, when we don’t watch TV and concentrate on finishing what’s on the plate. Debbie can feed herself, and she does enjoy doing it. But sometimes, she gets it into her head that she can live on love and fresh air! and there is nothing a mother can do to change her mind… other than switching on the computer or the television…
Apart from the obvious value of these videos and DVDs (!), I really believe they are useful to a child’s learning process. Which is why I was shocked at the study published by the University of Washington, that the Baby Einstein DVDs make children… dumb… (to be very blunt)! The study says:
The scientists found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them. Baby DVDs and videos had no positive or negative effect on the vocabularies on toddlers 17 to 24 months of age.
Well, I don’t know about that. Baby Einstein videos have pictures of these large and colorful toys in the shape of animals and other shapes that a child needs to learn about. I think it is much better to let a child learn the names of shapes, animals, fruits, vegetables etc. through song, music and fun than through getting a book out, pointing at objects and loudly repeating the names!
And anyway, unless parents simply dump their children in front of a TV or computer for hours together, I don’t think these DVDs are going to do any major damage. If parents want to take the easy way out and let their children watch TV all day, I think the children were destined for limited intelligence, DVDs on not! As a parent, it is my responsibility to decide how much time my child watches videos, how much reading time she gets, and how she learns about the world. If I go wrong with my planning, I don’t think I have the right to blame any one else for my bad judgment.
The Baby Einstein Company seems to be doing something good for children across the world. They are parents too, so I am guessing they must possess some parenting experience! Give them a break! Come on!! They are normal parents who decided to make a fun video for their ki
ds… we’re blaming them that they did not do their research?!!? Ok, so the scientists who made nuclear bombs do a lot of research, so I guess wiping away an entire country is acceptable… I mean, criticising their work is one thing, but thinking people deserve a refund!?!?! Really now!
Too many people now are looking to shift the blame on some one else for just about anything. If your baby is not an Einsten before he is 2, maybe that DVD is to blame; if your boy is roughing up classmates in school, maybe the teachers are to blame; if your child broke the law, maybe the society is to blame… when a person commits murder, maybe the people who ignored him at work are to blame…
When did mistakes stop depending on the wrong choices a person made, and start depending on everybody else’s behavior? When do WE take responsibility for our mistakes? And when will we teach our children that when they become adults, THEY are answerable for their mistakes, and that they cannot shift the blame?
I for one cannot believe that some DVD is being blamed for children’s lack of learning. What do you think?
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