Ok...so its been a long time since I found anything to blog about. Before you get your hopes high, let me warn you that the intention of this post is not to talk about something interesting. It is more of a status check...just to ensure that my login does not expire :)

The last couple of months have been busy (work, nephews/nieces at home for vacation), exciting (trips to Mumbai, Lonavala and Mysore) and not without their moments of suspense (the boy's report card).
Between all this, I have also managed to squeeze in time to read a lot of Indian authors. Ashwin Sanghi's famed Krishna Key, which reeked of Dan Brown and his DaVinci Code, followed by his Rozabal line, which I realized is the book equivalent of a documentary film and to finish which, I needed more inspiration than my boy needs to go to school!
Once bitten, twice shy, does not hold for me. Not sure if twice bitten, thrice shy will either, since I plan to someday read his Chankya Chant too! Talk about self-inflicted torture :)
Sandwiched between these was Kalpana Swaminathan and her "Monochrome Madonna", which could pass off as an amateur detective novel, if not for the insane twists, melodramatic characters and irrational "logic"!
After this, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus just could not hold my attention and I had to give it up mid-way. It was far too well-written :D
Then came Ravi Subramanian with "Bankster". While many may differ, I loved the book. One of those suspense thriller books set in contemporary India that you can immediately connect with, not just because of its simplistic writing style but also because the characters are very human and the kind you may very well run into.
I will definitely try to write a more detailed review once I find time from the latest book that I am reading, Vikram Seth's "From Heaven Lake" :)
So long...

Ok...I have been really getting busy at work. However, Here is my recipe for minestrone soup :)

What you need:
Tomatoes - 4 large
Onion - 1 medium, chopped not too finely
Capsicum - 1/4th cup, chopped not too finely
Beans - 1/4th cup, chopped into 1cm pieces
Macaroni - 1/4th cup
Assorted beans - rajma, chana, moong - soaked overnight and boiled.
Salt, black pepper powder, italian seasoning, turmeric

How to prepare:
Boil the tomatoes. After they cool down, blend them and sieve out the seeds. This is your purée.

To a frying pan, add half a spoonful of the oil. To this add the onion, capsicum, and beans. Toast lightly (the veggies should not change colour).
In a cooking vessel, add the puree, the veggies, boiled beans and macaroni. Add half a teaspoon of black pepper powder, half a teaspoon of italian seasoning and salt to taste. Add a pinch of turmeric (this is only to give the otherwise dull soup a rich colour, not taste). Add enough water, so that the consistency is just a little more than rasam (this is something that everyone can relate to).
Let the vegetable cook and soak in the flavours. Turn off once the macaroni has cooked. Your soup is ready!
Serve with the open bread toast (wait for my next post!)...



Once the vegetables are cooked, let the salsa cool to room temperature. Add the rice and mix lightly, ensuring you do not break the rice grains.

Of corn rice, minestrone soup and open bread toast - I

Corn rice is one of those dishes that everyone, from Tarla Dalal to Nigela Lawson has a recipe for. And most of the time no two recipes are the same.
So after a lot of deliberation, I decided to create one of my own. Here it is, tried and tasted :)

What you need:
Rice - 2 cups
Oil (preferably olive oil) - 2 spoons
Tomatoes - 2 large
Onion - 1 medium, chopped
Capsicum - 1/4 th cup, chopped
Sweet corn - 1 cup
Ginger - 1 teaspoon, finely shredded
Salt, black pepper powder, chilli flakes

Preparation:
Cook the rice. Drain off the excess water.

Boil the tomatoes. After they cool down, blend them and sieve out the seeds. This is your purée.

To a frying pan, add 2 spoonfuls of the oil. To this add the sweet corn and toast lightly. Then add the tomato purée along with chopped onions, capsicum and ginger. Add half a teaspoon of black pepper powder, half a teaspoon of red chilli flakes and salt to taste. Let the vegetable cook in the purée and soak in the flavours.

Once the vegetables are cooked, let the salsa cool to room temperature. Add the rice and mix lightly, ensuring you do not break the rice grains.

Note (all these are from my own real life experience today)
1. While draining the rice after cooking, pour cold water over it and drain off. This removes the starch and makes the rice non-sticky
2. If black pepper powder and chilli flakes do not spice it up enough, you can add finely chopped green chillis too.
3. If you feel the corn may not cook well enough in the purée, you can boil them a bit before adding to the purée.

Those long-necked beauties...

Off we went to Mysore, to realise my Dad and his grandsons (aka my son) dream of a visit to the famed Mysore zoo together. We left home at 6 30, before Bangaloreans looking for a quick day-trip to Mysore clog the busy Mysore road.
Reaching Mysore at 11, after stops at Ramanagar and Srirangpatna, we immediately headed to the zoo.

We were cheerfully greeted by these 4 long-necked long-legged beauties. It was a sight to behold, majestic and unhurried, they went about munching on leaves oblivious to the awe-struck crowd (mostly children) that watched them with obvious excitement. The little one (my boy) could barely conceal his awe as one of the giraffe walked close to the edge of the enclosure, gave him a long hard stare, before walking back, not unlike a model on a catwalk!

Recursive functions...

It was a déjà vu moment...when my niece told me how she was trying to memorise a program to print out the n'th Fibonacci number, in preparation for her practical exams.
Rewind to my late teens, the age of learning complex computer logic such as recursive functions. And the first (and probably the most common) program to test your recursive function concepts and skills was generating the Fibonacci sequence. It was easier to memorise the program that ran into not more than 10 lines than wasting time understanding a logic that there would be lots of time to understand later in life! Those were the days when shortcuts could be taken without any guilt :)
At that time, little did I realise that I would understand the concept of recursive functions under very adverse conditions in a corporate setting a couple of years down the line :)
Coming back to the present, with an undisguised glee I explained the concept of recursive functions with examples to my niece, silently patting myself on the back. Maybe that is what growing old is - when you stop enjoying the simple joy of memorising a program to clear the impending practicals and instead, try to understand it, so that you can write those kind of things for the rest of your life!  

A story of 572 steps!

A resolution to take the stairs and not give in to the temptation of taking the elevator is about as tough as it can get. It is also one of those that I have made innumerable times, for reasons ranging from a love for the environment to a determination to lose those 'few extra pounds', and given up with barely a fight.
There have been various and apparently genuine excuses for not taking the stairs...an important conversation that would have been interrupted if I alone took the stairs, a colleague who might have to take the lift alone if I took the stairs, a meeting I might get late for if I took the stairs (never mind the fact that I wait for 5 mins for the lift)...so on and so forth :)
So, it is not with great optimism that I made this resolution along with a colleague one more time yesterday.
And proud I am to say that on the second day, a day where all the meetings I had to attend were on different floors, I have climbed up 572 steps and climbed down 572!

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ever since I finished Half of a yellow sun, I wanted to read other books that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written. What struck me about her writing (even though I was only one book old) was the simple language and the fluid writing. Adichie writes about the life of ordinary people, people whose lives are what we call "normal", more importantly they are ordinary people who face common challenges, no matter whether they are rich or poor. And the best thing, they do not always end up winners (in the usual way that the protagonists do)!