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Monday, January 14, 2013
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Idli
( from the Outlook Magazine Diary by Krishna Prasad)
Choosing people who bore the pants off you can be a safe exercise in these anarchic times; it’s picking a dish you want to run away from that can result in the knives coming out. As far as your correspondent is concerned, it’s a no-contest: the rice idli. Whether you eat a three-rupees-a-piece off a plantain leaf on the roadside or a 500-rupees-a-plate at a five-star, the anodyne blob remains the most overrated South Indian item adorning our tables: colourless, odourless, tasteless—and utterly characterless.
Unlike its peers, the idli is nothing on its own. It is inedible without the chutney or gunpowder, just about manageable with the sambar, and only a dollop of ghee and a piece of vada give it some respectability. But, shining in the reflected glory of its accoutrements, the reputation of the sad little thing has assumed mythical proportions, because it is fair and good-looking, has carbs and proteins—and has bite-me written all over it. What Carnatic music is to the devout, the idli has become to dieters: an orb of blind, unquestioning reverence.
From Bidadi to Kanchipuram, enough worthy souls have tried to salvage the poor thing. They have seasoned it, they have stuffed it, they have changed its size, but all in vain. At the Bangalore Club, a neurologist once painfully explained why we tend to fall asleep 20 minutes after we eat idlis. Apparently, it releases some chemicals, which even caffeine fails to negate. In other words, a sleep-inducing bore.
How about the rava idli? Now, there’s a hero, an idli that’s rescued an idli.
Friday, January 11, 2013
International Space Station Tour By Sunita Williams
A 26 min video of Sunita Williams taking us on a tour of theInternational Space Station. The 47 yr old Sunita spent 125 days aboardthe ISS as the Mission Commander.http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v= doN4t5NKW-k! ---------------------
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
SPECIAL BONDING : Milky way
This is an article written by Radhika Vaz published in the Times.
http://www.timescrest.com/
January 5, 2013
A lactose-intolerant daughter-in-law has no hope of finding favour with a doodh-loving saas.Indian men have a very special relationship with their mothers. These women yell, scream and beat their male offspring. They repeatedly tell their sons how useless and stupid they are. They hold their heads in their hands and beg their God of choice to explain what it is they did in a past life to deserve such a disrespectful child. But no sooner have these diamonds in the rough been 'married off' then suddenly the Indian mother can't find enough time in the day to sing her son's praises. And sing them she will - loud and clear without fatigue. The lyrics are different but the message is always the same: You are not good enough for my baby.
My own mother-in-law (MIL) is the same. She is a tough broad who raised 4 unruly cretins. She has four daughters-in-law (DIL) and like all the other MILs out there deep down she believes that all four boys could have done just a little better for themselves in the wife department. But she puts up with us for the same reason all Indian MILs tolerate their DILs. After having raised her boys like special-needs children, she knows that for their sake she has to suffer the caregiver who has taken over.
She hails from the great state of Haryana. Which is like being from Texas - everyone from there is extremely proud of it and everyone who isn't can't understand why. Like all Haryanvi mothers, feeding her children is her raison d'etre. She ferrets out people travelling to New York and forces them to carry things for us. And she always calls me before the courier leaves to make sure she has sent all that we need.
Hello Radhika - Arjun is leaving next week and he has nothing to carry so I am sending ten kilos rice, five kilos ghee, two kilos cashew nuts, two kilos almonds, two kilos pistas, two kilos raisins, five kilos assorted sweets and two one-litre bottles of Maggie hot and sweet tomato sauce. Is that enough?
Yes Mom.
Are you sure?
No Mom - maybe we should get some more rice.
That's what I thought. I'll send 15 kilos.
She hovers over you as you eat, dumping food on your plate and sometimes stuffing it directly in to your mouth if it happens to be ajar. I would eat pretty much anything that was put in front of me because I wanted her to like me, and I could tell that eating continuously would be a major means to this end. Things were going swimmingly. Then we hit a roadblock. My MIL believes that food is what keeps all illnesses at bay and she is partial to milk as a cureall. Milk is practically the staple food of the people of Haryana - children are breast-fed until they can recite their mathematical tables and gallons of it are consumed daily in every home.
My back hurts.
Drink some milk - your bones are weak.
My throat feels itchy.
Hot milk, honey and turmeric at once.
I just threw up.
You must be hungry. Have a glass of milk.
And herein lay the problem - I am lactose intolerant. The first time I explained this to my MIL she nodded her head like she understood but I could see in her eyes that she thought I was full of bakwaas. To her, lactose intolerance is a made-up disease that we weak minded, wimpy, 'modern-day' girls use to avoid dealing with life - like post-partum depression, anxiety attacks, and dyslexia. It all exists in our minds.
Until she met me she had never heard of such a thing. How the hell could anyone be allergic to milk! While I prattled on about the problems we lactose intolerant people have to deal with she just sat there thinking 'Oh God, if this was my child I would have clubbed her one - why won't she just shut up and eat the damn paneer tikka instead of inconveniencing everyone?'
As I explained in unnecessary detail the effects various milk products had on my digestive system she smiled painfully as her eyes searched for answers: What is wrong with this imbecile? Where did my stupid son even find her? Who in God's name can't drink one single solitary cup of milk? If he were this desperate why he didn't just come to me and ask me to find him a nice girl? I would have found him a nice girl with big breasts who could drink milk without whining about it.
And I know she is now trying to get rid of me because every time I visit the first thing she sweetly asks is if I want a mango shake. My MIL's mango shake is designed to kill a lactose-intolerant person immediately. It is big chunks of mango, milk and cream all whipped up in to one big glass of pain. Every year I am asked if I would like some. Every year I say, no thanks. And every year I see disappointment in her eyes.
Then to make this all much worse, my own mother came to stay with my MIL for three days. The very first thing my mother did was to decline a cup of warm, milky tea because like me, she too is lactose intolerant. My MIL couldn't even react. While everyone discussed how this was most likely hereditary she was thinking to herself: 'OMG - no wonder this girl is a bewakoof. Her mother is the same and she has passed on this self-centred, paranoid behaviour to her one and only off-spring. Why do these people have only one child? They should have many so that they can dilute the foolishness instead of concentrating it all up into one big, lactarded baby. I wonder when they are all leaving. ' So no matter how far I think I may have got in the fight to prove that there is no way her son could have done any better than I, when it comes to a showdown between her, me, and a glass of milk, I will retreat, whinging like a little twit.
Radhika Vaz is a New York-based comedian and the writer and performer of the one-woman show 'Unladylike: The Pitfalls of Propriety'. She is also a freelance writer, weightlifter, and nagging wife. www. radvaz. com
http://www.timescrest.com/
A lactose-intolerant daughter-in-law has no hope of finding favour with a doodh-loving saas.Indian men have a very special relationship with their mothers. These women yell, scream and beat their male offspring. They repeatedly tell their sons how useless and stupid they are. They hold their heads in their hands and beg their God of choice to explain what it is they did in a past life to deserve such a disrespectful child. But no sooner have these diamonds in the rough been 'married off' then suddenly the Indian mother can't find enough time in the day to sing her son's praises. And sing them she will - loud and clear without fatigue. The lyrics are different but the message is always the same: You are not good enough for my baby.
My own mother-in-law (MIL) is the same. She is a tough broad who raised 4 unruly cretins. She has four daughters-in-law (DIL) and like all the other MILs out there deep down she believes that all four boys could have done just a little better for themselves in the wife department. But she puts up with us for the same reason all Indian MILs tolerate their DILs. After having raised her boys like special-needs children, she knows that for their sake she has to suffer the caregiver who has taken over.
She hails from the great state of Haryana. Which is like being from Texas - everyone from there is extremely proud of it and everyone who isn't can't understand why. Like all Haryanvi mothers, feeding her children is her raison d'etre. She ferrets out people travelling to New York and forces them to carry things for us. And she always calls me before the courier leaves to make sure she has sent all that we need.
Hello Radhika - Arjun is leaving next week and he has nothing to carry so I am sending ten kilos rice, five kilos ghee, two kilos cashew nuts, two kilos almonds, two kilos pistas, two kilos raisins, five kilos assorted sweets and two one-litre bottles of Maggie hot and sweet tomato sauce. Is that enough?
Yes Mom.
Are you sure?
No Mom - maybe we should get some more rice.
That's what I thought. I'll send 15 kilos.
She hovers over you as you eat, dumping food on your plate and sometimes stuffing it directly in to your mouth if it happens to be ajar. I would eat pretty much anything that was put in front of me because I wanted her to like me, and I could tell that eating continuously would be a major means to this end. Things were going swimmingly. Then we hit a roadblock. My MIL believes that food is what keeps all illnesses at bay and she is partial to milk as a cureall. Milk is practically the staple food of the people of Haryana - children are breast-fed until they can recite their mathematical tables and gallons of it are consumed daily in every home.
My back hurts.
Drink some milk - your bones are weak.
My throat feels itchy.
Hot milk, honey and turmeric at once.
I just threw up.
You must be hungry. Have a glass of milk.
And herein lay the problem - I am lactose intolerant. The first time I explained this to my MIL she nodded her head like she understood but I could see in her eyes that she thought I was full of bakwaas. To her, lactose intolerance is a made-up disease that we weak minded, wimpy, 'modern-day' girls use to avoid dealing with life - like post-partum depression, anxiety attacks, and dyslexia. It all exists in our minds.
Until she met me she had never heard of such a thing. How the hell could anyone be allergic to milk! While I prattled on about the problems we lactose intolerant people have to deal with she just sat there thinking 'Oh God, if this was my child I would have clubbed her one - why won't she just shut up and eat the damn paneer tikka instead of inconveniencing everyone?'
As I explained in unnecessary detail the effects various milk products had on my digestive system she smiled painfully as her eyes searched for answers: What is wrong with this imbecile? Where did my stupid son even find her? Who in God's name can't drink one single solitary cup of milk? If he were this desperate why he didn't just come to me and ask me to find him a nice girl? I would have found him a nice girl with big breasts who could drink milk without whining about it.
And I know she is now trying to get rid of me because every time I visit the first thing she sweetly asks is if I want a mango shake. My MIL's mango shake is designed to kill a lactose-intolerant person immediately. It is big chunks of mango, milk and cream all whipped up in to one big glass of pain. Every year I am asked if I would like some. Every year I say, no thanks. And every year I see disappointment in her eyes.
Then to make this all much worse, my own mother came to stay with my MIL for three days. The very first thing my mother did was to decline a cup of warm, milky tea because like me, she too is lactose intolerant. My MIL couldn't even react. While everyone discussed how this was most likely hereditary she was thinking to herself: 'OMG - no wonder this girl is a bewakoof. Her mother is the same and she has passed on this self-centred, paranoid behaviour to her one and only off-spring. Why do these people have only one child? They should have many so that they can dilute the foolishness instead of concentrating it all up into one big, lactarded baby. I wonder when they are all leaving. ' So no matter how far I think I may have got in the fight to prove that there is no way her son could have done any better than I, when it comes to a showdown between her, me, and a glass of milk, I will retreat, whinging like a little twit.
Radhika Vaz is a New York-based comedian and the writer and performer of the one-woman show 'Unladylike: The Pitfalls of Propriety'. She is also a freelance writer, weightlifter, and nagging wife. www. radvaz. com
Drinking Diet Soda Linked to Depression
By Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily Staff Writer | LiveScience.com – 3 hrs ago
Calorie-free drinks are not necessarily risk free. A new study has found a link between drinking diet soda or diet fruit drinks and an increased risk of depression.
The study researchers analyzed information from more than 263,900 U.S. adults ages 50 to 71 who answered questions about their beverage consumption between the years 1995 and 1996. About 10 years later (from 2004 to 2006), the same people were asked if a doctor had diagnosed them with depression since the year 2000.
People who regularly drank four or more cans of any type of soda a day were 30 percent more likely to have received a diagnosis of depression than people who did not drink soda. The risk of depression was especially high for people who drank diet soda — a 31 percent increased risk compared to a 22 percent increased risk for those who drank regular soda, the researchers said.
Those who drank four or more cans of diet fruit drinks were 51 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression compared to those who did not drink diet fruit drinks.
By contrast, people who drank four or more cups of coffee a day were 10 percent less likely to have been diagnosed with depression compared to non-coffee drinkers.
The study only found an association, and did not determine whether or not diet soda or fruit drinks caused depression. Although the researchers took into account factors that could affect the results, such as age, sex, education, smoking status, physical activity, body mass index (BMI) and energy intake, it's possible other circumstances, such as a family history of depression or stressful life events, could explain the association.
A family history of depression and stressful life events are some of the biggest predictors of depression, said Emma Robertson-Blackmore, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center, who was not involved in the study. In addition, older people are more likely to experience stressful life events, including the death of a loved one, job changes or illnesses, Robertson-Blackmore said.
However, the findings agree with those of a few previous studies that found a link between frequent consumption of sweetened beverages and a higher prevalence of depression, the researchers said. (Diet sodas and fruit drinks are sweetened, but their sweeteners contain no calories.)
"More research is needed to confirm these findings, and people with depression should continue to take depression medications prescribed by their doctors," said study researcher Dr. Honglei Chen, of the National Institutes of Health.
The results also back up findings from a study published in 2011, which found a link between coffee consumption and a reduced risk of depression in women.
"Coffee contains large amounts of caffeine, which is a well-known brain stimulant," which could be responsible for effects on mood, Chen said.
The study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in San Diego in March.
Pass it on: Drinking soda, especially diet soda, has been linked to an increased risk of depression.
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