5 Reasons Why Chelo Kebab is Not Nasi lemak

A few days back I had an amazing dinner of Chello Kebab at perhaps the World's most famous restaurant serving Chelo Kebab - Peter Cat in Park Street at Kolkata. During the course of my post prandial musings, my thoughts flew to another favorite meal with amazingly similar "apparent" ingredients but an entirely different result - the Nasi Lemak from Malaysia.

Both are complete meals with chicken, vegetable, egg on the side with rice at the centre. And thats where the similarities end between the two meals!

Nasi Lemak has flavoured rice as in Chelo Kebab. In Nasi Lemak, the flavour comes from lime leaves and lemon grass - while in Chello Kebab the flavouring is from butter and the smell of basmati rice.

Chicken is the main ingredient of Chello Kebab as the name suggests. It comes in the form of awesomely rich, grilled, minced chicken kebabs - whose ingredients and secrets go back perhaps 300 years or so. You also get barbecued chicken on skewers. The chicken in Nasi Lemak is a side dish, normally chicken rendang (a red red chicken in gravy - cooked with coconut) or simple fried chicken.

Chello Kebab may have a piece or two of cucumber on the side - but it is not accompanied by anchovies and peanuts as in Nasi Lemak. The other vegetable in chello comes barbecued with the chicken.

Eggs too come differently. While Nasi Lemak has a boiled egg served on the side, Chello Kebab has a poached egg placed delicately at the centre of the rice - with a dollop of butter near it.

And perhaps the most critical non-similarity! Chello Kebab is a princely meal, however meaningless the royal terminology may be in today's egalitarian world, loved and revered by people who have partaken of it at Peter Cat. Nasi Lemak is street food at its best, served in wrapped pandan leaves at street corners, for breakfast, lunch and dinner at most local restaurants and everywhere else in Malaysia - similarly loved and revered!

So enjoy both!!!

The Secret Diary of a Wimpy Housewife

Well, I am the first to admit that the title is neither original nor applies to me. I am not a wimpy housewife, no way. Inspired by my son's devouring of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid and treating it as a bible - I had to pick up the "Secret Diary of a Demented Housewife" - when I came across it at the local library.

There was an immediate affinity with diary and diarist - just reading the first page. Many a times I have vowed to spend "quality, life-affirming things to reclaim my spirit" and "staring vacantly into space" wondering about the "the selfless decision to leave the workplace." Or trying to feel noble about being a stay at home mother.
As for being wimpy - I don't always give in to the others whims. If I do - I have strong reasons like:

I do let my kids watch Cartoon Network 14 hours a day - but that's because I believe a moving, lively, colorful medium will do more for their brain than the staid colorless words in print. They will also pick up a better diction and vocabulary from the variety on TV than a monotonous storytelling session from Mom.
As for giving in and giving them Maggie for breakfast, lunch and dinner - shouldn't they learn to adjust with ready-to-cook easy meals? Where will they always get hot home cooked food?

Mothers and MILs always seem to have done the right thing when we were kids. They gave us food on time, ensured we never had a cold or ate with dirty fingers and got our homework done bang on time. What more – they were always engaged in “productive soul enhancing activities” like looking after kids and home! No retail therapy for them, buying unnecessary clothes or accessories. No “me time” too – apparently. So they say.

As my husband comments on the amount of vegetable in the Chicken Biriyani (what are carrots and peas doing in a Chicken Biriyani for God’s Sake?) – I push back all thoughts of power lunches and adult conversation at the workplace. Of a time when one ate lunch not actually cooked by oneself. Better concentrate on how very frightful the last boss was or the howling of the kid when Mom had to sneak away to work.

I have by now gone through two pages of “Secret Diary of a Demented Housewife” in between “life-affirming” and doubtful quality time spent playing Farmville. I have had no inspiration on “productive soul enhancing activities” unless screaming at the kids to finish their homework before school reopens, preparing veggie chicken Biriyani or shopping for groceries count.


If you want to read what the “Secret Diary of a Demented Housewife” by Niamh Greene says (and you will love it!), you can get it online somewhere I am sure (couldn't find it at Amazon). It has been published by Penguin Ireland.

Here is a Amazon link to the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid".

PS – My family still doesn’t know there was cabbage too in the Chicken Biryani – it blended right in with the spices! So much for being a wimpy housewife! Tee hee.

The Pink Chaddi Movement - Indian Women Fight Back - Join Pink Chaddi at Facebook!

Pink Chaddi (Pink Panty) is "A Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women" with a mission to send the Ram Sena and its Chief Pramod Muthalik a Pink Chaddi. Why send the Ram Sena a pink chaddi? Remember, the Ram Sena and its goons beat up young women in Mangalore for apparently going to pubs and with a dire warning not to celebrate Valentine's Day. And, hilariously, the Ram Sena says "no one from good families would resort to such cheap steps" - meaning they come from "good families" beating up women for going to pubs or dressing "indecently"! The Pink Chaddi campaign is a message that beating up Indian Women in public is against "ummm... AGAINST INDIAN CULTURE" too.

This is by far the best step Indian women and men have taken to stand up to right wing extremists and their arm twisting terror tactics! The facebook page already has more than 21000 members of either gender. You can join at Facebook here http://en-gb.facebook.com/group.php?gid=49641698651

The pink chaddi is also at the blog thepinkchaddicampaign.blogspot.com.
It says -

"Dear Pink Chaddi donaters,
please courier/mail your chaddi's to:

Pramod Muthalik, Sri Rama Sene Office # 11, Behind new bus stand, Gokhul road, Lakshmi park, Hubli - Karnataka"

Valentine's Day Poem - With A Difference!

There was a time when I got the Best Valentine cards,
Guys wanted to be close to me like mad.
I got the best of best friends too
Who vied to pay attention to me and woo.
I am 40 now and not getting young,
Crying for all the love and attention and a bit of song
My husband forgets the V'day
My son so young and gay
does only stuff that his girlfriends say!
20 years older and 40 pounds heavier
Oh how weary and dull life seems now
If I was a bit thin or a lot cool
I could still conquer the world
For don’t I know it all!
All of you out there, the young uns
So full of love and life and laughter
Please resist those chocolates
As you might be me twenty years on!

How To Make Pasta

I guess how I made Pasta would be a more appropriate title for this post! Anyways, here it goes...

I was having a small get-together, a kind of mini kitty party a few days back and I decided to make pasta (with sauce and all of course). For some unknown reason (after all I had never tried to make pasta before), I decided it was the easiest thing to prepare. So, I went about shopping the evening before.

Ingredients

I picked up the best-looking packet of macaroni, a can of baked beans, a tinned mushroom, a tin of tomato puree. Then I looked at the cheese available and found just the right thing, a packet of grated cheese. See, I had done my research on the net. I had found a dozen recipe of pasta. Its another matter that none of them advised putting all these stuff together. I also picked up bottles of garlic salt and white pepper.

Just as I was leaving, I was suddenly assailed by doubts (a rare thing, but there…) I got a packet of noodles and some perfectly cut frozen vegetables as well as a bottle of soya sauce – to make noodles if worse came to worst!

I started my pasta at midnight after bundling off the kids to bed, the party being scheduled for the morning.

Cooking The Perfect Pasta

As per instructions on the net, I would need 5 liters of water to boil 500g of Pasta. I found my biggest pan could hold just 3 litres. I made do. The water had to boil first. That went fine. Then sidle in the macaroni into the boiling water. Yes, please don’t throw it in, the water’s boiling, the pan’s full, just coax in the pasta, unless you have a preference for getting scalded! Keep mixing it, so that the pasta doesn’t stick to the bottom. One really has to be careful. The best instruction I found online said that, take a bite and remove the pasta just when you feel the softness is as you would like to eat it. There is some philosophy somewhere here. So many things in life are that simple!

I removed and drained the the macaroni onto a colander. I kept aside some of the liquid to use in the sauce. You will find there is very little liquid left when 500gms pasta is boiled in 3 ltrs of water!

Pasta Sauce

Next step was to prepare the pasta sauce. I put two tbs of butter into a pan, then scraped some garlic cloves into the pan. Then I sprinked garlic salt and white pepper. I added the mushrooms from the can (drained), then emptied a 200 gm tin of tomato puree. The paste seemed to be very very thick. So I added the reserve water I had kept aside and let the mixture simmer. It was a real pungent taste. I realized too late that the tomato puree was really thick and just 3-4 spoons would have sufficed. So I had to keep on adding water to get the right consistency! So I had a huge pan full of pasta sauce. I made some white sauce next. I am not going to describe the process. Oh, well. I boiled some milk (200 ml), added some butter and mixed in 2 tsp of white flour. Is that white sauce? Well, I always prepare it that way…

Final Dressing

Now for the finale. I mashed 3 medium sized potoes which I had previously boiled. I brought out my largest casserole (I was not really prepared for the huge quantity). Then I poured in the macaroni. Added the mashed potatoes, the baked beans (with the juice), the white sauce. The pasta was still dry. I added the sauce I had prepared. I realized I needed just one-fifth of the prepared quantity! But I strained out all the mushroom from the sauce to add to the pasta. I mixed in all the contents, cooled it and stored it away. I entire process lasted one and half hours, including preparation time.

Just before serving the next day, I took out the amount needed onto another much smaller carsserole, sprinkled the grated parmesan cheese on top and heat it in the microwave till the cheese melted.

So there, I had my pasta ready (so what if we all had to eat pasta for 3 days!) and it really, surprisingly tasted good!

Try it, and tell me the results! Just remember 500 gm pasta would maybe feed around 15 persons as a snack, and my party was just for 5 people.

And now the family has started on the noodles (remember the packet I got as back-up)!!! But that recipe is another story.

How To Get Rid Of The Insurance Agent!

The Insurance Industry promises many things. All those delightful, costly, lengthy insurance commercials promise you the best of education, terrific pensions that takes care of the world tour, lovely sea-front mansions, huge cars, etc etc. And they all make you believe just taking an insurance would get you those! You know where the money for all these ads come from? Of course your auto insurance quote, your life insurance quote and all the terrific insurance quotes you get and the many policies you have taken! Know what, you may not really need more insurance (i mean risk coverage by that, not investments, though insurance companies tend to mix both and absolutely misconfuddle you!). But would your agent take that. No. You will be convinced and then convinced some more that you absolutely need that policy. So how do you get rid of these pesky perseverent species?

Here are some surefire ways to keep them away.

- Tell them you are at the hospital, and could they please come over with the best life insurance quote. And then ring them back again the next day. That surely will give them a taste of their own medicine.

- You car just had an accident and you want someone/anyone to come over and clear up the mess. Most of them dont want to take ANY responsibility.

- Ditto the procedure for house insurance

- Tell them you are out of a job and could they help enhance the credit limits

- Convey conspiratorially you have a diamond mine in your backyard and could they come and survey it and then get it insured. If nothing, your garden may get dug up!

Warning and P.S. - i have nothing against insurance people. And you do need insurance. Just make sure you only cover as much as you need and as much as you can afford! Also insurance is "sold" not "bought", the poor guys are just doing their job, for a living!

The Ideal Diet!

This article's not for you if are serious about losing weight! This is for all out there like me who know all about the weight loss diets, who find out all they can about losing weight, low carb diets, check out all diet programs, participate in all diet plans, with absolutely no hope or intention to minimize those pounds! For us its not really extra weight, its "the ideal weight!"

I am going to talk about what people are looking for in a diet...not what they really need to lose those ungainly bulges! These two things are as different as apples and oranges as you will see!

What you really need

- a strict diet! have a look a the flat belly diet and all the other diet plans out there

- a strict diet- no impulse icecream, pastries, patties, burgers, lards, fried chicken, fried anything, restaurant food, creams, mid morning, mid evening, mid day snacks

- a strict diet - refuse that extra drink, dessert at your friend's... you might have noticed those trimmed figures always act coy while eating...SO START ACTING COY ...where the spread is mouth watering

- and regular exercise... anything...why not try the 12 second sequence weight loss program? that is HOT now! You can try anything but do GET up and BEND!

But do you really want to do all these?

Now please be honest...arent you really looking at a "get thin quick" remedy? The methods stated above above are what we all know would lose weight...eventually. So why and what are you searching for in that ultimate diet?

I know WHAT I AM searching for in that ultimate diet!

It will be a diet plan that will enable me to get up at 10 am when the holidays are on without any thought of an impending morning jog disturbing my slumber! A diet that will enable me to check on that lovely flavour in icecream that everyone seems to be gorging on! It will be maybe a diet pill that will allow me to pick up whatever food is available at the nearest store whenever i am hungry! And the diet menu should not prevent me to taste any dessert spread that I feel compelled to have when I am dining out.

And when I am home from work, my diet and exercise regimen should never never prevent me from propping up on the sofa and going to sleep munching on that fried chicken/pizza/burger/noodles watching TV and not even thinking about hitting the treadmill in the morning (remember I mean to wake up 30 mins before office)!

Will my diet allow me all this? That will be my ideal diet!