My friends call me Thilak

Chennai Marathon 2010 & Marine Engineering

2010-09-26T00:49:00.000-07:00

This happened in Feb 2010. I went to support my friend Elanchezhiyan when he ran the Chennai Marathon 2010. He is a tough marine engineer who completed the half marathon without any practice whatsoever. I was really amazed by the stamina possessed by the Marine Engineers.

He used to tell me how he and other engineers used to work whenever there was a problem in the ship's engine room. The engine room temperature is around 50 degrees and they have nothing but re-hydrating water to drink, come out of the room once every half an hour just to have a breath of fresh air. One has to be physically, mentally and emotionally fit and also have their knowledge in material science, thermodynamics, electrical engineering, electronics engineering at their practical best to work and fix that problem.

I have come across few production issues in office, but still I have troubleshooted them whilst working in AC rooms with proper food. Whenever anyone complains about working late in office, I used to tell them my Marine friend's story.

Coming back to the Marathon, I was really taken aback by the sight of some of our Indian runners over there. Lot of them had come from villages and competed in it. They were running with their bare feet. I couldn't believe my fellow Indians ran half marathon on their bare feet. Lot of us have lot of resources but we never realize that we are gifted unless we see others' plight.

Hats off to my friend Elan for completing the Half Marathon without any practice and Hats off to my fellow Indians who completed the marathon and half marathon in their bare feet!!!

Chicken with Shallots

2010-03-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

This is a very good chicken recipe that my mom tried just yesterday and it turned out to be really terrific. The moment I tasted it, I knew this recipe is going to be on my blog and here it is. Oh and for my vegetarian friends - please try the same recipe with something other than chicken and let me know how it turns out because the vegetarian version of this recipe does not exist yet. Sorry.

1. Pre-Cook the chicken separately:

1/2 kg Chicken - Either Bone or Boneless - cut into medium sized pieces
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Turmeric
1 teaspoon Black Pepper Powder
1 teaspoon Ginger Garlic Paste
1 teaspoon Garam Masala

Marinate the chicken with the above ingredients for 15 minutes. Place the marinated chicken in the pressure cooker on a medium flame and cook for 3-4 minutes - Just add a little bit of water. The chicken should be around 75% cooked.

2. Make the Semi-Gravy:

1.5 to 2 cups - Shallots or small onions - its skin peeled & washed (Don't substitute regular onions for shallots - you will be compromising on the taste the shallots bring to the dish)
2 Medium Sized Tomato - Diced into pieces about the size of shallots
2 Medium Sized Capsicum - Diced into pieces about the size of shallots

Take a pan and pour 4 teaspoons of cooking oil into it. Add some 15-20 curry leaves and 4 dried red chillis. Add the shallots and saute them till they become glassy in appearance. Now add the capsicum and the tomato. Also add -

1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt - depending on taste
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 to 1 teaspoon chilli powder - depending on taste
1/2 teaspoon ginger garlic paste
1/2 teaspoon garam masala

Saute the above ingredients till the raw smell of the tomatoes are gone. Now finally add the cooked chicken and continue to stir and saute till mixture becomes thick paste. If you want your chicken to be dry instead of a semi gravy - saute even more till all the moisture evaporates.

Mon Cher Amis - Bon Appetit !

PS: And I am terribly sorry that I don't have any pictures of this chicken with shallots, because it too yummy that I have forgotten to take pictures. It's so hard to remember to take pictures when the food is very very good.

Nice java based rich text editor

2010-03-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

Hi there,
I am sure a lot of us are fans of Editplus, Notepad++, Textpad, etc. because we all want something better than notepad; and clearly wordpad is not something better!!! The problem with the popular Editplus or Notepad++ is that they are evaluation software and we need pay to use them. Lets face it, we are not going to pay for text editing software in the near future. And here is one cute java based open source alternative that I found recently - Jedit.

Link: http://www.jedit.org/

A few plus points I found for the editor -
1. Supports Multiple Views - You can basically clone/spawn multiple windows from the main window. Works great!
2. If you need to work with large text files say over 100 Megs, just start the Jedit with a larger jvm heap size like this - C:\Users\Arun Thilak>java -Xms64M -Xmx512M -jar "C:\Program Files\jEdit 4.3.1\jedit.jar"
where Xms and Xmx are the initial and final JVM heap sizes & modify them as per your requirements.
3. Supports Regex searching and also provides multi-color syntax support for different file types.
4. Although I haven't explored it myself - there is a large amount of plugins' support for the editor

Do check it out and let me know how it works!
Happy Scripting :-)

What to do when one gets the cold

2009-09-25T22:51:00.000-07:00

Well, its that time of the year when the cold and flu viruses are out in the open and trying to migrate form one body to another. And we build our forts by taking in lots of vitamins and sometimes they are just not enough because that damned virus finds a way to break it year after year. So how do we deal with the virus? Here is an idea: -

Take your hardcore meat-eating friends (vegetarians will work too) and eat a lot of chicken in your favorite restaurant. Check out my typical menu when I fall sick –

Chicken clear soup / Chicken Manchow Soup with extra pepper
Pepper chicken masala
Spicy fried Chicken
Chicken friend rice or briyani
Chilli chicken

And after reaching home, if my head is still not clear, I take milk with a pinch of turmeric powder in it. Turmeric powder is a very effective antibiotic. The only other thing that may beat this above feast of food is the home made chicken soup (Tamil Nadu village style). And here is the recipe for that … do try it in case you get sick. It helps !

Chicken Soup from the village

1. Preparing the magic paste

50 grams shallots (small onions - around 10)
2 cloves of garlic
Small piece of ginger (around ½ inch)
Curry Leaves – around 10
Cumin seeds (Jeera) – ½ teaspoon
Whole Pepper – 1 teaspoon
Turmeric powder– ¼ teaspoon
Coriander powder – 1 teaspoon

Grind all the above ingredients in a Mixer/Blender with a little water.

2. Making the soup

Use a small pressure cooker and add some cut pieces of Chicken. (Around 100 to 150 grams of bone pieces rather than flesh pieces). Add the paste prepared already, 2 cups of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tomato cut into medium sized pieces. Stir the mixture, place the lid and let the chicken cook. After the first whistle comes, simmer the flame and let the chicken cook on the reduced flame for another 5 minutes. Remove the cooker from the stove, filter the soup and add additional salt and pepper according to taste.

Bon appetite and lets show the virus that we can throw it out our system ...

Emirates baggage handling capabilities

2009-05-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

Friends,
This is just a cautionary advice for you international fliers out there ...
Caution 1: Flying through the middle east is a high risk for your belongings in your check-in baggage. It seems that the ground staff are paid very low salaries and put up in very pathetic living conditions (Refer to BBC documentary on the same) that they need to steal items from baggage whenever possible. (Is this how middle east makes profit?)

Caution 2: If, your check-in baggage ever gets delayed, useful stuff in it is most probably stolen. Try to get to the airport to receive the baggage when they say your baggage has arrived. At least you can make sure that the contents of your baggage will not be in the destination airport

Caution 3: If you lose any personal belongings in your bag, the airlines is not going to pay compensation unless you slap a law suit on them. This happened to me in Emirates, one of the best airlines in the world and I lost a lot of my used portable electronics when my baggage was stolen. They wont pay me a single penny and they have rules and regulations to protect themselves.

Check out their reason for not paying me - this is an extract from conditions of the carriage -

Conditions of Carriage in particular Article 15.5.3, ‘the carrier is not liable for loss of or damage to fragile or perishable articles, money, jewellery, precious metals, silverware, negotiable papers, securities, or other valuables, business documents, passports and other identification documents, computers, personal electronic devices, mobiles phone, stored data, any medication or medical equipment which may be required in-flight or during your trip or which cannot be quickly replaced if lost or damaged, house or car keys, valuable documents (including, for example, business documents, passports and other identification documents, negotiable papers, securities deeds) or samples, whether with or without the knowledge of the carrier.’

Obviously, we are not aware of these conditions during the time of booking. Like any other sane human being, we would probably just book the ticket rather than read through 50 pages of conditions of carriage before booking any ticket. This conditions of carriage is Emirates defense in having an insecure baggage handling service and how to get away from any theft from it side without paying any damages.

Do a Google search for Emirates Baggage Handling and you would get lots of hits. This shows their credibility in baggage handling. And their inability to accept their mistake and provide compensation shows their corporate creed and their true customer service image, definitely well hidden in those ads.

Beware of Emirates my friends, and fly safe.

Bad economy makes bad jokes

2009-04-23T07:28:00.000-07:00

Well ... ever since the economy is doing bad and also there are lot of management people losing jobs, it is in bad taste to still have the blog entry that has the funny slandering of my friends who are in management. I am removing certain portions of my earlier blog with references to my friends in management.

I am technically competent plus my skill set is not mundane and hence I feel I have job security even during a bad economy. However, bagging contracts in the bad economy is like climbing the Himalayas or swimming upstream in a river when water from a dam on the river is released. I applaud their mettle and mental strength during this tough economic conditions. Like they say, a calm sea never made a skillful mariner. I guess I have a zillion things to learn from my management friends. Hope everyone rides out this economic storm.

Cauliflower Manchurian

2009-03-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

My dear friends,
Due to popular request and for all my vegetarian friends out there - am posting this recipe for Gobi Manchurian - the Indian way. After coming back to India I found out that one of my super good friends has turned into a non-vegetarian and another one of my super good friends turned into a vegetarian. I was happy that there was a loss and gain on both sides and the balance was restored in the world food chain. However, there was not really a balance in my blog with my pro-chicken attitude and I hope this post will bring out that missing balance between veggie and non-veggies.

Ingredients:
1. Cauliflower - 1 cup - cleaned and cut
2. Corn Flower - 100 grams
3. Maida (Refined flour) - 50 grams
4. Chilli Powder - 1 tsp
5. Soya sauce - 1/2 tsp
6. Ginger Garlic paste - 1/2 tsp
7. Salt - 1/2 to 1 tsp according to taste

Method:
Now if you dislike Soya sauce, ginger or garlic - both of them are optional. But if u add it, it brings that extra magic touch to the taste. Add all 2 to 7 ingredients and pour water, in small quantities, to make a good batter. If the batter is too thin, u can make more of the manchurians and if it is too thick, u would make less of it. You can figure out what thickness the batter should be yourself.

Heat the cooking oil for frying, dip the vegetable in the batter and deep fry it, till bubbling comes down.

This is end of stage one. If u r really hungry, you can eat as such after frying (make sure you drain the excess oil, otherwise you might burn your tongue). Or you can choose to take it to next stage.

Ingredients:
1. 1 mid sized onion - chopped up nicely
2. 1 chilli - chopped
3. Soya sauce - 1/2 tsp
4. Ginger + Garlic - chopped up 1/2 tsp
5. pepper
6. 2 tsp oil
7. add a little sugar , if u like ur manchurians to be sweet

Method:
Pour the oil in pan and put the onions, chilli, ginger + garlic chopped in and saute nicely. After a couple of minutes add the soya sauce and pepper and continue to saute. Now pour little water and let the onions cook for a bit. Once all the water is evaporated, add the fried Manchurians and stir till the mix gets even. The dry manchurians are now ready. And if you want to convert this to a gravy - just add a spoon of corn flour with water and add to the mixture.

Bon appetite ... Let me know how it turned out ...

Christmas Specials

2008-12-28T23:14:00.000-08:00

It was a classic battle of the titans: one who knew how to genuinely cook versus one who knew how to cook from the book. The situation was simple: we had to cook something for the holiday party in office and my good friend in office said she would bring a vegetarian gravy for the South Indian Parathas (Parotas) which I had offered to bring along with the chicken gravy I was going to make.

(Technically she was helping me reduce the amount of gravy I had to prepare for the parathas. So Thank you Nalini :-) )

The party was on and one had to decide which was better - the Potato Peas gravy or the Chicken Gravy and here is the benchmark and verdict.

1. Which gravy had yummy chicken? Arun's awesome chicken gravy
2. Which gravy did not have potatoes and peas? Arun's terrific chicken gravy
3. Which gravy was more tasty because it had chicken in it? Arun's titilating chicken gravy
4. Which gravy was appreciated by the Vice president? Arun's astonishing chicken gravy
5. And finally which gravy was prepared by Arun? Arun's exotic chicken gravy

As you can see, it's a giant victory for my Chicken gravy hands down :D Now I really feel that I should share this amazing recipe with you all and so here goes:

Serves: Enough gravy for 16 to 20 rotis / rice (how many people: well, that depends on how many rotis one can eat)

Preparation:
Cut around 1 pound of chicken into small pieces (around 3 to 4 cups) and marinate it with 1 cup of yogurt, 1 teaspoon of chili-powder, 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric, 1/2 teaspoon of garam masala, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon ginger garlic paste. Mix the paste and chicken well and let the chicken marinate for at least 1 hour.

Method:
1. Heat 8 teaspoons of cooking oil in a pressure cooker or a pan
2. Saute 3 cups of finely chopped onions till they turn golden brown and till the raw smell of the onions goes away (You can add a spoon of sugar to speed up the process)
3. Add 2 teaspoons of ginger garlic paste
4. Add 1 to 2 teaspoon of salt according to taste
5. Saute for 2 to 3 more minutes
6. Add 2 to 3 cups of chopped up tomatoes (depends on how much you like tomatoes)
7. Add 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder
8. Add 1 to 2 teaspoons of chilli powder depending on your taste
9. Add 2 teaspoon of garam masala
10. Add 2 teaspoon of corriander powder
11. Saute nicely till the mixture becomes a nice paste and raw smell of tomatoes goes away
12. Add the marinated chicken along with all the marination paste
13. Mix well and place the lid on the pressure cooker or simmer well if you are using the pan
14. If you are using the pressure cooker, let the chicken cook for about 2 whistles.

Do try the recipe my friends, happy cooking and Bon Appetit.

P.S.: As you know, I go by many names and in office, I am called Arun :*)

Bliss with food and family

2008-12-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

Friday ~ Saturday, Nov 21 ~ 22

It all started with a spicy chicken gravy prepared by my room mate Srini and his wife Swapna. It was quite tasty and spicy or the “ssssss aaahhhh yummy” kind. After 3 buses and a flight I was in "Shivering Charlotte" to meet my best friend Elavarasan (I still cannot believe water is costlier than fuel on the flights). His ride was a 2003 black Ford Mustang and it roared down the highway in the ever brightening dawn sky. We met our good friends - Sai Gopal and Siva Sundar and we were on our way to Philadelphia. The ride was smooth until I started to drive. I had temporary driving license, and the fact that I had been driving in driver’s nightmare like Chennai gave me a bit of confidence. But little did I know that left handed driving would be so difficult than right handed driving. I had lot of difficulty keeping the car in the lane, I kept drifting towards the right edge of the lane and had a few scary moments with a big truck when I almost ran into it. Luckily, the brilliant truck driver moved further away from his lane. A million thanks to him as I am able to write my blog now. We stopped in the afternoon for some Chicken Chalupas from Taco Bell. This was the first time I had a chalupa and I must say that it is a brilliant invention of mankind. It not too hard, not too soft, just the right amount of “munchiness” (I am inventing this word, if it had not been invented already by another food lover). Resuming the drive we had dinner near Washington DC in Udipi Palace where I found a lot of Americans and Indians. Finding lot of Americans in an Indian restaurant told a lot about its quality. We finally reached Leo Gerald’s home. He is a very good friend from college, who is all brains and now working on steam cycles in nuclear power plants.

Sunday, Nov 23

We were in New Jeresy and we were searching for one particular Chennai restaurant: Yes, it is the "Saravana Bhavan". We were quite hungry and we could hardly wait after we ordered the ultimate delicacy: Ghee Pongal. (And since it won't fill our stomachs we also ordered the Saravana Bhavan Special Meals). I put one spoon from the Ghee Pongal in my mouth. I closed my eyes and felt the taste of the pongal in my tongue. My only senses active at that moment were my sense of taste and my sense of smell. As the Pongal slowly melted away from the tip of my tongue, reached the inner tongue and slowly glided down the throat, all I could think of was 'Singara Chennai' and all my friends over there. I was so mesmerized that I felt that I was back in Chennai in the bustling and relentless traffic; I could hear all the unnecessary honking and the sound of the iconic auto-rickshaws. It was a paradise in the mouth and the taste was just indistinguishable from the Pongal served in any of the 15+ Saravana Bhavans in Chennai. It was pure bliss. I was so satisfied from the food that I could not even notice the beautiful waitresses in the restaurant. Anyway, we were still hungry, and we completed the special meals, which again was terrific. I am running out of adjectives to describe the ambrosian food.

We then drove to New York and roamed around the downtown of the world’s largest city. The walk was tiresome and I settled for an Ultimate Chicken Burger at Ruby Tuesday. It was good but let's just say my taste buds were not in cohesion with that burger.

Monday, Nov 24

We were thundering down the highway towards Washington DC. En route, we met one of our closest friends Abhishek. Afterward, it was a walk in downtown of the capital city and also cruised in and out of the streets to see it's prominent landmarks. Soon after, we were throttling towards Charlotte when the traffic and rain delayed our progress. The visibility was poor and we took a detour in Richmond and had our dinner in a Farook’s restaurant. It was a small one, managed by a North Indian family. The naan, and onion kulcha were delicate and Chicken Jalfroze was a good combination. We gulped the food down and were back to the drive in the rain. I took over the drive for sometime to give rest for Ela and it was a scary 2 hour drive. All I could see was the yellow reflectors in the middle; the lane markers near the edge of the roads were not visible and driving at 70 Mph in that never-ending rain was a bit scary. At one point, the road narrowed and merged into a single lane near a construction zone, where the reflectors were not at all visible in the fleeting rain and I almost came close to the touching the concrete blocks on more than one occasion. Phew.

Tuesday, Nov 25

The flight took off and I found myself drinking cappuccino outside the Houston Airport waiting for my cousin to pick me up. He made his appearance in his big SUV and we made our way to his home. After quick refreshments, we had lunch in foodruckers and I chose a chicken carribean salad. The chicken salad was a beautiful combination of leaves, fruits and grilled chicken and helped me refresh my stomach. (I stopped having any all veggie salad after one unfortunate incident in Chennai, wherein I got sick for two days after eating an all green food.) After a quick trip to NASA and making sure that I don't belong there with my puny brain, we headed back home and I found my cute little niece waiting for me (and of course her dad). This was the first time I met her and soon enough we were playing while my sister-in-law made some terrific vegetable puffs, egg puffs and the Tamil Nadu village style mutton gravy. "!!!". Do I need to say more? We drove to Dallas that night, and I had an hard time keeping my eyes open during the 4 hour drive after such good food.

Wednesday, Nov 26

It was sister-in-law’s brother’s place and here is another amazing person and fantastic gourmet: my sister-in-law’s sister-in-law. Whilst I was playing with my niece, and with both of my niece's cousins (yes, I was twenty years younger and playing on par with them), she had made the Tamil Nadu village style mutton gravy, mutton briyani, pepper chicken fry, and chicken masala. Vvvvaaaaaaavvv !!! I had many servings of the delicious Briyani and it instantly reminded me of both my mom's and aunt's cooking. I came to know that my sister in law and her sister in law learned them from my aunt who is again a terrific connoisseur in the kitchen. I could really feel sitting at my home in Chennai. The key to a good briyani is how the aroma from the spices blends into the rice and the meat, something my aunt and mom have perfected over the years. Its really hard to express how happy I felt after having that good food.

That evening I met my dearest friends from college Jude and Mukesh who are graduate students at the University of Texas, Dallas and we had our food in a Thai restaurant and had something called yellow chicken curry. It reminded me of similar food in India from Tamil Nadu’s neighbour Kerala. There is a lot of similarity between the two cuisines.

Thursday, Nov 27

The next day after having delicious buffet in a restaurant called Chetinad with my friends, I had some Indian style cat fish fry again in my sister-in-law’s sister-in-law’s place. That night I met my sister who is also in Dallas: she and I – well, we are pretty good examples for "One need not be related by blood to be real brothers and sisters". After playing with my niece and nephew here I had some delicious Rava Idli. If there is one thing I like in south Indian vegetarian food apart from a perfectly made melt-in-mouth Pongal, it is Rava Idli. This was the first time that my mouth watered along with my heart.

Friday, Nov 28

The next day it was again Tamil Nadu style chicken gravy at my sister’s place. My sister-in-law’s sister-in-law had made some delicious Crabs. Once during my childhood I ate too much crab and threw up and ever since then I am unable to eat crab. Sadly I was not able to rejoice this delicacy.

Saturday, Nov 29

Back to Houston and my cousin and I took a small trip to Galveston. I had been insisting on one particular food item from my cousin and my sister-in-law it was the grand finale of all the food items I had for my whole trip: "Kothu Parota". It is relatively hard to make, compared to the rest of the food items discussed above (except for Saravana Bhavan melt-in-mouth Pongal). You need the right amount of flour and make proper Parota dough, the right amount of Mutton or Chicken Keema, eggs, onions and tomatoes and also a bit of the arm strength. My sister-in-law had made the it beyond excellence; I now feel like I owe her an expensive gift. She also made some Tamil Nadu style Fish gravy with Cat Fish which I enjoyed till my stomach could fit. I was so dumbstruck with the taste of the food.

And so...

Flight tickets to Charlotte, Houston and back to San Diego: $600
Planned expensive gifts for cousin, sister-in-law, her brother and her sister-in-law: $1000
Eating titillating and exquisite South Indian food on the other side of the planet: Priceless

Bon Appetit

La Jolla Gallery & Wine Walk

2008-10-06T23:26:00.000-07:00

I met around 500 different people in one night! Beautiful women, elderly women, young women, women whose age I cannot decipher (perhaps from 20 to 40?), gentlemen, drunk men, senior citizens, children etc. In just 5 hours I met so many people with so many personalities, some of those characters I have only seen in Hollywood movies.

So how did this happen?

“No! I certainly was not an exhibit in the worst comedy section at the museum”.

I volunteered in the La Jolla (pronounced: La-ho-ya) Gallery and Wine Walk on the September 25th 2008. It was a fund raiser event for the leukemia and lymphoma patients. My work was to stand behind a desk and pour wine for people. Visitors have to buy tickets worth 30$ and they have 22 art galleries to walk through and in each one of them we have two kinds of wine and some of them serve food. This link will tell you more about the event itself.

http://blog.discoversd.com/san-diego-entertainment-blog/the-3rd-annual-la-jolla-gallery-and-wine-walk-in-la-jolla-village.html

I got a beautiful spot to pour wine. It was in front of the Africa and beyond art gallery and on top of Azul restaurants. I had to pour the Brigantine Merlot; I didn’t taste it but it smells really nice. (http://www.brigantine.com/index.html) I started to pour at 5 PM and went all the way till 8.45 PM. It was a spine breaking job, with no breaks or food. But, what the heck, it was all for a good cause. I was too stressed out at office that I really wanted a break and saw this as an opportunity and I took it.

Here is the picture of the place where I poured the wine (up the stairs and to the left) The Azul restaurant is down the stairs. It is supposed to be a very beautiful ocean view restaurant. Here is a google map link to that place. And here are some photos of that place.
I didn’t have much time to go to the restaurant that night, but I will probably try to go there sometime for the chicken.

Apart from this, I really got to know what sweet talk is all about or how a bartender feels like. If someone put too much emphasis on “Hai, how are you?” that means they are going to ask for a generous pour. There was one lady who was like, “generous pour please, generous pour please, common, you can do it, you can do it” and she said that in such a sweet voice, it was really hard to say no to it. But since I am straightforward guy (ya, ya, don’t laugh) I was like “I am so sorry, I am really sorry, I can only pour 1 ounce”. I can probably express much better non-verbally.

Also, I met some really nice people that day. The store owners for the Africa and beyond gallery – Julia and her hubby Ian, the girl from the restaurant – Julia, the restaurant manager – Jim, other volunteers – Robin, Sam, Martha; the security personals – Omar and Suse. And finally I have to say a big thank you to one of my co-workers Dina Maxwell, who is the head volunteer for this event without whom I would not have had an awesome evening - Thank you Dina.

It was an excellent night. Met lots of people (of course, beautiful girls but not many singles, damn); Learned a little bit about wine pouring; sweet talking; bar-tending; and wished “Have a good evening” and “Enjoy” to almost 500 different people and it was all for a good cause. I along with lot of other people helped raise funds. I hope I can do even better the next time.

Enjoy and Have a Good Evening :*)

Cheers,
Thilak

Mom's secret recipes

2008-08-31T20:20:00.000-07:00

Mom’s secret recipes

It has been exactly 3 months since I landed in San Diego and I am not going to bore you with my perceptions and opinions of America. Instead I am going to share something else.

Anyways, as you might have seen from my Orkut album I have started to "follow the book", which essentially is cooking. I would like to post one of my mom’s simplest recipes over here so that you as my friends can try it and cherish one of mom’s secret and simple recipes.

By the way, have you every wondered why the phrase is always called “Mom’s secret recipes” and not “Wife’s secret receipes”. There are even books on “Mom’s secret recipes” and a quick Google search revealed there are NO books on “Wife’s secret recipes”. Guess the generalization here is that a woman becomes a greater or even the best cook in the world for her children but not necessarily for her husband. (Perhaps her hubby is her test subject)

In my humble not-so-useful opinion, this point would be the seed of the for many quarrels between a woman and her mother-in-law. No point in blaming the woman for making an effort, she will try so hard to impress her husband with her cooking, but the mother-in-law would easily win the battle by using one of her secret recipes which she would have perfected to every single detail over the years. You can’t really blame the man for enjoying his mother's food.

As for the man, he tries his best to avoid uttering a single negative comment. He even tries constructive suggestions and hoefully cheers his wife up for the next round of cooking. Unfortunately, the moment he takes a bite of his mom's cooking, his face expressions would reveal, no more than necessary, his true innermost feelings. Oops, that was in front of his wife. He forgot to fake his expressions because sometimes "it is so hard to care about the world when the food is too darn good".

Chicken Briyani

Serves: 1 to 2 persons depending on the stomach capacity of the person.
Cooking time: <>

0. Take 1 cup Basmati rice (around 200 grams), wash it and soak it in water
1. Place pressure cooker on flame and once dry, pour 4 teaspoons of cooking oil and 1 teaspoon of ghee. (If you use butter instead of ghee, put the butter in first and once the butter melts, then pour the oil)
2. Add spices:

2 cloves
1 small bay leaf
1 cardamom
1 bit star anise
1 bit of cinnamon stick

Note: If you don’t have these spices, you can add 1 teaspoon of garam masala @ step 7, but it will give a different taste

3. Sauté for a few seconds
4. Add 2 green chillis, cut across the length + 2 medium sized onions sliced + some 10 to 15 mint or pudina leaves and ¾ teaspoon of salt
5. Sauté on a medium high flame till he onion becomes golden brown (You can add ½ teaspoon of sugar to get the brown color bit quicker)
6. Add 1 teaspoon of ginger garlic paste + 2 medium sized tomatoes (Cut into slices) + 200 to 250 grams of chicken (Cut into small pieces)
7. Sauté for 4 to 5 minutes and while stirring add

¼ teaspoon turmeric powder
½ teaspoon chilli powder (Try Kashmiri chilli powder if available, it will give good color)
(1 teaspoon garam masala, if you did not add the spices)

8. Add 1 cup water, stir nicely.
9. Place the cooker lid and weight on top. Wait for 3 minutes or 1 cooker whistle. (This will cook the chicken nicely and all the masala will be absorbed into the chicken.)
10. Stop the flame and wait for 5 minutes. Let of the steam slowly from the cooker and once done, open the lid.
11. Stir once and add 1 more cup of water
12. Once water comes to a boil, add the rice and ½ to 1 teaspoon salt according to your taste.
13. Add 1 teaspoon of lime juice, if available
14. Place the cooker lid again, along with the weight and wait for 1 more whistle. Once the whistle comes reduce the flame from medium-high to low flame and let it cook for 3 more minutes on low flame. (Usually the next whistle would come at around 3 to 4 minutes)
15. Remove from flame and wait for 10 minutes for the pressure to come down
16. Open the lid and add coriander leaves on top.

For Vegetable Briyani:

1. Follow the same procedure up to step 7 and of course, add around 200 grams of mixed vegetables instead of chicken. (Don’t blame me if you get this step wrong :D)
2. Since vegetables cook faster than chicken, you can directly add the rice along with appropriate amount of water and cook only once in the cooker as in step 14. No need to include as in step 9.

Please use these tips from my cooking experience:
1. American basmati rice takes around 1:1.5 water ratio. So add the water accordingly so that there isn’t much water in the cooker once the Briyani is done
2. Don’t forget to cook the chicken first and then add rice and cook again. Otherwise the chicken would become bland or not have any taste in them
3. Prefer 1:1 ratio for Onion:Tomato. You can even try with less amount of tomatoes but certainly not more than onions.
4. Prefer 1:1 ratio for Chicken:Rice
5. Total of 1.5 teaspoons of salt is suffice usually
6. Depending on the hotness of the chilli, add the chilli and chilli powder accordingly.
7. If you use mutton, you may have to go for 2 cooker whistles instead of 1 in step 9 along with 1½ teaspoons of ginger garlic paste instead of 1 in step 6

Enjoy your cooking and Bon Appétit !

TAGGED ???

2008-04-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

Rajesh, Thiru and I were playing Pool. Suddenly I was the only one winning every rack. Surprised? It was not as surprising as the fact that we were playing pool in a house and the house floor was the pool table and we were playing in it. Only then I realised it was all a weird dream, not as weird as the fact that I was the only one winning every game. Yet, we did use standard snooker cues and colored balls. Nothing frenzy there. Anyways, I woke up, opened my laptop for some emails and I found this email - "Tagged You". After reading Archana's blog I realised what it was and I also realised that this was a test to my funny bone :-)
And, Many thanks to Archana for tagging me. And allrite if you folks cant laugh, I will pay ya all 10 bucks to laugh on this one.

1. Last movie you saw in a theater?
Couples rubbing each other in the seats in front of me, in a movie I cant remember. They did quite a show for the the people behind them esp. after knowing that people are watching. Yuck. I genuinely prefer home video to rub-rub.

2. What book are you reading?
The illustrated version of "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. Yes, I prefer "kids, Look at the picture and tell the story" type books. Also the "Monk who sold his Ferrari" with the audio cd version. Yes, I also prefer "Story narrating for the kids" type books.

3. Favorite board game?
Snooker I guess, cos thats also on a board. Used to be good at chess when I had no idea what I was playing.

4. Favorite magazine?
Kumudan, Kungumam - favourite ones to read whilst sitting on the toilet seat exporting previous day's inputs.

5. Favorite smells?
Gotto be honest with this one. Smell of the perfume of a girl who sat next to me on the train from Malaysia to Singapore. Somehow everyone malay/korean/chinese type girl/women use that perfume.

6. Favorite sounds?
would have been lot easier to ponder and answer, if the question had been favourite music. Guess it has to be sound of an F1 car's engine.

7. Worst feeling in the world?
Losing loved ones and friends...

8. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?
Nothing much goes through my mind other than nature's call

9. Favorite fast food place?
Definitely Hill Greens, Anna Nagar, Chennai. Been going there for 5 years. yes one of the places responsible for the growth of my tummy.

10. Future child’s name?
I thought Robin as in Robin Uthappa and Robin Singh (and not as Batman n Robin, cos that Robin might be Gay). But then, have got too much affinity towards my mother tongue Tamil, so will probably end up with names in Tamil.

11. Finish this statement. “If I had lot of money I’d….?”
Get a super speaker and use the rest for people without food and shelter.

13. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
Nope. The place next me on my bed is reserved only for my girl friend.

14. Storms - cool or scary?
How can a storm either outside or the one that comes in ur stomach after you have had too much of anything to drink, be cool?

16. Favorite drink?
7up with a squeeze of Lime, which one of my friend always hates cos it reminds him of vodka.

17. Finish this statement, “If I had the time I would….”?
Learn Tamil and English properly without using Tanglish. I could have also invented the alternative fuel, 1 drop of which would allow a vehicle travel for several days, but, sadly I dont have the time for it.

18. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?
I have never had broccoli.

19. If you could dye your hair any color, what would be your choice?
hmmm ... perhaps pink ... well i have always had my share of bad luck, what the heck, why not try some pink colored hair.

20. Name all the different cities/towns you’ve lived in?
In chronological order - Chennai, Dharmapuri, Salem, Chennai, Trivandrum, Chennai

21. Favorite sports to watch?
F1 Race, Cos thats the only sport that doesnt remind me how bad i used to be in other sports during my school and college days

22. One nice thing about the person who sent this to you?
There are lots of nice things about Archana. Some nice things to say would be that shes a grown-up, a philanthropist and a brilliant software engineer.

23. What’s under your bed?
Ha ha ... Whats under my bed ? Even if I had to hide something/someone, thats perhaps the worst place to hide.

24. Would you like to be born as yourself again?
Nopes. But if I can resurrect someone from the dead, that would be great.

25. Morning person, or night owl?
Night owl. Never a morning lark. I have my second-dinner at 12 AM and breakfast at 2 AM. After I wake up, straight lunch at noon.

26. Over easy, or sunny side up?
I prefer chicken rather than eggs.

27. Favorite place to relax?
A warm shower in winter or cold shower in summer in my bathroom

28. Favorite pie?
The only pie I have ever had was apple and nothing comes even a bit close to Kentucky Fried Chicken

29. Favorite ice cream flavor?
Dont really know, cos whenever I enter an ice cream parlor, the smell of ice creams make me sneeze and I get sick for a week. So I detest ice creams, and I perfer chicken.

30. Of all the people you tagged this to, who’s most likely to respond first?
Let me make up the tagged questions first, then I will invite everyone to participate.

Hope you all had fun,
Thilak

One afternoon at my office ...

2008-04-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

It was a lovely evening … My friends and I went to the corner tea stall behind my office and asked for some “SP”s (Special tea). Its just tea with ginger and cardamom flavor but it tastes great. It was usual gossip.

“Machi, did u notice that new girl on third floor south wing?”

“No man, how is she?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t spoken to her yet. I will try to socialize with her sometime and let you know how she is. ”

“Dei mokkai (Tamil word for person who makes up blunt or blade Jokes. (I think)), I meant, how does she look?”

“I KNOW, I am kidding.”

And then some shameless slandering at each other.

“I tried to bag a contract with a client. I suggested A’s Name, the client was happy. I suggested B’s Name; the client was even more happy. But then I suggested our Arun Thilak’s Name; the client said, I will get back to you on that and then he never called me again.”

<snip>

Then we drag our way back into our office lifts. Then your comrade calls you to his cubicle to savor more mokkai jokes and slandering conversations. But you politely refuse him by saying “You know, I have more professional work ethics than you. Now, if you will excuse me, am going to go up to my cabin and browse the internet. C ya”

Its late in the evening. I check with my boss and I find my comrades, still there, cracking jokes at every mundane happenings possible. (Too hard to describe and they are funny only when you are there). I just synchronize my way into the conversation by laughing for everything they laugh, even though I am not exactly sure what they are talking about.

“Ha ha ha ha ha, huuuh hhuuuhhh, hmmm.... Hey man whassup?

Hi ALPHA, Hi BETA”

Then my boss cracks a joke. I respond.

“Huuhaahhaaahhhhhhaaahhhahahha hooooooo (inhale) ha ha ha ha hmmmm (inhale)”

then wipe the tears out of my eyes. Then I whisper to my comrade “whattt?”

Another joke from my boss. However, out of the corner of my eye I notice the beautiful girl that I have a tiny crush on walking past me in the aisle. Now I respond again.

”Wuhaaaaaaa (Silence)”.

Thats when i keep my arm on my tummy and bend a little bit and I have opened my mouth to laugh, but no sound comes off it. Pause. Check that girl again at the corner of my eye. She is looking this way. Quick.

“Buhaahhaaahhhhhhaaahhhahahha hooooooo (deep inhale) ha ha ha ha hmmmm (deep inhale) hahuh hahuh hahuh (deep inhale) huh huh ha ha” .

And then you notice she’s just smiling at this entire joker pack and I just wish she would join this conversation (Jealousy). Since that’s never going to happen, I just watch her disappear while she walks back to her cabin.

Oh no. I must be listening to these lovely people’s jokes cum conversation. Now I have to make it seems like I have not been looking at that girl. Out came the cell phone. I check the phone for any messages / missed calls. Of course there is nothing there because friends are busy with their routine lives. Just a few more pushes into the cell phone buttons. Now slowly drift back to the conversation unnoticed and just look back at your boss for any new jokes.

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... Oh!!! Wow !!! I didn’t know that”.

After a few more jokes, and laughing hard and even harder and then softer. Whether I get the joke or not, it never hurts to be good listener. Then my mouth is all tired and dry from the laughing and decide to call it a night.

“C ya tomoro dude, Good evening!”

“Good evening Alpha, good evening Beta”

(Note for my Boss - Hi Boss, if you are reading this blog, some of the things mentioned here may not be true. Of course, I do get your jokes... Really...)

If you had an option, would you change to the opposite sex?

2008-03-08T05:27:00.000-08:00

"Dear Brothers n Sisters"
This used to be my opening phrase in any group discussions (GD), presentations, skits or speeches during the time I was in Trivandrum for my Initial Training Program of my company. I really wanted to make an impact in other words “create a scene” with the other colleagues present there. I did manage to make an impact over most of my batch mates and came out to be known as the funny one.

My friends started getting used to the opening phrase. There was one GD where the topic was “If you had the option to change to the opposite sex, would you do it? Why or why not?” There were a lot of people who spoke on that issue and I was the second to last to speak and again I started with the phrase “Dear Brothers and Sister and Brother’s to be and Sister’s to be”. I didn’t even get to complete that sentence, as soon as I said brothers and sisters, everyone cracked up.

Am sure most of us have lots to say on the above topic. Here is how my arguments went. You folks could leave your responses in the comments.

“If I had the option to change my sex, I would take it. I have listed the reasons below.”

A famous scientist once said – “Scientists can even solve the evolution of the universe but one thing they cannot solve is getting to know what goes on in a girl’s mind”. Girls are more clever (in some areas) and they generally figure out what goes on in a guy’s mind, although they could be wrong from time to time, they do have the supernatural ability to shield their brains.
I say women enjoy more rights in the world. For instance - the wide range of clothing options available for them. Women have so much apparel options to wear in office – Saree, chudidhar, pants and shirts, skirts and other tops. (There is probably more to the list) And they can even wear really bright or really dull colors. As for guys, we are not allowed to wear flamboyant colors. Why? If we do people think we are crazy. Double standards for men and women – grrrrr.
“The look” – I don’t know how many of us noticed, but when girls get angry with their friends esp. boy friends or when wives with their boy friends, I mean husbands, they generally give them/him a look. No words are said; their face is still; they fold their hands; and they stare right into our eyes. Although we may ask ten times, what? We may never get a response and finally we may end up saying “allrite fine, I will do what you want”.
The government – Although our country is a male chauvinistic country, women enjoy lesser tax from the government, they have ladies special bus, ladies special compartments in trains, ladies seats in bus, ladies queues, women’s day, mother’s day, not to mention the girl friend’s day, which is of course refers to each and every day before their wedding.
Another interesting point that always made me ponder, why does it take so long for a girl to come out of her shower? Or when she gets dressed? (Don't blame me, this is how girls and women are portrayed in movies). This is another mystery in addition to their minds and ‘the look’.
Perhaps one of the most compelling reasons why I chose this option is that, a man never gets to understand the pain, or rather feel the pain of a women in labor.

On a lighter note, even though I would like to feel that pain , women don’t get to feel the pain when someone kicks a guy’s private area. :-)

Happy Women’s Day !

Cheers,
Arun Thilak

Songs of the sea !

2008-03-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a good link to the "Songs of the Sea" that I have mentioned on my previous blog ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYP25YcXNz8

Enjoy !

Thanks,
Arun Thilak

Malaysia and Singapore Trip

2008-02-25T09:23:00.000-08:00

Hi friends,
This is my first time blogging, I will try to keep this as small and interesting as possible.

This is my trip out of India and the destination Malaysia and Singapore. If you plan a trip like this and if you are really lucky you can find a lot of comedy actors in the airport or on the flight. I met our Vaigai Puyal Vadivelu, Paravai Muniyamma, Thenisai Thendral Deva, Harthi (Comedy girl who acts as sister to Jyothika in ARUL), then a lot of our "Kalaka povadhu yaaru ?" stars - Kovai Guna, Madurai Muthu, etc. The reality had a few differences with these characters. For example - Vadivelu was more dark than seen in the movies, which proves he is classic Tamilan like most of us; Harthi is not as fat as she looks on TV; Deva looks the same everywhere and a lot lot lot more humble than expected. I dont know what others say, but I believe some of these people came up the ladder the very hard way and I think thats they are still humble.

Oh and here is where you can find my photo album...
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/arunthilak/Malaysia_Singapore_trip

The first two photos are actually the autographs of some of the people I have mentioned above.

Even before this entire episode, when I passed through the security clearance the alarm beeped. The policeman took his metal detector and ran it over my hands and it beeped on my right hand. He was curious what was there and he asked me what there ? I had to pull up my shirts sleeves and show him the scar from the surgery I had and said "Surgery, Surgery - Metal plate inside". He took another look at it and then he smiled and let me go.

I was told that I be needing some doctors certificate if I go to America. Luckily I didn't need one here.

Malaysia -

The flight journey to Malaysia was uneventful. Once in Malaysia - which is a big airport, we have to take the sky train from the gates to reach the immigration points. Once past immigration and baggage claim we met our tour agent and she took us to the cab driver/tour guide. He was around 6 n half feet tall and probably weighed in excess of 120 kg and he turned out to be a big time liar. His forefathers are from Tamil Nadu and he speaks fluent Tamil without any contamination from English, yet he managed to lie to us that he cannot speak in Tamil. As time progressed in the day that fat guy started to speak a lot Tamil, saying that he knows little little. That character despises people from Tamil Nadu, thinking so low and bad of us. I dont want to go into the details. But this is a warning for people who go to those countries - Make sure your tour guide does not have any prejudice against our native folks.

Moving quickly to highlights of the trip
1. Genting hills - Good place to spend valentine's day with ur girl friend or girl friend(s). It has 4 big hotels, an outdoor theme park, indoor theme park, casino, and lot of fun places. You can see a lot of chinkys, malays, koreans couples roaming around in all sorts of costumes and make ups. Oh and some of them wear too much make up with/without fancy flashy belts, so wear your sun glasses and protect spoil your eyes.
2. Genting Hills - Cable car -> Its very nice ride up and down the hill. We get an amazing view of the hills.
3. Batu Caves -> Lord Murugan temple in Malaysia. has the worlds tallest Murugan statue. The deity is up the 282 steps. Its a must see place in Malaysia. Thaipusam festival is world famous. Oh and make sure that your tour guide doesnt take you there when the alter is closed. We certainly have some rats as tour guides. (My tourist was Tina travels and I have given you my experience)
4. Grand Seasons Hotel - Pretty nice hotel in which I stayed. They have got themselves an Indian chef who cooks good food and if you are lucky you can see a lot of Arabian girls staying in that hotel at breakfast. My personal comment - Arabian girls are the most beautiful in the world, one of the reasons why they cover their faces.
5. Twin towers - We didnt go there inside the twin towers. It seems we have to stand in a queue at 7 AM in morning and wait for atleast a couple of hours to get inside and they only take us to the floor which has the bridge that connects the two towers. We cross the bridge and come down the other tower. We had a magnificent view from all around the building. (Lots of photos of twin towers in my picassa link)
6. KL tower - 4th tallest tower in the world. Not as crowded as twin towers. and we get a beautiful view from the observation deck. we even look at the twin towers from closest proximity. - Must see place in Malaysia -
7. Sungai Wang plaza - built in late 1970s - the shopping plaza is more than 25 years old and would take forever to walk through that building. ofcourse we pretty much get anything there. please bargain from 50% of the list price and gesture walking out the store (small bit acting) if you want to buy some item at the price you demand. Shoes and clothing are expensive there.
8. Night view of the Twin towers - whereever you stay in malaysia, dont miss the night view of the twin towers. I tried to take a good picture of it, unfortunately even after some 30 tries I still could not get the photo right.
9. Putrajaya - Malaysian satellite city - soon to be capital city. This city was built cos Kuala Lumpur has no more space left. They even built artificial waterways around the city and also put a bridge over it. Since people are not moving to this new city, government there is moving all the administrative buildings to this new city. - Must see place -

Singapore -

We took the train journey to Singapore. I felt that the Indian AC Chair Cars are better. On the journey there was one kind yet fat Malay lady who sat next to me. It seems almost all the malays wear a similar type of perfume. Since she took up some of the space in my seat, I would say the 7 hour journey was really uncomfortable. One thing that I thought was out of place was the fact that in Malaysia, even guys wear flashy and shiny belts. word of caution - do not travel by train to Singapore, unless if its First Class.

Highlights in Singapore - We used Josco travels - Courteous people and very courteous guides.
1. Sentosa islands - another cable car - not as nice as the Genting hills cable car.
2. Songs of the Sea in Sentosa - Its a laser light show with people performing on the beach. Its just 25 minutes. But really worth every second of those 25 minutes.
3. Images of Singapore - Its a wax museum - which portrays history of modern singapore. Observe all the wax figures closely. Some of them will give u a shock.
4. Dolphin show - a 30 minute show - totally worth it
5. underwater world - an aquarium on top and u go underneath it. Its not big as you wud have seen in TV or pamplets. Don't have hopes when you go there. Nevertheless its a good visit.
6. Jurang bird park - dont miss it
7. Mustafa - its the world famous shopping center, open 24 hours. 6 floors. It would take a day to look at all the floors. Word of caution - things there are expensive than things in India.
8. Funan - Near chinatown - seems to be an electronic store cheaper than Mustafa
9. Little Indian, Chinatown etc - Lots of plaza in chinatown. you can go for a ride.

Dempo Snow - This happened in one plaza in china town. A sales guy lookin at all the pimples on my face dragged me to his shop and smeared a vanishing cream called Dempo Snow on my face. Then he showed photos of people who had pimples and apparently after applying this cream they pimples go away. He will say its totally herbal and usual bla bla ... and this guy sold me 3 bottles of that cream for the price of one sg$ 20. I am planning to use this cream for a week and observe the results. I have tried a lot of medicines which have not given any effect for my scars. I will give you people the test results. Depending on the results, you can have a strong reason to go there or not to go there.

I am sure I can write a better blog than this bland one. Please look at the photos and share your comments. And I will definitely write a spicy blog the next time.

Thank you,
Arun Thilak