Uppuuuu Upmaaa!

Not to brag about myself in cooking, but I can claim myself a good cook, never have made any disastrous dish so far and it is always well received and appreciated from my husband, friends and relatives.

What I like about cooking is, its a stress buster for me.. its an art and I love colors and try to get it to a finery of how my food tastes and the way it looks,  so while cooking a dish, I try to be as creative as possible without spoiling the taste of the dish… Joy of cooking is immense for me! provided the time  and my physical well being…

Usually I plan what to cook for the dinner, while leaving the office in the evening, and it happened so, that on this evening I asked my husband what he wanted for the dinner, without a delay he said we'l go out for the dinner, to a near by Italian cuisine. I was quite happy with the plan, coz I loveee Italian food! and without a second thought said ok…

We made our way to the restaurant to find out that they were already closed, with a little bit of disappointment, we made our way to home and I immediately replied, "Don't worry, I shall cook upma", upma being a simple Indian dish made from semolina and various add-ons like green peas, chopped vegetables, coconut gratings etc..

I have prepared this upma a zillion times in my life, well this was the very first dish tried when I was 10, apart from cooking rice. I was happy with the idea of cooking this upma, with some slight variation, by adding vangibath powder ( One of the southIndian masla powder) which definitely gives this upma a new dimension and I have tried this many a times before and also have received lot of accolades.

So, as soon as I reached home, I started cooking, by adding all kinds of ingredients to make my upma taste and look good… by the end of cooking this, before adding the semolina, One has to add salt to the water boiling mixture of ingredients… usually I don't measure Salt and I get it right, for al most all the times, without a spec of flaw…. and now I did the same, added some, tasted a bit and felt it needs some more n added few more of it…stirred it well… it seemed gorgeous! with green peas and seasonings floating.. I smiled at myself, feeling that it would taste absolutely perfect.. I was very sure…, did a bit of dressing, by sprinkling some coconut grating, and served it on to the eating plates…and called out my husband for the dinner

And now, I was all set to scoop a spoon full of upma and gulp it coz it looked so delicious and in no time I realized looks are deceptive and my tongue, my palate  started feeling very very saline… the very ever salty upma I had ever tasted before … I was so very much dejected and disappointed by this disastrous dish!!! and really felt bad to serve it… But it was accepted as "Just Pass"… without much arguments… 

Finally we ended up having it with loads of yogurt and raisins. 

Half heartedly went to bed still thinking of the grave mistake and how could I have gone wrong with my guess and skills :( 

well, it was just another day… and hope I be cautious while I add salt for my dishes, from now on…

Anyways, Happy Cooking! :)

A Ride on my wonderful Bike…

I had never thought, it would've ever been possible for me to commute to office on a bicycle while I was in India, though there were just a very few of them doing it…. I was really not for it, for many reasons, my office was 20 km away from home, beautiful traffic jams during the peak hours, scorching sun, n heavy pollution…

But when I started to work in London, it was all a different, initially we'd either take tubes or trains or bus to office, during which we witnessed people on their designer, customized bikes passing by us, another huge percentage of people walking and some having a back pack and merrily jogging… 

What I learnt was most of them were health conscious, and I felt its one of the coolest ways to start your day.

 Day by day our fascination grew… there were so many varieties of bikes aka bicycles from the coolest to old to trendy to weirdest, some were sport bikes, some had sleek tubes, n some racer bikes and so old traditional, with a front basket… (which reminded me of my cycle at home back in india, it was a pride to have a cycle either a lady bird or miss India , two spectacular cycle brands especially made for girls) 

So we finally gifted ourselves a bike each .. on 31st Dec 2010… purchased from a french sports store called Decathlon, Of course we started traveling by bike to office then after the new year… It was a wonderful experience and still is a wonderful feeling whenever I take my bike to office…

Best time to really sweat out and feel really really good about the biking experience was in summer, we both had almost lost 3-4 kilos by cycling continuously for about 2 months to office, which was really a good start.

Nevertheless its equally good and its been a different experience to bike in winters especially when its piercing cold and too windy, which needs real strength to keep it going… pumping the energy to peddle upwards a road...

Amazing is to cycle along and to see people around you while you move not fast as an automobile nor as slow as a walker, but just at the right pace to see everything, like watch the Tower Bridge, have a glimpse of it every morning, feel the misty cold winters or the lovely sunshine during the sunny days… you get to see huge crowd of  serious people walking in their black suits, making tok- tok sounds from their solid healed boots… marching quickly to reach office on time…You get to see the church's clock ticking, also not to miss the crowded buses dropping the passengers, busy tube stations, people hurriedly walking their way to offices… 

The aroma of the early set of coffees and the fresh breakfast of the day…. and immediately cycle faster to catch up with the traffic, to avoid a red signal… and to overtake taxis and buses when they are in an immobile traffic… its all fun!!!

Its a wonderful experience for me. every morning on my white bird! which is so very relaxing, making me feel all a fresh, no anxiety about work no stress of the deadlines (which would anyway come in once i reach office :)

I guess this is one of the best ways to start a day!

Happy Biking ;)

Here comes 2012 ;)

Wishing all my readers a very happy 2012!