A Wonderful Vacation

One week, its been one week since I have started writing this blog and more than one month since I wanted to write a blog. And its amazing how many things can happen in that period. One month back, this day, I was happily packing my bags to go home, to India, to my family. After a long struggle with my assignments, projects and finally exams, I was free on May 5th - the day my exams were over. Some I did well and some I did ok. But I didn’t want to think about exams. I packed my bags and started my journey. And what more I can say, those three weeks can be described in two words, simply incredible. I had one of the most beautiful vacations in my life.
I landed on 7th night itself, but was in Chennai and had to spend the whole night there before going to Kochi. I sure will be explaining that ‘wonderful’ experience in a full blog. Anyways, the next day morning, I reached Kochi airport and was so anxious to meet my parents that I almost forgot to wait for my check in luggage. And when I was out, they were there standing anxiously looking for me. Just by seeing their faces, all my tiredness was gone. I was full of energy and excited and I hugged them right there. And that’s how I started my vacation.
I believe spending time with family is the most important thing in life. The next day itself, I and my parents went to Munnar – a hill station in Kerala - for a 2 day trip. It was the perfect getaway place from the hot summer. I had one of the best times I had with my family and both my mom and dad enjoyed it too. We did sightseeing, some small trekking, boating etc etc. We all missed my sister and brother-in-law. I really enjoyed the long hilly drive.

Its always nice to spend time with family

One of the high priority items on my TODO list was visiting all my cousins and relatives and I started it by visiting my grandmother the next day after my trip. It was fun, spending time with her brought back all those old memories of me and my sister spending most of our mid-summer vacations with her. Time goes fast.
After 2 more days of roaming around, it was time for me to pay attention to the next priority in the TODO list – getting my EPF claim settled. There is a big story behind it, but the bottom line is, I had to go visit the EPF offices in both Trivandrum and Bangalore in order - where I used to work before -personally to get something done. Along with that, I wanted to visit all my friends in both these places and also to get some shopping done.
During the exams days, I thought I ll be able to sleep during vacation. But these journeys proved that wrong. I started to Trivandrum on Wednesday morning by 4am and directly went to the EPF office, spend some ‘quality time’ there, had a quick brunch, met some friends, had snacks with them and started to Bangalore by 4pm.
I reached Bangalore the next day morning. I stayed with one of my best friends. By the time I reached, they had breakfast ready for me. Even though, the time I spend to go to the EPF office was a complete and utter waste, I did enjoy my time with my old team mates during lunch. It was one of my friends party and since I was visiting, he wanted me also to be there. After that I visited my ‘ex’-office and met all colleagues there. They were more of my friends than just colleagues. I didn’t even feel that I don’t work there anymore. I guess 5 months is not that long time. I joined my team mates with the usual afternoon coffee/smoke break. By the time I was leaving, I was missing the good old days at Nortel.
The next thing I did was straightening my hair. And the next day was dedicated for shopping. I was on a shopping spree and I spent almost half of my bank balance I saved for this vacation on the commercial street and the nearby places of Bangalore. I was supposed to leave that day, but I still had many friends to visit and I didn’t want to leave that fast. So I cancelled my ticket and extended my stay for one more day. The next day, I had breakfast at a friend’s place and lunch with a bunch of my friend. There were still more of my friend I wanted to meet, but time was not enough. Hope they will forgive me.. ;)

By the time I was back home, I had my SLR with me.
Canon EOS 450D with Canon EF-S 18-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 IS lens

Even though I didn’t have much time, I did spend some time doing experiments in photography

The Next generation: My cousin’s kid, Aby. This guy was so excited about the school opening on June 1st and was showing us all the new stuff he had for school, new bag, new cap, new umbrella, new books, new shoes etc. Made me miss my school days

My aunt’s house. A perfect subject for my photography experiments, especially during a rainy day

Spending time with my mom,

and my cat,

and its cooking time. I wanted to learn some cooking tips and tricks from my mom before I left India. I tried some puddings, cake and some curries. Hope I can reproduce them again. The main problem is, I still don’t understand how my mom simply touches a mix or reads a recipe and instantly knows whether something is wrong or whether there is anything more required.

Soon, it was time for me to say good bye to my place. And I didn’t want to do that. Just before the day I had to fly back, my exam results were out and I felt good seeing all my efforts, rewarded. I thought about postponing my tickets, but I had to be back here on the first week of June. On May 30th, I boarded the flight back to SG with lots of memories to cherish about a wonderful vacation.
ps: There are a lot of things I have not written both because there is not much space and also some are too personal. And all those friends I was not able to meet or contact, see ya, next time.

Anyone Can Cook!

Yes, I know; the title I have taken from the movie Ratatouille. From the day I saw that movie, I wanted to test whether its true. Then I saw the movie ‘No Reservations’ and made up my mind that I am going to cook something delicious [atleast I want to claim its delicious]. And that’s the beginning of it. Project: Chocolate Cake.

To begin with, let me say, my mom is the greatest cook I have ever met. May be its like that for most of us. We all grew up eating what our moms give us. Some of my favorites among her recipes are her tea cake, cad-berries [not sure whether I spelled it correctly], halva, and many others I don’t know the official name. Last weekend, due to the Easter holidays, I ve had a continuous 4 day holiday. When I started my journey home, I had decided that I am going to try out some of mom’s recipes. I was thinking hard which one to try out. My choices were cad-berries & cake. I have seen my sister making cad-berries [She is also a great cook even though I never acknowledge it ;)] and I thought its relatively easy. So I chose cake. I wanted to try something different. Whats the fun in trying out the exact recipe of mom? So I thought ill take her recipe of Tea Cake, do some ‘creative’ additions of my own and convert it to a chocolate cake.

With this plan in mind, I went out shopping for the ingredients on Saturday. As a backup, I bought the stuff for making cad-berries also, in case my experiment is a failure. On Easter day, I told mom about my intensions about making a cake. She allowed me to do whatever I want on one condition, I should return the kitchen the way it is [which is very clean, I will say]. I agreed on one condition, she should stay in kitchen in case I come across any doubts in the recipe. She also agreed.

I began cooking by first turning on the music on my psp. She started giving instructions to me. First I had to get 250grams of sugar and powder it. It very easy, I thought so. I took the weighing machine, measured 250grams of sugar and was about to put it to the mixer when my mom asked, ‘did you check whether mixer bowl is dry?’, I answered immediately, ‘I am checking that mom’. ‘But why do we have to check it?’ I asked, ‘Do you want to make sugar powder or sugar pulp?’. Now I got it. Ok. I took a cloth and cleaned the bowl. I started grinding. I put it there and went to the other room. Came back, its was not grinding. Oops, did something go wrong? I called out, ‘Mommmmmmmm! The mixer is not working’. ‘I switched it off, it was getting too hot’, came the reply. ‘Oh is it?’ I thought, I tried getting the bowl out of the mixer. Ouch! ‘My hand!!!’, it was infact too hot. But I didn’t make a sound. I took out the bowl somehow. I tried opening it gently, the cap was not opening. I tried giving more stress. ‘Tang!!!!!!!!!!!!’, the cap opened with a sound and half of the sugar was there at the kitchen table. I looked around, mom was not there. Silently I took some of it and put it back in the the pan. [Thanks mom for keeping the kitchen table soo clean, or else I wud have to go out to buy some more sugar]

That was the beginning, and then I had to get some flour [maida] same amount as sugar, then only I came to notice that the weighing machine was wrongly calibrated when I weighed for sugar. Anyway, thinking I am an engineer, I tried weighing equal amount of flour. And when mom came to kitchen, just by looking at the amount of flour she figured out that I weighed wrong. But I replied that I wanted to make a bigger cake. She smiled.

Things like that keep on happening. After mixing the sugar with butter, I didn’t know how much I have to mix. I called my mom finally and asked her whether this is enough, she took some of it and told I have to mix some more. I wonder how they know it just by looking it. But since she is my mom, she must have got that expertise from me for sure.

In the end, I divided the cake mix to 3 parts, one I put just like that in to oven, cos I was sure that will be good since I didn’t try any of my creativity on it, just mom’s recipe. The second part, I added 2 tea spoons of cocoa powder and some condensed milk. The third part I added 4 tea spoons of cocoa powder and more condensed milk. Also the baking times were different too. Just wanted to test. But the time the first mix was over, I put the second to oven. As expected the first one was perfect, my mom’s recipe. The second one, turned out to be cookies. It was rock hard, but it tasted fine, I liked it. Dad said, he needs only one piece since its too ‘soft’. The third one turned out to be ok since I didn’t put it in the oven for as long as I put the second one. My sister told that the cakes were not that sweet as mom used to make. Then only I thought about spilling some of the sugar. But I predicted that it must have been some problem with mom’s recipe, or some bad climatic conditions.

We all tried it that day itself since I had one more day break. So even if something happens, I can take rest. I gave it to one of my friends and next day I gave it to some of our guests and also today I gave it to my colleagues. They all said its ok. [Only after eating it, that I told them, I made it or they may not eat it]. Till now, no problems have been reported. Hope it stays like that. If there is no problems reported till the end of this week, I will claim myself as the great chef. I want to make the same cake again, but my mom won’t allow me inside kitchen for atleast a year I guess, ‘cos after that cooking, the kitchen was a mess and even though I wanted to clean it, I was too busy tasting my cake.