Happy New Picnic

As kids, the three of us siblings must have been a real handful for my mother. Mere mention of a long travel and she would be visibly petrified. I have been known to send fellow travelers scampering for cover with my threats to throw up on them, because I didn’t like the way they smelled. Both my brothers played passing the parcel, except the parcel in this case was called “bawling to the top of your vocal cords for no apparent reason”. Then there were the numerous pee-pee breaks which were nuisance enough on road trips but a serious threat to the sanity of my poor mother in long distance train journeys. Besides, we (especially our father) loved the hawkers in those trains. Since eating and bawling at the same time wasn’t exactly feasible, we were occasionally allowed to eat dirty food. The pickiness which so dominated meal times at home was gone with the wind in trains. Our tummies however, had been too well and overly protected all along, so that sort of food did its magic soon enough. Then came the worst part, as you may imagine, given the state of toilets in sleeper class compartments of our trains. Enough said, you get the idea!

Picnics however, were another thing altogether. We were still a beastly lot to haul all the way up to the destination, but the considerably shorter distance clinched the deal. Most of our picnic haunts were located at walk-able distances. We usually went as a big party with more kids and their moms from the neighborhood. We could play as much and as long as we liked, while the moms busily knitted, chatted or fixed sandwiches and Rasna. Everybody came home pleasantly tired.
The inexplicably happy thrill I feel at the thought of a picnic even now must certainly have a good deal to do with those sweet carefree days.
So, on the long weekend for new years’, it was picnic that was on our minds. To tell you the truth, I was being a hopeless daydreamer. How we would stroll in the lush greenery, then bring out the tiny outdoor grill, make some sandwiches, collect a basketful of flowers, well well, if wishes were horses, I would own a stud farm by now.

Hyderabad is not the best place in the world for a quiet, green get away. We (me and Anurag) finally agreed on this seemingly neat place called Manjeera Barrage and Bird Sanctuary, not very far from home. A bit of fussy, meticulous packing of food, books, mats and whatnot by me, and a great deal of TBHPing for the directions by Anurag, we were get-set-ready-GO!

We couldn’t have picked a better place really. Quiet, cool and green, though the roads leave you asking for a lot more. The place is just off the Sangareddy town. There was hardly any water in the barrage, though we saw a great many birds.

The crocodile breeding center and environment education center is a small but well maintained place.

We found a cool spot, spread out the mat, fixed some sandwiches and fruits, and simply relaxed. It was really quite restful to look at tall grass flowers nodding away at the slight breeze, little fearless birdies going about their business, warm sunlight stealing through treetops on that cool winter day. I even tried reading a few pages from the Sea of Poppies, though I gave up soon because the crocodiles were being less lazy and more camera-friendly just then. We couldn’t find a good enough place for lighting a fire for the grill (alas!) though, it was really unnecessary on second thoughts. May be some other time.

Towards late afternoon, the bustle began to increase and the quiet charm of the place began to dull a little. So we packed up again, took a good look around and hopped back in to the car, happy and refreshed.

Jingle all the way

Winters are my favorite! Oh no offense Mr. Rain, you are a life saver! Howdy Mr. Summer of Mango Land, please don't get me wrong. I love you both too! But you see, this Mr. Winter here, everybody thinks him cold and gloomy! Poor Mr. Winter. That's why my heart goes out to him you see! No offense really!

Snicker Snicker! Now that those two are out of earshot, let me tell you the truth. Winters ARE my favorite! Sorry, did I say that before? How I love the crisp mornings. That carefully stored hibernating old sweater comes out all cuddly again. Oh the flirting Gerberas and Roses and a million other beautiful flowers. Not to mention the abundant green leafies, cauliflowers and apples. Its happy happy time but come Christmas and all I feel is homesick. You would feel the same way if your home happens to be in a pretty little place like Goa. Every little hamlet perfectly adorned with lovely (and real) Christmas trees, (cotton wool) snow, glittery lights and a general air of pure festivity!

Somehow this year, it didn't feel right to just sigh, wallow in nostalgia and then carry on. It was a long weekend and before we knew, without much pre planning, there we were, having one of the most memorable Christmas days, right here, in Hyderabad.

We even had this pretty Christmas star which Bijou brought (sadly, no grotto could be found). Ample food, complete with roast chicken and a semi-traditional fruitcake had us bursting at the seams. The fun part was supplied was Shveta and Laukik, who brought in this 3 D, Christmas scenery card that needed to be assembled and decorated. Everybody took a shot at proving their artistic non capability, though it turned out really neat at the end. All in all, this could be one of those times we missed festivals at home a little bit lesser.

It was the first time I handled a whole, uncut chicken and I should admit, I don't have the strongest of hearts. I had to continually remind myself that the chicken would have probably died in vain if I were to act like a sissy about touching it with love.
I improvised a lot on the roast chicken to make it palatable to the spice loving group that we are. I couldn't find any recipe, neither in my gradually multiplying cookbook collection, not on the net, which would precisely fit that “Stuffed and Roasted and not bland Chicken picture) in my mind. So this is what I ended up doing.

Ingredients
1.25 Kg dressed, clean whole chicken
Butter 50 gms
Baby potatoes – 12 - 15
Baby Corn : 3 – 4
Mushrooms – Handful
Ginger – 1 inch
Garlic – 8 cloves
Fresh Cream – ½ cup
Curds – 1 cup
Tamarind paste – 20 gms tamarind soaked in 4 tbs water
Powdered thyme – to taste
Coriander – 1 bunch
Green chillies – 4
Salt – to taste
Red chilly powder – 1 tbs

Serves 6 hungry tummies



Preparation

Marinade

Wash and pat dry the chicken from the outside and the inside. Liberally apply butter, salt and pepper powder to all the surfaces. Cover the chicken and let it marinate for half an hour.
Chop onions, green chillies, ginger and garlic and sauté on a medium flame in the remaining butter for 10 minutes. When the onions look glassy and cooked, switch off the flame. Shred the coriander leaves and add to this cooling mixture. When the mixture is completely cooled, add the curds, fresh cream, thyme and red chilly powder along with the strained tamarind paste and salt. Stir and to mix ingredients and grind to a fine paste. Divide the mixture in two parts. Apply one half thoroughly to the chicken from the outside. Again let the chicken marinate for a further one hour at least, or a whole night in the fridge if you have the time.

Stuffing
Cut baby potatoes in halves, chop baby corn, mushrooms and onion. Add oil to the skillet and stir the onions in it for 2 mins. Add all the other chopped veggies. Dump the other half of the ground mixture in the skillet on high heat. Adjust salt. Add a pinch of sugar to balance the tang of the tamarind. Stir vigorously till the veggies are well coated with the gravy and the mixture just begins to bubble. Cool the mixture.
While the stuffing cools, preheat the oven at 200 C, for 10 mins, without the roasting pan in it. Butter the pan in the center and keep aside.
Now, slowly push the stuffing into the cavity of the chicken. Make sure sufficient quantity of gravy also is spooned in. adjust the potatoes and corn pieces on the outer side, under the wings and neck flap. Hold the wings and neck near the body with toothpick if needed.

Roasting

Place the chicken in the center of the pan and roast for 1 and a half hours, at 200 – 220 C. check the potatoes by poking a long knife's blade in. Roast for a few more minutes if the potatoes are not well done. Though within one and half hours the chicken should be cooked just right, if you feel there is still some cooking needed, cover the whole pan with aluminum foil and cook for another few minutes. The foil prevents the chicken from over roasting on the outside.

Carefully unwrap. Let it stand for 5 minutes for the steam to escape. Serve!

Christmas or no Christmas, this will have you celebrating.

PS: I don't have a picture of the chicken, because... take a guess... well, folks devoured it before I realized I had no pic.

Knock Knock, there?

Hi, there!
Its cold in here, thanks to me! I was entrusted to keep this place warm enough for you and me, when we wanted that little sip of hot chocolate, or a friendly chat at by the hearth.
Sorry, I went missing. I never meant this to be such a long silence dear reader, somehow, the beastly sloth I normally try to keep at bay caught up with me.

In the meanwhile, I got married to my long time sweetheart. In fact, have been married for a year now and I still can’t believe it!! In a good way of course!

Pretty interesting things have happened to me while I’ve been away. For example, I discovered that I could spend 10 hours at a stretch in my kitchen, trying to bake the perfect croissants. I also discovered that I have a long way to go if I am to be the best person I know, though its very hard to accept. Somewhere along the line, I have picked up some fortitude, buried some ghosts and decided I want to try my hand at something I have loved always. Writing. I am really not sure how fabulous or super-sucking I may be at it, but we wont know till we try.

With the fresh new year, that ends the first decade of this millennium, I wish you all good cheer, love and peace. May you make a few discoveries of your own, fall madly in love (all over again is fine too), have your table always full of good food cooked with great care and a may there be a spring in your healthy step.

Happy New Year everybody!!

We will meet more frequently and regularly, unless of course, the Giant Turtle from that other galaxy swallows our earth.

Methi Paneer Chatakdaar

The other day, we were stuck with just a handful of Methi, hibernating in the fridge, and no other veggies to turn into dinner. There was Paneer, but well... the choice was between - a bunch of Methi, that was sure to see the Garbage bin before sundown the next day, and frozen Paneer, which would keep for another week. The Methi wasn't sufficient to feed three hungry souls. So we came up with this superbrainy idea of combining the two. Didnt sound right to the ears -- Methi Paneer! But then, you have seen Ratatouille the Movie, havent you? Remember, how the little Chef closes his eyes and imagines flavours, that go boom boom spark spark in the head?? I thought on similar lines about the Methi and Paneer combo...:D. The dish turned out quite well and almost close to my expectation. So, may be you can try this out on a lazy Saturday afternoon

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METHI PANEER CHATAKDAAR

Ingredients:

Fresh cleaned and chopped Methi Leaves – Two handfuls
Crushed Methi seeds – 5 /6
Soft, Cubed Paneer – 200 Gms
1 large Onion – Finely Diced
Diced Garlic – 4 cloves
Tomato puree – 2 TbSpoons
Cumin powder – 2 Teaspoons
coriander powder – 1 Teaspoon
Turmeric Powder – 1 Teaspoon
Diced green chilly – 2 Teaspoons
Garam masala – (optional) 1 Teaspoon
Oil – 1 tablespoon
Salt to taste

In a skillet / kadhai, heat one Tb Sp of Oil. Add the chopped methi leaves, on high flame. As the leaves collapse by loosing moisture, keep stirring to avoid burning. When almost all the moisture is gone, sprinkle some salt and cook for a minute more. Scoop the methi off the skillet, draining the oil first. Let it sit for some time.

Let the skillet sit on fire, we have more work for it. Add crushed methi seed powder to the hot oil in the skillet, followed by diced Chilly, Diced Garlic, Diced Onion, in that order.

When the onion starts becoming transparent, add the coriander powder, cumin powder, and turmeric powder. You can add the garam masala (optional) at this stage. Cook for half a minute, and add the tomato puree. Cook for another minute.

Add the cubed paneer pieces and mix gently with the rest of the ingredients. When paneer begins to colour up with the ingredients, add the methi leaves that we kept aside. Add salt to taste, and cook on a low flame and with a closed lid for 5 – 7 minutes.

The Methi flavour goes surprisingly well with the slight tang of the tomato puree, and the green chillies with crushed garlic, accentuate the Methi taste.

The end result should be – semi dry, soft pieces of paneer, well coated with tomato puree, flaunting lovely green bits of methi leaves.

Goes really well with thick rotis.

Our Kinda Life

Hello Everyone,

Hope you guys missed me around here... But I am back after the unplanned hiatus, and this time, with (yet another) idea...:)

Well, most of my friends are single, twenty-somethings, staying in Metros, away from Mom and Dad. Their work hours are not exactly NineToFive and when they get back to their apartments (mostly shared with one or more roomies), they sometimes miss the "I am Home" feeling... that includes everything - from tidiness of the place to simple, homemade food. It happens to me all the time too...

So here is an effort from my side, to alleviate those "all I have is a place to sleep in" blues. Whenever I try something that makes my shared accomodation here, feel more like home, say nice and quick homely recipes, tips and tricks for a longer lasting neat look for the house or any other ideas related to this topic, I would share all those with you... I think it will be fun to hear from y'all on these as well...

So here we goooo

Appraising Performance

Its that time of the year again....Are you thinking yet of your appraisal? I bet, you are!

Most of us, belonging to the white collared workforce; are drawn to and intrigued by the process at the same time. They come in all colours and patterns; these appraisals… the MBOs, Rating Scales, 360 degree feedback, Peer to Peer feedback… and all other permutations and combinations of these. They are almost the biggest events of any year in the lives of employees, especially so when the figures on our paychecks are determined by them.

So how many of us have always felt that the process is fair? Has there been any time when you had nothing to complain about it? I have seen approximately half the workforce going about with their sprits flushed down the drain, for days together after the results are declared. Managers are seen giving fuddled, glassy eyed explanations of the ratings to grumbling lots, or there is a complete reluctance to discuss the matter further.
Can one help asking why, after spending a great amount of collective time, energy and money, do appraisals come across as “unfair” to their employees? Why does the process get shrouded in secrecy at some point or another? Why do attrition rates skyrocket after each cycle?

There could be a million explanations, ranging from the simplistic “People have overly high expectations nowadays” to the “it’s a complex process that calls for a deep socio-psychological analyses” sort of answers.

I will not pretend to know the answer to this conundrum… but yes, I would love to share some observations. So first things first… why appraisals?
1. For giving timely feedback on work done, so that people know what they did right from what the did not
2. For rewarding, compensating for the work done, in a proportionate manner.

Please note: there is a school of thought that is completely anti-linking of performance and compensation. I disagree with that view. More on that later…

So, coming back to the point – why the general attitude of wariness towards this seemingly harmless objective?
What kind of employees are we talking about here?
Most of us, however individualistic our nature is, work in teams. The better part of our day is spent in interacting, working and learning with our teams. So, am I correct here in assuming that, the fundamental learning and performing unit of today’s organization is the Team?

In fact, it is quite evident that, a good team in company is quite similar to a good sports team. Different members are good at different things, but each has a definite place in the group. They learn together, push each other to perform and the victory or defeat is for the team. A lone batsman scoring a double century may well mean that he is an excellent batting talent… but if he took all the fifty overs, taking only the easiest shots, the team loses on the whole, because the target was 300! If you had a performance appraisal for this team, how would it be for this particular dude and the rest of the team?
Some would say – he likes to hog the limelight. There were other really good batsmen in the team who never got a chance.
He would say – I was doing my best for the team, I needed to keep standing and not let wickets fall.

Doesn’t something similar happen in a lot of teams in office too? Do you remember any times when you were a part of a vibrant, cohesive team? Where everybody seemed to be magically suited to the role he or she played? Don’t you think, almost everybody over performed in that team? The same people may have moved elsewhere in the hope of continuing the winning streak… but somehow, failed to be as spectacular?
Say, this team was your college soccer team, and after a consistent winning record, it lost one of the hyped matches. The Forward missed an easy goal. What would be the team’s responses to this event be like? I believe, at the least, there wouldn’t be a blame game. Assuming all these guys gel together, there could even be a strong solidarity. If the spirit is right, people would take this in their stride and fix the faults of the last game.

Working with such teams is not only highly enriching but also a strategy for winning.

So here it goes… my hypothesis towards the apparent distrust and circumspection with which our appraisals are treated. It applies to places where teams are the basic unit of performance. It may not be relevant to some professions, where team work is minimal.

First of all ...Acknowledge that, it is the Team that works for you
There may be some high performing individuals in your team. There also would be some average ones. There could be a few mediocre people too.
Assess each individual’s fitment in the group, do they complement each other?
Make sure, each member has a well defined area of work; while, each knows that, completing their individual tasks would not necessarily make the team win. Unless the whole team has a view of the final deliverable, and how their tasks fit in, the sense of “Yes! We did it!” will never form.
Appraise the team… Easier said than done… it may even sound like injustice to the high performers when their team doesn’t perform as well as they do… what does this tell us? If nothing else, special efforts need to be taken for putting together teams, as I said in point 3.
Also, it is important to make everybody realize, that no matter what our personal achievements be, unless the team wins, nobody wins.

I know I know…. There are a lot of wrinkles, grey areas, even utopian ideas here. Even the methodology of conducting team appraisals is not clear. (That could well be the next post in this series from me).

But seriously, isn’t it worth a thought? We might be on to something here… something that might truly bring out the essence of Appraisals and even help people take the whole process positively.

For the Sake of Our Cities

I am lucky enough to be working in a place, where they believe in creating state of the art campuses. Every day when I step inside the gates, all the hectic running around of the morning gets pushed to the background. Even as I walk down briskly to my building, soft shafts of golden rays glancing off the well manicured lawns, fresh dewy sprays of flowers…they lure and refresh all senses. For the rest of the day, my cubicle is mostly all the scenery I get, but I enjoy the walk back in the evening on the same paths, now admiring the gentle dusk.

Then I am outside on the road, trying to find commutation. If you are the bike, auto, scooter sort, the din, dust and smoke is inescapable. By the time I reach home I am covered with a layer of dust and I suspect I inhale a few grams of it daily too.

Does this end when I am home? I would have loved to say big hearty yes. But Alas!

A big stretch of highway in the front of my apartment has been undergoing a road widening project for about two years now. The roadsides have been dug up and flattened to the level of the main road. Someone somewhere seems to have forgotten that it was a “road” that they were to construct, not a mud track. All the area around the building premises is a patch of mud too.

Vehicles passing by are in the greatest hurry to overtake other vehicles on the road, so mostly you would find quite a company jostling for space on those “widened road sides”. A nice consequence of this, apart from the interminable horn honking is that, we have begun to believe – Thou art dust and thou will be dust!

I see kids playing in the space between two apartment blocks, women taking an idle evening stroll. There are a few shrubs here and there, and most of the bigger trees were uprooted for the road widening.

Isn’t it upsetting? To see five year olds making play on bare cemented ground, breathing in dust and smoke, not knowing about birdsong or butterflies? I almost feel guilty for the pleasant mornings and evenings in my office campus.

It sure upsets me. Many people blame our generation for this reckless onslaught of construction which has been dubbed as infrastructure development. They think, we are responsible for the ever increasing prices of property and the concrete jungles spawning in response to our spending capacities. I don’t fully agree with that view for various reasons. Nevertheless, I feel we are in a better position to alleviate the situation than most.

The cities we inhabit give a lot to us – good jobs, better lifestyle, shopping places, eateries, a cosmopolitan society… How many times do we complain about the state of traffic and the attitude of local populations toward us? Aren’t there a few things we can change for the better?

Take the problem of dust that I mentioned earlier; recently, they published survey results for Hyderbad’s air pollution constituents. The major constituent of air pollutants is Dust – 43%, contrary to the popular belief.

I am planning to put some ideas across to the management of our apartment; things like, paving the area around the building with cement block tiles. I have seen these tiles in some places. They are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that can lock into each other firmly. No additional construction is required to pave an area with these. I think they can be dismantled too. They would prevent dust being racked up and would stand minor traffic. I also plan for planting flowering plants and patches of lawn in whatever little space is available in the premises.

Do any of you have good ideas that can help our cities? Small steps that could make life even slightly better for the inhabitants?