My Experiments with cooking

Posted on March 3, 2021March 19, 2021 by bach

‘Anyone can cook. ‘ But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he (chef Gustavo) meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist *can* come from *anywhere* – The Famous by Anton Ego (movie Ratatouille)

Well. That’s not me.

Beyond all reasonable doubts, that’s definitely not me. You can never ever confuse me, even remotely – as a cook; leave alone a chef. Probably that’s the reason you don’t see a category for cooking in my blog, also any posts.

There is no shame in accepting that historically my cooking was limited to recipes of ice cubes and lemonades. Well, that, if you exclude me turning sheeks in Barbecue Nation considered as cooking.

Good people at my household did not trust me around the kitchen, and there are several reasons for it.

My well-wishers did not trust me around the kitchen flame. For me, it was logical to believe a bigger flame can cook the dish faster. Hint: It does not.
I am a curious animal. I tend to open the lid of the blender/mixer to check the consistency. Hint: Don’t do it while running.
I tend to pick the wrong utensil for the wrong dish. Transferring midway through the process is a nightmare, and trust me, people don’t like it.
Although I am good at cleaning, people don’t appreciate its need of having done in the first place. Apparently, avoiding a mess is vital.

There are several other reasons, but you get it. Every time I volunteered to contribute, I was told to get out of the kitchen and was asked to sit in the corner and play with my blog!!

Then about a year back, COVID lockdown happened, and cooking became a matter of survival. Trust me, there are only so many days you can eat noodles in a cup before you start hating it. Ordering-in or eating-out were ruled out. The only option was to cook and eat, burnt or otherwise. So that’s the story. As of today, I am yet to graduate basic cooking. However, one thing for sure, if I am stranded like Tom Hanks in Cast Away, I will survive without having eaten a football 🙂

Here, some photos of my plate and some good stuff on it.

Disclaimer: although I am claiming varying degrees of credits for these, I am obligated to announce I had extra helping hands and monitoring eyes watching over my shoulder that I don’t burn the salads. (Question: how do you burn the salad? )

Employing holy Cow!

Posted on September 9, 2010September 16, 2010 by bach

I saw this advert in a cinema when I went there to watch a horror movie. Perhaps that was a clue; this too has a horror story, of cows!

Have a look:

According to the video, cows are employees here. They check-in every day, which also could mean union rules apply to them (If they are sick they can take day off!) They are provided with all kind of safety and hygiene stuff; they enjoy processing their own milk. They munch grass as snacks. When the “end product” butter comes out of assembly line cows certify “fit for human consumption”.!!

I have no idea if the butter company which made this advert treats the cows as queens. According to various other sources I read (and documentaries I watched), this is very far from the truth. Is it not simple to think, a company of dairy products cannot make profit, if they treat cows like their pets. Any ways, it’s up to ethical advertising bureau (if such thing exists) to decide.

I feel this is wrong for thousand and one reasons. First one is, cows are never employees, they are lifelong milk producing machines and finally meat. In order to ensure they continue to produce milk they are regularly and repeatedly made impregnated. Calculation is to produce get optimal number of offspring and optimal gallons of milk in a cow’s life time! Read this letter for understanding in Indian context.

No cow ever get retire from duty and die, they get slaughtered. Even in any remote corner of India (where cows are holy) they get slaughtered. Let me remind you, they won’t even have ability to walk, butchers drag them! I have personally witnessed this. So much for happy cow farm employee.

I could explain the other thousand reasons I talked about here, but that’s not the point. Internet is already filled with that information, only nothing has been done yet. That’s all.

If cows want to show something to humans, it’s not that video! That would be this photo:

Holy cow

Believers and ‘one day vegetarians’

Posted on March 21, 2007September 18, 2010 by bach

In India believers have some undefined dislike towards animal products into places of worship. They are not allowed into temples and places of worships. I really don’t buy the idea of we all started as vegetarians and animal lovers, but I feel they are introduced into the religion to convince the followers to show god loves animals too.

Major three or four religions in India want its followers to be vegetarians. Most of the followers successfully convince their gods, that they will be vegetarians on specific days of the week (Fridays Lakshmi, Saturdays Vishnu etc).I saw so many of them while ordering in a hotel “two Rotis … and then …hmm… today what ..??Tuesday… alright … Butter chicken!”.

People don’t enter temples if they had taken any non-veg that day, and most of them can’t explain why?

These all confusing rules, people made them and the same people find loopholes not to follow them, Then why to have them at all. Why restrict only to temples.

There are some more of them

Kerosene are not supposed be used in any of places of worships. They are considered to be animal product, came into form by tones of animals and plants died billions of years ago.
Sugar is not used in any of the Hindu religious ceremonies. The reason is sugar is prepared from Jaggery, and while doing it they polish jaggery with some animal product (I guess it is leather). So any sweet is cooked is using Jaggery directly.

I have listed certain things which are missing in those rules.

All gods and goddesses wear silk. All Shwethambaras and Peethambaras presented to gods are silk, which are results of boiling thousands of silkworms. Similarly honey, which is obtained killing or burning thousands of honeybees. Continue reading “Believers and ‘one day vegetarians’” →

Vegetarians

Posted on September 13, 2006January 15, 2011 by bach

There is some classification I made about food habits, keeping vegetarians in mind, with some information available over net. Here they are.

Fruitarians. – These people eat fruits, seeds and raw roots (sweet potatoes etc). The Hindu (including Buddhist and Janis monks) we heard, meditating in Himalayas and jungles are supposed to be eating only these. This category need not to be included, because I feel such people don’t exist now or did not exist.
Raw/living foodists Eat major part of the food uncooked, or just warmed. (Again this category wouldn’t have existed, if doctors dint ask them to do.
Brahmins – One of the loosing definitions in India. There is a special reason I categorized them separately, instead of naming them in vegetarians. They in addition to not eating meat, they also don’t eat onions (for the reason of, the organic fertilizers used in these farms are human wastes), papaya, chilly (since these are of Indian origin), sugar (since animal product is used to polish jagarry), boiled rice (since it is boiled twice) thus so many concepts. Some of them may be valid but most of them are outdated. For example. If sugar is not accepted, the leather products also shouldn’t get used. The food habits are driven by religious rules, not ethics. Dairy products are always OK.
Vegans. This is one of the concepts recently getting very popular in west. They don’t consume anything, which has something to do with animal. Along with not consuming meat, egg and dairy products, they don’t buy leather, wool, silk, honey etc. Ethics keeps these people on. If religiously some people fall into this category they are Jain and Buddhist monks.

Current Worldwide Annual Meat Consumption per capita

source

Lacto vegetarians – those who don’t consume any meat but OK with dairy products. Vegetarians, what is referred in India (by caste and religions) are these. The argument is, milk is not a part of animal body and also they don’t get hurt, and the card runs here is – are all mammals are non-vegetarians? They do drink milk of its mother.
Lacto ovo vegetarians – Those who eat egg along with dairy products, but no meat. The argument is “egg is not animal, it dint born”, and the card played is – egg produced is not natural, these eggs don’t go and become chicken
Pesco – vegetarians (eat fish, no other meat), Pollo – vegetarians (eat no beef, but do eat poultry.) and all the possible combinations and permutations of above four might add up to… may be ten different food habits. However I don’t consider these as categories, since they are not backed by any strong arguments or ethics. Its just taste and allergies made them have those combinations. They are simply NOT vegetarians
Religious – NON – Vegetarians: these people give religious reasons to “not ” to eat some particular kind of meat. (Beef for Hindus, pig in Islam). However as an atheist, this concept does not make any since to me.
Non – vegetarians – anyone who dint restrict themselves to eat anything. Nice concept, but please spare Tom and Jerry.
Cannibals – You know them, yes Tax collectors.