Monday, December 29, 2014

The Kilimanjaro Conquerors!


My daughter Manasvi and 2 more of her cousins, all  Year 2000-borns and aged 14, accompanied by my husband, showed amazing courage, grit and determination when they climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak.  Mt. Kili in Tanzania, is 5895 m above sea level (19,341 ft), and has the distinction of being a snow-capped mountain situated close to the equator.


The six and a half day trek was not an easy one - they faced tough weather conditions, heavy rains, extremely cold weather, wet clothes, icy winds, snow storms, rocky and hard terrain, steep climbs, lack of oxygen making them breathless and causing nausea. They passed through some breathtakingly beautiful and picturesque spots - pristine snow covered slopes dotted with chocolaty stones and rocks; but some of the terrain looked desolate, cold and definitely unfriendly. Many a time, they were near their breaking points, wanting to return to the safety and warmth of their hotel room in Moshi.    But they persevered on, cracking jokes to pull up each other's spirit and did not give up until they scaled the mountain and reached its summit - Uhuru peak.

There are several lessons to be learnt from their adventure which I hope they will remember all through their lives.  After all, life is nothing but one big adventure - having its own ups and downs, valleys and peaks to scale, filled with moments of anxiety and happiness, beauty and bleakness.  The never-say-die spirit that they exhibited here, to strive on despite challenges, to help each other while strongly believing in team work, to enjoy and share the moments of infinite beauty, to make light of their problems using humour...all these will surely come in handy to meet whatever challenges life may throw their way.

We had a family celebration to honour their achievement and to hear their tale of fortitude.  They all wore their t-shirts proudly proclaiming that they had "just done it"!

Hats off to you guys, you ROCK!  May the KILI be with you!





  

Monday, August 4, 2014

Healthy bites - the nutty, fruity banana cake!

Have you lately immersed yourself in the wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread or cake at home?  It is such a blissful experience - a near heaven on earth!  As the oven warms up, the tantalising aroma slowly spreads through the home, awakening the olfactory organs, and making one think of warm and pleasant treats!  

Baking in itself is such a lovely experience - it always amazes me that a few ingredients mixed together and kept in the oven can magically rise, brimming over at the edge of the dish, filling you with wonder and excitement and ofcourse, leaving you waiting eagerly to bite into the spongy, sweetened texture!
   Last week, we had some over ripe bananas at home - that none of us wanted to peel and eat.  So, I decided to make banana bread.  When I looked at several recipes, I realised banana bread and cake are made more or less in a similar manner.  With walnuts and other nuts added, it tastes simply amazing - a nutty, fruity delight!  And ofcourse, with my penchant for using healthier alternatives to plain flour (maida), I used wheat flour to increase its nutritive value.  Needless to say, the home smelt warm and inviting with the aroma of freshly baked cake - the bananas and cinnamon doing their bit in creating the magic.
  
 My younger daughter rushed in home from play and announced "Ummm, something smells wonderful!"

RECIPE
I studied several recipes, and tweaked them a bit to suit our tastes. This cake is mildly sweet, as we like it that way.  Increase the quantity of sugar if you need it sweeter.

Ingredients:
- 1 1/3 rd cup of flour - I used 3/4 cup maida & and 2/3 cup of wheat flour
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
- 1/2 tsp grated lemon rind
- 2/3 cup brown sugar
- 4 tbsp butter (I used 2 tbsp butter as I had only that much; and added 2 tbsp of rice bran oil)
- 1 tbsp thick curd
- 2 eggs
- 2 ripe bananas
- 1/2 cup of broken walnuts, macadamia nuts, flax seeds (use whatever nuts you can lay your hands on)

Steps:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 C.  
2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl
3. Beat butter and eggs for 2 minutes; add brown sugar and beat some more (I used an electric hand beater)
4. Fold the dry ingredients gently into the wet mixture and mix together.  
5. Add the nuts to this. 
6. Grease a baking tin with oil and pour in the above mixture.  
7. Bake in oven for 30-35 minutes - (Check that knife inserted into the middle comes out clean without any batter sticking to it)   

Notes:
1. The cake batter almost resembles the 'appam' batter - a South Indian sweet, fried in ghee/oil. It smells and tastes like appam too - thanks to the bananas and wheat flour. 

Friday, January 31, 2014

Follies and learnings from the garden!


The snake gourd - male flower 
When I first spotted the beautiful, white star-fish shaped flowers on my snake gourd plant, I was super thrilled! And having read about hand pollination, I was all ready and eager to try it out, hoping to help the plant in its natural process and dreaming of nice, long green snake gourds hanging down the plant.  Only at that time, I didn't know there was a difference between bisexual and uni sexual flowers.  When I saw two of them, I assumed they were bisexual flowers (like the chilli plant) and that they just needed some help. So, I picked up one of the flowers and tried transferring the pollen to the other flower (but both happened to be male flowers and I clearly didn't know about it!)  Having done my bit, I waited eagerly and looked at the plant every morning hoping to see the vegetable growing.  After 3 days, the flower dried up and fell off the plant, leaving me utterly clueless, wondering what had gone wrong.  Only much later, after I read up some information on gourds, I realised my folly -I had tried pollinating one male flower with another - no wonder things didn't work!

Some plants like the chilli,  produce bisexual flowers -that is, both the male and female parts are present in the same flower.   Thus pollination is not hard here - with a slight shake of the stem, the pollen gets released.
A better view of the gourd!
Some plants, like the ridge or snake gourds, produce uni sexual flowers; that is, separate male flowers and separate female ones.  Here again, the plant always produces male flowers first.  They need the help of the bees or butterflies for pollination to occur.  Or in some cases, human intervention is required in the form of hand pollination, where pollen from the male flower is transferred to the female flower by using a brush or placing the male flower over the female.
The female flower - with a gourd like structure at the base

I also learnt to identify the male and female flowers.  Male flowers have only long stalks but female flowers have a small-sized gourd at the base of their stalk which later grow into the actual vegetable.

Female flower of ridge gourd
Finally, I did help my snake gourd plant after the female flowers appeared on the plant.   Now, I am eagerly waiting for the gourd to grow to its full size.  And despite all the stumbling and mistakes made, I find that the entire process is a truly magical experience!