Diwali

Happy Diwali everyone. It's Diwali this saturday and I figured no matter how busy I am I had to write about Diwali. Diwali aka festival of lights is one of the most important festivals in India. It's my most favorite festival, it's kinda sad that I won't be home to celebrate Diwali so I guess the next best thing to do is celebrate it here and reminisce those good old days.

I went to a christian school, so we still had to go to school the day before diwali but then the school would close early :). For the most part, I remember celebrating diwali with my cousins :). I don't have any siblings and it was always great when my cousins showed up. After I get home, I normally start firing crackers with all my friends and my mom and granny would be making sweets. Now that I look back, I cannot believe that they managed to make that much sweets and savories at home. My mom's an excellent cook and its needless to say how much we kids devoured the food :). Badhushah was my favorite, I've never seen anyone else make such wonderful badhushahs. Later in the evening my cousin and aunt would show up, then we all would show each other the clothes we got for Diwali :). Then it was my job to take all our new clothes and keep them in the pooja room.

My cousin and I really loved firing crackers and he taught me how to hold the cracker in my hand and let it off in the air at the right moment so that it would burst in the air :). Once it gets dark, we usually start the rangoli. I guess everyone wants their rangoli to be bigger and better than all the others in the neighborhood. I kinda too a liking towards rangoli and my granny had left huge books in which she had meticulously drawn all these. I always picked one of her nice designs. I am poor with coloring so my mom usually helped pick the right combination.

I remember staying thru the night for some diwali's but even if we went to sleep, we all woke up around 4 am, got ready said our prayers and wore new clothes. My cousin and I would go for some more fire crackers before everyone else gets ready. Once the morning prayers are over, we were allowed to have all the sweets and savories...it was just amazing (food everywhere). Then we have a breakfast (pongal, idli, etc...). It was usually my job to distribute the sweets to all our neighbors. Each house had a kid like me who would bring sweets from their home to ours.

We kinda rest up a little bit after a really lavish lunch, there would be tons of TV programs to watch, the elders usually are watching TV or wishing other relatives on the phone. My cousin and I would normally play chess around this time. We thought we were so good at it and we played it so often :). Usually around this time my maternal cousins would also show up, and around evening we'll start firing the mathappu, flower pot and rocket. The rocket was the coolest. No one knew where it was going to go :). Normally there's one trip to the temple as well. We usually fire crackers till late night and then save some for kaarthigai :).

When all the kids in the neighborhood decide to stop, we usually put all the remaining crackers in a big pile and set 'em on fire. It's really dangerous and I don't know why we did that. The last time I saw these three cousins of mine was at my wedding and that was a year ago. I'm sure none of us can forget how much fun we had. Later on the diwali night or the next day morning my cousin's would leave and we all had to go back to school :(. To me Diwali means getting together with friends and family and having a great time. My cousins and I would usually share stories about our schools, kadi jokes :). I really love my cousins and my parents loved them too and thats what really made it special and memorable :). I guess all festivals are about sharing, loving, giving and there was plenty of that :).

It's always during Diwali that I get maximum number of clothes, I remember once I got 10 different dresses :). Mom was always generous when it came to me. Dad always got me nice crackers, I used to go through the list with him and pick out what I want :). No matter what age I was, Diwali was always fun one way or another :).

I wish everyone a very happy diwali :)

Vaigai Restaurant Review

I had been to this South Indian restaurant Vaigai in Sunnyvale recently and would like to share my thoughts. Last weekend was not the first time I have been to this restaurant, I have had food here once before when they had just opened the restaurant.

The menu here is more or less similar to the menu in every other South Indian restaurant here in the bay area. My husband and I didn't like the restaurant that much after our first visit and that was primarily because of the high price (every dish on the menu is atleast a $1 more) coupled with low quantity of the dish that we ate. We decided to give this restaurant a second chance last weekend.

From our previous visit, we remembered liking the curd vada and ordered that along with fried idly and a couple of combo meals. My husband wanted to order channa batura and the waiter told us that it wasn't available only for us to see another waiter walk past us and serve someone else the same dish just a few moments later.

The curd vada was brought in first and the vada tasted old and whole dish was terrible, it was nowhere close to what it used to be. It costs about $6 for two relatively small old vadas dipped in plain yogurt. Instead of bringing the fried idly next the waiter ended up bringing my main course alone. After a few minutes the mini idly fry was brought in and they had no distinct flavor and once again stuff tasted old and despite being coated with red chilli powder they were not even slightly spicy and the coconut chutney ended up being watery. The fried idli was $6 and it came with very little sambar and coconut chutney and this is by far one of the worst dishes I've ever had.

We were already quite disappointed at this point and my main course was there getting cold and they still hadn't brought my husband's main course. After reminding the waiter his food was finally made it to our table. The combo which costs nearly $10 had 1 plain dosa, 1 vada, 1 small idly and a little pongal with coconut chutney and sambar looked more like rationed prison meal rather than something that you would expect to be served at a restaurant. My husband managed to get onion+tomato chutney but I didn't even though we ordered the exact same dish on the menu. The idly was okay and some parts weren't cooked that well, same was the case with dosa and it was pretty small as well compared to what you get in the other restaurants. The vada was fine and the pongal was very average. It was worse than the pongal that I normally make at home!!

At the end of it all, my husband and I were more disappointed with this restaurant compared to the previous time we dined here and we still wonder how they manage to give low quantities of not so great tasting food and charge more than the other restaurants?? Well, whatever it is we won't be going to this place ever again.

Shopping in Chennai!!

I have been wanting to write about shopping in Chennai for a long time but never really found the time. Last year when I was in India I happened to a lot of shopping before and after my marriage. Normally, I like to buy most of my clothes and accessories here in the USA but then this time my husband insisted that he take me out to some of the malls in chennai and see if I like something.

Most of the shopping that was done prior to the marriage was for stuff that I had to wear during the ceremony itself. I had a tough time when I was trying to pick a silk saree for my engagement as there were too many people trying to convince me to get what they liked. So, this time I took my parents alone and it made a real difference as I really could pick anything that I wanted. It was a lot of fun to actually go shopping for silk sarees. I went to different stores and found lots of varieties in different price ranges...even though it was a saree that I would wear for my wedding I didn't want to spend too much on it considering the fact that I won't be wearing them that frequently. I finally ended up picking two sarees around Rs.7,000 each from Kumaran silks and chennai silks. Pothy's was really terrible for my taste!!! And the sarees from some of the other stores looked too modern!!! (apparently thats the trend). Silk saree shopping wasn't over with that, I still had a 9 yards saree that I had to get and I ended up getting that at Nalli for about Rs. 12,000. My husband and I picked the 9 yards saree together :). There were sarees that were upto Rs. 30K - 40K but I stuck to moderate range as I won't be wearing these sarees frequently.

After all the silk saree purchase, I then had to buy mysore silk, I should confess that on any day I would prefer mysore silk over silk. As its a lot easier to wear and manage :). There was a specific brand called girija silks that my mother-in-law suggested that I get. I found good mysore silk sarees in Kumaran, Nalli and another store in Mount Rd (I forgot the store name).

My mom saved me some time by getting a few silk sarees ahead of time and since I happened to like them, things just got a lot more easier. Since, everyone told me that my sarees looked great I'm gonna assume that my mom and I did a great job in selecting them. I had to buy some churidars as well and I picked them out from some stores in T.Nagar (It's very important to have good casual clothes when you get married, cos my aunt still tells me how her DIL didnt have any good clothes to wear). I wore new clothes almost every other day :) :). In addition I did some salwar material shopping as well and by far I liked Chennai silks the most.

Now comes the fun part, shopping after marriage. My husband did tell me that I could get brand named apparel in India for a lot less than what I pay here in USA. Even before we got married my MIL did some searching to find out where I can get Ralph Lauren jeans and apparently you can only find them in Delhi. So, jeans was ruled out right there. Now the shopping was more for tops, footwear, etc...

Before going to India, some of my friends recommended that I go to Fab India for buying salwars and kurtis. But I didn't have any time to visit that place before marriage. But, luckily my MIL who was also keen on taking me for shopping had seen their ad on newspaper and showed it to me and asked if I was interested. I was excited and we all went shopping together. My MIL picked up salwar for herself and that one was very good. I got kurti tops and I really love to wear them here and a lot of ladies at work tell me they look very good. They even sell Men's shirts there and my hubby and FIL got them and they told me that they liked the stuff there. I thought Fab India was cool, because they had so much stuff and none of the tops shrunk that badly or faded. If you have the patience to go through their collection you can easily find a lot of tops in Rs. 300- 400 range. That's a pretty good price for good quality cotton tops.

When it came to Tshirt shopping, I totally liked shopper's stop and there the T-shirt variety was good and price ranged from Rs.300-400, sometimes even lesser. I think we should buy a larger size than our correct size as most of these tops ended up shrinking. Nevertheless some of them were good and again I got compliments.

I didn't like lifestyle (store at the city center) that much the first time I went there, I didn't like the clothes there at all, and I really wanted to get out of the store asap but my hubby convinced me to take a look at the sandals, which I did so that he wouldn't be disappointed. I bought one sandal and I totally loved it once I started using it. These sandals were exactly the way I wanted them, moderate heels and very light weight. I think I got a few pairs of sandals there.

In addition there was some fashion jewellery shopping that I did, I got some sets done at Narayana Pearls but most of these look more or less traditional. If you really want some fashion jewellery then you have to shop elsewhere. I found good stuff at Landmark (that was the only piece of fashion jewellery I got). But my husband's aunt had gotten me stuff from a store called Damini in Kotturpuram and we later went there to check that store out and found out that the stuff there is in high demand and that they sell out very fast once the new stock arrives!!! Other than there was a diamond pendant gifted to me and I found out that it was bought at Lifestyle. I never really got time to look around for similar stuff in Lifestyle store.

Thanks to my loving husband who had enough patience to drive me around town and get me all this stuff ;). Next time I go to India, I really know what's good there and what stuff should be got there and what stuff I should get here in USA!!! If you do have the time, then do checkout these stores. Happy shopping!!

Perfume shopping at Designer Fragrances

I was about to run out of perfume and so I decided I would do some perfume shopping over the weekend. I normally buy perfumes from one the following, Scented Monkey, Amazon, Perfumania or Designer Fragrances & Cosmetic Co.

This weekend I decided I would either go to Designer Fragrances or Perfumania at the Great Mall. I personally like the designer fragrances a lot as they happen to carry my favorite brand Ralph Lauren and they always have better pricing than perfumania. This store works out better for both men and women as they also carry brands like Armani, Lancome, etc... but if you want to try out different perfumes and pick one then you need to go to Perfumania.

There I was at the Designer Fragrances store and this time there was more crowd than usual. well, I guess more people have started buying stuff at outlets :). The store usually has perfumes on sale for as low as $10 or $20. Well, my husband and I picked three perfumes totally (Armani Diamonds for women, Diesel Fuel for life for women and Polo Explorer). We basically got all three for less than Armani or Polo's retail price at Macy's or Nordstrom :).

I'll write a separate review for each of these perfumes sometime soon. If you ever need to get good perfumes for a lower price I suggest that you first look at Designer Fragrances.

Follow-up on the rice scenario in the bay area

Last weekend I had to buy rice and wasn't sure if I should get the long grain rice from any of the American stores or first see if the Indian store has some rice in stock. I happened to be at a store in Sunnyvale and I found that they had lots of sona masoori rice bags and even price seems to have dropped by $10, to $24.95 for a 20lb bag.
Yaay, so I got a bag of rice this time without feeling very guilty :)

When was nonbu really?

Most of us Indians that live here have this practice of celebrating Indian festivals right on the same date as it is celebrated in India. In reality, the actual date of the festival is determined based on the position of the moon and it varies every year. It never occurred to me until my husband's cousin told us that. Now, that I think of it, when you are in a different geographic location the position of moon does differ and that would mean the auspicious time to celebrate a certain festival might not be the same date and time as it is in India.

This year karadaiyan nonbu happened to fall on Friday for us in USA but most people observed it on Saturday. I don't know if I'm very pious but I do like to observe the religious stuff at the right time, so at the beginning of this year, I went ahead and purchased the calender from the Livermore temple and use it to determine when to celebrate or perform all the religious rituals.

As I'm writing this I just realized that my mother-in-law had actually looked up the right day for the nonbu here and told me the correct date right at the first go :). That's really awesome that she made sure she gave me the right date.

Anyways, if you do care about doing things at the right time it might just be a good idea to either refer to the temple's calendar or purchase a calendar.

Poori

Yaay...my husband and I had plans of having channa batura at Dosa place this weekend but had to compromise that plan. In the end we decided to make poori at home. I had made poori once before, and that was 3 or 4 years ago. I wasn't 100% sure but still decided to make it as we still had some lasagna that we baked as back up.

Even though I knew the basics I was looking up for poori recipes online but the fancy ones were really fancy therefore I just stuck to the recipe I knew. Here's the basic recipe:

1. 2.5 cups of wheat flour (I used 160ml cups)
2. 1/2 tsp baking powder
3. oil (for mixing and then frying)
4. salt (0.5 - 1 tsp)
5. Warm water (3/4 - 1 cup)

I kinda like poori simply because the chances of screwing up is very less. Anyways, here's the directions

First mix wheat flour, salt and baking powder in a large mixing bowl. I typically use 2 tbsp of oil when mixing the dough. First add 1 tbsp oil and some warm water and start mixing, continue adding water as required, once the dough starts to get pliable add the remaining 1 tbsp of oil and mix well. Add water sparingly during the mixing procedure as the dough shouldn't have excess water. Once the dough is pliable and doesn't stick to your fingers it's time for you to set it aside. Just cover it and leave it alone for 20-30 mins (you could continue to make poori's without leaving the dough aside as well).

Now knead the dough once more and start making small 1.5 inch rounds with the dough mixture. Now start rolling the dough rounds that you made. Typically roll them out to have 4 or 5 inch diameter. The key to making nice poori is to have uniform thickness. First roll the center nicely and then roll around the corners so that the whole thing has uniform thickness. Even when you lift it to drop in the frying pan, the shape shouldn't change. If the dough is rolled out thin, there'll be elongations where you touch 'em.

Now heat generous amount of oil in a pan, drop the rolled out poori's gently, once the dough on the side on top rises, its time to turn the poori around to cook the other side. Poori's done once both sides are cooked. If you notice that the poori's turn to deep brown instead of golden then its time to turn down the heat. I use a gas stove so I have more precise heat control, but with electric stoves, it might just be better to have the heat set at med or med-hi.

Note: You can substitute half of wheat flour with maida if you want the poori's to be more softer.

We had a really great meal last night and I still think poori is one of the easiest dishes to make.

Orkut and Facebook predicament

Ever had to approve friend requests simply because you don't want to seem rude? Orkut and facebook as awesome as they are for staying in touch and finding old friends they pose this problem of unwanted people finding us.

I've had to approve friend requests from certain people who I know do nothing but criticize my actions or fabricate stories about me. In reality, if not for these sites I could simply get away from these people by simply not staying in touch. In all honesty, approving such friend requests never leads to anything useful, the other person probably just wants to be friend to pry.

There were times I used to feel guilty about not staying in touch with certain old acquaintances, relatives, etc..., every time I think of it, I remember this conversation I had with a friend of mine who never responded to any mails from another friend of mine. When I asked her, "don't you think you'll be hurting her feelings?" she simply told me it would be even worse if I acted like I respect and like her when I really don't. Well, she had a point.

Sometimes, I feel the same way too. Having said all this, I seriously think facebook is a little better as I can find the people that I don't want to get request from and block them completely. It's really useful simply because you'll never receive the friend request you always dread and they would never know. This way no one feels hurt probably ;)

But then, most of the time the kind of feeling (like or hate) between two people is very mutual, it might just be better for some people to not add me as friend, cos except for the initial Hi, I practically am not gonna have a conversation with them and they do the same too. I always wonder if these people ever feel bad about adding someone and then not even having the common decency to say hi to them. It's more like basic manners 101. Sometimes, I say hi and ask them how they do (so that I don't feel guilty of having ignored them or being rude) and they would simply reply saying "ya fine", I sort of find that rude, neither do they thank you for asking nor do they ask you how you are doing. Yea, they pry on me but this is what I really worry about.

I might be the only one that feels this way, as I have seen several others that bad mouth each other to others going about greeting and wishing each other. Every time I see this, I go "what a phony". I don't know how people still feel good about themselves when they don't like someone and still woo them. Well, their business is their business.

As for me, I felt like writing this and I wrote it...

Demetri Martin Game on Comedy Central

Last night since there was nothing interesting on TV to watch during primetime hours, I went to comedycentral.com to catch up on Colber Report and I got completely sidetracked and found this game.

This game put together by Demetri Martin that appears in Jon Stewart's show is basically trying to identify the anagrams using a given clue. I played a couple of levels yesterday and i completely loved the game.

I'm mostly into crosswords or any other game that has to do with english language, vocab, etc... I'm sure you get the idea. If you love such stuff this game is brilliant as there are 20 levels and it does seem to get complex with every new level :)

give it a try, I hope you like it...

Blueberry Muffins

My husband and I try a new dish every week and we had tried making muffins a couple of weeks ago they turned out great, so this time I changed the quantity of ingredients a little bit and now the muffins taste even better.

I prefer homemade muffins to store bought muffins simply because the ones that are sold in stores are a bit big for one person to finish.

I got the base muffin recipe from allrecipes.com, I prefer using recipes from this site simply because they have user rating and you also read the suggested changes that could be made to make the dish more tasty. My cousin also tried this recipe and she said it came out great...so, I here I write my improvised recipe:

Servings: 12

Ingredients:

1.75 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
2.5 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 cup unsalted butter (oil can be used instead)
3/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla
1 cup fresh blueberries

Directions:

1. In a large bowl add the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder and mix them nicely.
2. Take butter and cut into small pea sized cubes and measure 1/2 cup and add it to the flour mixture. Make sure the butter is mixed well with the flour that no large pieces of butter is seen.
3. Break two eggs and mix them well, and then add milk to the beaten eggs, add 2 teaspoons of vanilla to this mixture.
4. Now pour the entire egg and milk mixture in the flour and mix until the flour is fully moistened. It's okay to have lumps, as overworking the batter might end up ruining the end result.
5. Add blueberries to the mixture.
6. Grease the muffin pan with oil and fill each muffin cup to almost full. Fill the empty ones with water.
7. Bake at 400 degrees F for 20-25 minutes, you can either insert a toothpick to see if the muffin is done or just press it lightly to see if the top springs back.

I don't use baking soda simply because it reacts quickly and causes the muffin tops to crack and makes the muffins look ugly. By replacing baking soda with baking powder we get a much better moist and smooth muffins, that look elegant.

My husband and I loved it and we use these as our evening snack and it's wonderful :)

Klipsch Image X5 IEMs

This post has been long due and every single time I start writing, something or the other comes up :(. Hoping to make some progress today...

First let me make it clear that I prefer IEM over the full-size headphones. I got the Klipsch Image X5 IEM as a gift from my husband immediately after our wedding (what better occassion!!). First of all I loved it when I saw five ear tips instead of the usual three. I finally found one that fits my tiny ears really well :)

I have pretty much listened to most of Porcupine Tree, Opeth, Dave Matthews Band, Nirvana, Steely Dan, White Stripes, Pink Floyd, etc...and I can confidently say that these are the best IEMs I've ever used. They produce excellent sound isolation. Noise filtering is just terrific, once I have these on all that I could listen is just the music and nothing else, no more distractions and outside noise when listening to music. In terms of sound quality, the X5s are truly brilliant, the highs and lows are crisp and clear, all frequencies sound just about perfect. Using these I can actually see the kind of detail at the low frequencies that the other IEMs miss out. It was quite a thrill to discover the sounds that I missed out in certain songs when I used my old IEMs.

The design of the IEMs are unique and really nice. They fit nicely in the ears without causing any ear ache and aid comfortable listening for longer durations. The housing is a little bigger than the other IEMs but then others cannot hold a candle against the X5s sound quality besides, being bigger doesn't make them uglier, they look good and unique. The cable does seem very delicate but it seems to hold up well, so I am not complaining about it.

The X5s also come with a cleaning kit and small leather box to store them when not in use. This box is one of the best storage boxes I've seen for an IEM, its elegant and nice and has enough room to store the whole thing without having to wind the cable too much.

I don't really have anything negative to say about these IEMs, its built well, looks great, comfortable to use and above all listening to music in this just blows me away. Listening to music has never been so pleasurable. Before I got this one, wanting to listen to a specific band was why I would listen to music, but this IEM has totally changed it. Even when I am not that crazy about listening to a specific band, I would like to listen to music old or new simply because this IEM sounds awesome. Image X5s have become a motivation to listen to music everyday :) (The previous sentence might not have made much sense to everyone, but I'm sure you get the point ;)).

Long live Klipsch Image X5s.

So early?

I had to wake early today morning because I had a meeting at 7 am. I wasn't very enthusiastic about this meeting, as I'm used to waking up late. I used to wake up early and used to be at work around 8:30 am and for no apparent reason I drifted and started waking up late to a point where I consider 7 am still a part of midnight.

Living closer to work might have made that difference, because my commute is no longer affected by Bus, train delay, traffic, etc... The only factors are the speed at which I walk and one signal that I need to cross.

But I would really love to wake up early especially now, simply because I needn't spend the time in commute instead I could actually water my plants, make nice coffee, catch up with the morning news and ease into my day slowly...
When I was walking to work I notice that there's more cars at 8:30 than at 9:30 and it actually feels nice to walk during that time as the warmth of the sun is still mild and there's still some cool air.

Well anyways, I would be happy if I'm even able to do the same tomorrow ;)

My new TV Panasonic Viera TH42PZ80U

My husband and I decided to buy a new HDTV for our new apartment. After looking at our Cousin's 32" TV we felt that it might be right size for our apartment too, besides we also felt we could push the big TV purchase for later. We found the Sharp Aquous 32" LC3234U at costco for $499 and bought it. We brought it home and watched TV programs and they all looked great and later that night we watche Surf's Up and both of us felt the TV was smaller.
We decided we'll get a 37" or a 40" TV and were searching for deals. We were eyeing the 40" Samsung A550 model and a Sharp Aquos 37" model. We went to Fry's that friday night and looked at all the models they had we still liked the Samsung, Sharp and 40" Sony Bravia sets. The Sony model wasn't sleek which was a big bummer. We felt Samsung 450 looked better
than the 550 so we were unsure about buying that. We decided to look the Plasma TVs and we liked the Panasonic 42" models 42PX80U and the 42PZ80U models. The latter being the 1080p version. We were unsure if 1080p would actually make a difference at a distance of 6ft or slightly more. After walking up and down the aisles and struggling to pick between LCD vs Plasma we finally got the TH-42PZ80U model home. The reasoning behind picking this TV was that it was a 480hz tv with no motion blur or pixelation issues. Besides the these days plasma TVs come with an anti reflective coating so reflections in bright rooms isn't that big of a deal. In addition all plasmas have better contrast ratio and superior black levels than their lcd counterparts.

The Panasonic Viera TH-42PZ80U has a recommended minium viewing distance of 5.5 ft and has a resolution of 1080p. We were thankful we got the 1080p because it was fairly easy to tell the difference between a 1080p image and a 720p image. Other than that the TV has a native contrast ratio of 20,000:1 and a dynamic contrast ratio of 1000000:1 which is quite higher than most LCD Tvs at the same price range or even significantly more. The Tv doesn't have PC input but supports svideo so it's really not a big deal.

We got the TV home set it up and watched Harry potter for a while, we didn't like the movie but the picture quality was brilliant, the cinema mode was fantastic. Later on we watched Transformers and Spiderman movies and they all looked brilliant, we also played the orange box and Assasin's creed games and we noticed that the blacks pretty much appear fully black. Overall the image quality looked amazing and we thorougly enjoyed the whole experience. I was worried that the TV might be big for watching regular TV shows but I must admit that all the HD shows like House, 24 and American Idol just look fantastic. Bones in Fox looks the best and CBS looks the best compared to FOX and NBC. Even the SD shows like Friends and Frasier look very good. Seinfeld is the only show that doesn't look great.

This TV tuner is one of the fastest tuners I've seen and the menu is so user friendly compared to the menu in Samsung TVs. The remote buttons are nice, big and respond well when you use them. The picture quality of this TV has been compared to the Pioneer Kuro in some regards and that really makes my husband and I happy about having picked this TV. It's a delightful bonus to have a TV that you enjoy watching and notice that several other rever this TV.

We also tested the TV with Planet Earth HD DVDs and they just looked awesome, I'm lost for words to describe how cool it was to be able to watch such stuff at home. I should also note
that we got a good deal for this TV when its selling for $999 else where (yaaaay!!!!).
Finally, I would just like to conclude by saying that my husband and I are so delighted and so extremely happy about the Panasonic Viera TH42PZ80U.

Recipes to dainty dishes :)

When I left India after marriage, my husband's granny showed me some recipe booklets that got published with the Aval Vikatan tamil magazine and asked me if I like them, I told her I'd definitely like to try them sometime. Basically, each small booklet contains 30 different recipes that would help you to cook 30 variations of the same basic dish (more like specializing it).

I went through the one for Rasam and tried some stuff and I really like it. I like the fact that 30 different recipes for one dish are provided and I could just pick one and make it instead of having to search the internet. Besides I really love to read the traditional south indian recipes in tamil. I guess its just a cheap satisfaction that I get :)

I've had the "samaithu paar" culinary book by meenakshi ammal which is pretty much what most south indian brahmins/vegans follow. I'd like to think of the aval vikatan recipes as a nice extension to that samaithu paar book that I have.

I was trying to find out what other recipe booklets had gotten published and during my pursuit I found all the booklets being shared on esnips. Here's the link to the page http://www.esnips.com/web/SamaithuPaar , it has all the booklets listed in nice PDF. If you are interested, you could just download these and try them out. The only catch is that they are all in tamil.

For those who know tamil and in the mood to try this out "Good luck"

Buying inexpensive petite clothing

I have a few lady friends at work and they also happen to be petites and sometimes we ask each other where they usually buy their clothes. Being petite and finding nice casual clothing is a big challenge. I have no clue why most of the Petite clothing looks like its been designed for middle aged women, in addition a lot of them look formal as well. Living here in the silicon valley I've found a few stores and brands that I like and I've found that people notice and do compliment me on my clothes.

Kohls, JcPenney and Macy's are some of the big departmental stores that everyone knows that sell petite stores. In Macy's their home brand charter club and style & co aren't that expensive and they usually fit okay. The only catch with Charter club is that most of the tops also look like they are made for older women. I love the Jeans by Ralph Lauren, its quite a steal if you manage to find it on sale.

Kohls and JcPenney have a decent Petite collection, but I personally feel that anything more than 6P is usually easy to find. I like Croft&Barrow, Briggs and Jones Signature.

Now onto the other stores, for some reason everyone thinks that the Petite Sophisticate in great mall has been closed forever, but that's untrue. The store re-opened last year and petite sophisticate now has more causual clothes as opposed to the usual formal wear they used to carry before. Since its an outlet store its really easy to find good clothes for relatively less price.

But the best price value is usually at discount stores like Ross or Burlington, I personally like Ross when it comes to stuff other than coats or Jackets. Even at Ross smaller sizes are tough to find but still you can find most of the brands you usually find at Macy's in addtion they have certain other brands that I've never heard of but they fit so well. I like the brand Rafaella a lot. I regularly shop at Macy's and under numerous occassions I've noticed that most tops from Macy's end up somewhere in Ross for prices that are under $10. Lot of people aren't comfortable shopping at Ross as they think its cheap, but in reality if you get the same branded clothing for prices that are a lot lesser what's there to feel bad about.

With the recent downturn in economy, discount stores are doing extremely well but even otherwise what's wrong with buying the same thing for a lower price???

Shortage of rice in Indian stores in the bay area

If you've been living in the silicon valley you'd be well aware that most Indian stores have run out of the tamil ponni and sona masoori rice varieties which are widely used by most Indians. With the elections approaching soon in India, the government has no plans to lift the ban on rice export. Last month my husband and I had to make trips to 4 different stores before we could get a 20lbs bag of Sona Masoori for $35, in the end we got the last bag that was remaining at one of the stores.

A week back when I went to the store I didn't find any non-basmati rice at all, I was even okay with buying parboiloed rice but even those seem to have gone. I did ask the store owner if they do have sona masoori and she said that she had but rice is no longer kept in any of regular isles anymore :(. I got lucky this second time also as I could still buy rice for the same $35 and not having to eat the long grain rice.

Even some people have switched to eating long grain rice due to the increasing rice shortage I always wonder how it would taste with the traditional south indian dishes. I'm not sure if I should transition and start eating long grain rice instead of hunting for a rice bag everytime. or should I make the transition only when there's no sona masoori available?

Opeth's Watershed review

I have been wanting to write this review for a long long time now...This album was released when fans were quite concerned about the departure of both their drummer and guitarist from the band. Fredrik Akesson and Martin Axenrot are the newbies (new only to the band, they were previously associated with bloodbath and witchery respectively) that worked on this album. I think I've listened to Watershed a whole lotta times that its about time I wrote a review.

I'm musically challenged quite a bit so the rest of the review wouldn't be filled with any of the technical stuff. It's solely wat i think about the album and how I feel when listening to it. First of all I can't help but notice that blabbermouth has given this album a 9.5 which pretty much means its an excellent album.

There are a total of 7 tracks in this album, the first song is titled Coil and its a swedish folk song, the song has Axe's girlfriend Nathalie Lorichs rendering vocals as well. Both Akerfeldt and Lorichs sound excellent and I like this song, but I've listened to it too many times to a point where it gets boring...as good as it sounds it does get a bit boring after a while.

The next song is "Heir Apparent" I consider this the best song in the album, the speed at which Axe ends up drumming is just stellar. It gets quite intersting towards the middle, you would know what I'm talking about when you listen to this song...I watched Opeth play this song and I have to say Axe did drum so perfectly it was just amazing :). My husband and I definitely consider ourselves privileged :)

The third song is the "Lotus Eater" it has the sound of Opeth but its nothing like the other songs that Opeth has ever done. It's really progressive and I absolutely love it, I love it so much that I don't even want to judge it. The bouts of silence followed by intense drumming is amazing. Listening to Lotus Eater just elevates my sense especially when the music gets real intense.

The 4th and 5th songs are Burden and Porcelain Heart and I'm not a big fan of both and I don't really have much to say. I find them both to be simple and lacking creativity. I have a problem with just trying to get to like the basic tunes of these songs. Others might very well like 'em, I don't like it simply because its not my kinda songs.

The 6th song is the Hessian Peel, I still remember, when I watched the DVD and heard Akerfeldt play I really couldn't believe the first verse was real. Its such a sadly pleasant bitterly sweet tune. I love the rest of the song as well...but the solo blows me away. Every time I listen to the solo I feel like I'm not here anymore.

The 7th song is Hex Omega its yet another brilliant song.

So, overall I love 5 out of 7 tracks the remaining two aren't bad but they are simply not as good as the other ones. I personally feel that Ghost Reveries is still the best album by Opeth and with this album is definitely not as great as Ghost Reveries but it's definitely close. Opeth with this album has taken a new direction and inclusion of Axe has definitely contributed to the change. This album is certainly great in terms of musicality but the quality of lyrics has certainly dropped. Most other bands run out of ideas when they get this old but Opeth seems to have the conviction to really make good music. In all I understand why blabbermouth gave this album a 9.5 and I certainly feel that the band deserves every single point.

Making a good bed

My husband and I like a lot other Indians were just sleeping on a plain bed with few regular pillows. We normally like to sit on the bed and watch Frasier before we fall asleep and we've had a tough time sitting on the bed for longer time. We decided we'll make our beds nicely and see if that makes any difference.

There are so many blogs and other sites that talk about how to make a bed for a good night's sleep. We read through some of them and found out that we were missing the euro pillows and the other small square pillows. We went on a shopping trip to Bed Bath and Beyond and picked a couple of 26x26 euro pillows and we also picked out a 300 thread count sheet set by Croscill. I've used Croscill sheets before and they are really soft and they were the first fitted sheets on which I could sleep properly. Since we already had the accent pillows and comforters we skipped those.

We have a memory foam mattress topper on our mattress which makes it nice and soft when we lie down. We aligned the mattress and the topper nicely and put the fitted sheet on it. The croscill sheet pockets are deep enough to fit our almost 13 inch mattress. Then we laid the flat sheet on top the fitted sheet and tucked it in on all sides except the top. We are still learning on how to make hospital corners but other than that we did a good job. We arranged the euro pillows, regular pillows and the accent pillows and neck roller respectively starting from the headboard. We laid the comforter on top like it should be.

After making the bed, when we used it for the first time we discovered that a properly arraged bed really does make a lot of difference. We were able to sit very comfortably with enough support for the back and the quality of our night sleep has improved considerably. Not only that when we are tired enough to fall asleep there's nothing thats more pleasing and inviting than a well made bed :). More importantly this really wasn't a very costly solution, it was very affordable considering the fact that I won't suffer from poor sleep or back ache due to my bed :)