Posted in Daily, Family and Society, Personal Musings, poetry, Quotes, Reflections, Work

Strain of the Indisposition

On the days when the work schedule drags, the events then on tend to go on in a discordant manner. Eventually on reaching home, with the usual things not done like dinner late, homework hours not supervised and the like; the entire mood sours down and the evenings end on an unhappy or dissatisfied note. While journalling such days and reading them later on, at times it’s how one learns to behave when things go beyond the expectation (especially when in a negative manner) that makes the biggest difference in the long run.

“The greatest joys of life are happy memories. Your job is to create as many of them as possible.” Brian Tracy

Emotional infection is a deadly thing. A chain effect triggered by it can have far reaching consequences; avoidable, unnecessary with a significant negative impact, spoiling relationships and makes the daily hours unpleasant, of discontent as well as unhappy. As the scales of the balance go awry, the urge to initiate the “blame game” and point fingers start soon, as compared to making efforts to try and reschedule to get back on track. Guarantee for everything or anything never exists in reality. There is always a chance of a miss or an error present even in the best laid plans, schedules or goals. When one lets their emotions fly unchecked, the consequences can go deadly and far reaching, be it on the professional, personal or domestic front. To keep the inner peace best within, learning how to handle the unexpected is necessary skill. Though this may take time and plenty of effort, they are all worth when the impact is taken into account. For words and memories have a far lasting effect, than targets or achievements as scored on paper.

“I am convinced that the greatest legacy we can leave our children are happy memories: those precious moments so much like pebbles on the beach that are plucked from the white sand and placed in tiny boxes that lay undisturbed on tall shelves until one day they spill out and time repeats itself, with joy and sweet sadness, in the child now an adult.” Og Mandino

No matter how many precautionary measures one may take; when things go haywire, take a quick breathe and continue on. The art of learning to manage any curve-ball lies in the way we behave to these sudden turns. Instead of fretting and getting dejected on the “why me, why now” aspect, settling and finding effective be it temporary or permanent solutions may help make the days (or evenings) end better. More than achievements, goals or occasions, what stays etched in the mind are “feelings”. The feeling of calm and happiness in the children as their parents return from work, the approach that another person feels or learns as the crisis period is sorted and the cumulative efforts taken to settle any environment are just few of the better emotional memories that linger and stay on as the years pass through.

“I’d like the memory of me
to be a happy one.
I’d like to leave an afterglow
of smiles when life is done.
I’d like to leave an echo
whispering softly down the ways,
Of happy times and laughing times
and bright and sunny days.
I’d like the tears of those who grieve,
to dry before the sun
of happy memories
that I leave when life is done.”
Helen Lowrie Marshall

Posted in Christian, Daily, Life, Personal Musings, Reflections

Shelter when Lost

While going for a walk with a rambunctious pet, getting caught in the wet fury of the nature and her elements was an unplanned and unprecedented event. Scrambling for a cover, it was a blessing to find the shelter in the barn. As the flashes of lightning began and the pounding of the rain increased in full measure; while the fortunate ones may have escaped the fury by Providence or His Grace, the reality that there may be many others who had been caught unawares would be drenched and soaked by now makes one feel blessed in the present circumstances.

“When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.” (Exodus 33:22)

Every now and then, in our lives, one may reach certain points or stand stills wherein the tempest roars strong crushing the spirit both in the physical, mental and emotional sense. In those moments, all one longs is a brief respite, a form of shelter to regroup and regain the inner strength. That respite is found when under His Shelter. As experienced by the wayfarers, the gift of peace and shelter in His Wings had no precedent or parallel.

Echoing the opening lines of the hymn “Rock of Ages,” with its opening lines, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee ”; the saving grace and mercy of God is such that His Presence will be with each one of us, helping us find refuge in Him at all times and on all occasions. As we experience and battle the unexpected furor or unprecedented upheavals, seeking the shelter of a temporary respite in His Hands helps us find our way back home.

Posted in Life, Personal Musings, Reflections

Roads that Curve

While visiting university friends who had relocated to another city, getting to the city wasn’t an issue but finding their residence was. With Google giving directions, the traffic being routed by the city police and previously gotten directions, we eventually got there but it was an enlightening experience.

The entire journey reminds one of how similar our lives get to be. As one goes through the days, there would be plenty of instructions, chaotic thoughts, previous knowledge, creative ideas and misled information to sort through before nightfall or the eventual end. Amidst all the hullabaloo, to take control or discernment of the right isn’t easy.

“A highly developed values system is like a compass. It serves as a guide to point you in the right direction when you are lost.” Idowu Koyenikan

While on some days, following set instructions maybe easy other days it isn’t as direct. Along the process one makes plenty of errors, experience more downhills than uphills and redefine own understanding. Amidst all this chaos one learns to direct the self with the help of inner values, instincts, conscience, humaneness and Faith. These are few of the many factors that take the lead in finding a way out through the pandemonium thoughts and situations. Letting them all lead in solo may’t help us, but together, the mayhem settles and the terminus maybe in sight.

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”
― Gandhi

Posted in Food, Stories Around the World

A Slice of Crust, Filling and History

“Things that really matter are the things that gold can’t buy, so let’s have another cup o’ coffee and let’s have another piece o’ pie.” Irving Berlin

In the initial years of domestication, life in the kitchen revolved around one step meals. From casseroles to pasta and pie, homemade food was simple, basic and hassle free. One of the first recipes to attempt with the oven were the pie recipes, something that our grandmother used to to do on a weekend basis. Today with dessert pies being the classic in any restaurant, it makes for a welcome change from the usual simple desserts for the weekend lunch.

Interestingly the concept of pie making can be traced to as early as the Neolithic era of Egyptians. Pie essentially meant anything edible encased in a tough pastry shell mainly served as a baking dish, storage container or serving vessel, initially too hard to actually eat. As historical evidence points out, these early forms of pies are known as galettes, which essentially are rustic free-form pies. These pie-like treats were made with oat, wheat, rye or barley; then filled with honey and the dish was baked over hot coals. As Egyptian hieroglyphics and drawings show that the bakers to the pharaohs incorporated nuts, honey, and fruits in bread dough, a primitive form of pastry.

As the Greeks carried over the tradition of galettes; they had modified the pies during their period by making a flour-water paste wrapped around the meat, which served to cook the latter and seal their juices. When the Romans had conquered Greece, they had used various types of meat including oysters, mussels, lampreys, fish in every course of meal, sometimes even dessert . As written in the records of De Agricultura by the Roman Statesman Marcus Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.), the recipe most popular during his era was known as the “Placenta” or “libum”. They were made more like a cheesecake, baked on or sometimes inside a pastry base, these were the initial pie/cake.

Through the gateways of the Roman cuisine, the trend of pie making made it’s inroads into the European cuisine, adapting itself to the local customs and imbibing itself with the traditional cuisine. The initial pies were known as “coffins” or “coffyns” (the word actually meant a basket or box). There were savory meat pies with the crusts or pastry being tall, straight-sided with sealed-on floors and lids. The open-crust pastry (no tops or lids) were known as “traps.” Holding an assortment of meat and sauce components, these pies were baked more like a modern casserole with the crust being the pan, its pastry tough and inedible. The crust was often made several inches thick to withstand many hours of baking. The initial pie prototypes were more savoury than sweet and were a mix of top-cased than open ones (known as tarts today). The sweet pies were more of the “tart” variety.

“Tak gode Applys and gode Spycis and Figys and reysons and Perys and wan they are wel brayed colourd wyth Safroun wel and do yt in a cofyn and do yt forth to bake wel.” (Recipe for apple tart, 1379) Source:The Forme of Cury, A Roll Of Ancient English Cookery, Compiled, about A.D. 1390, by the Master-Cooks of King Richard II.

As to the etymology of the word “pie”, the source may be traced to the magpie, a bird that was known for collecting odds and ends especially the shiny ones and storing them in it’s nest (visualize the similarity). Considering that the Medieval pies also contained many different animal meats including chickens, crows, pigeons and rabbits, the possibility rests on that similarity for the modern word of “pie”.

The modern pies are baked dish, with a pastry dough casing that completely contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients and meant to be eaten. From sweet pies with fillings of fruit, nuts, brown sugar or sweetened vegetables like rhubarb or the savoury pies like the steak pie, Jamaican patty with plain meat, eggs and cheese (quiche) or a mix of the vegetables and meat (pot pie(, pies today are meant to be edible as a whole. And the crusty cover can be made from the typical shortcrust pastry meant for pies or even substituted by powdered biscuits, mashed potatoes, bread crumbs to give a soft or strong edible base or cover.

Modern pies carry a whole lot of tradition and history behind each dish typical of a particular cuisine. Knowing that and adding on to those ingredients, giving the pie making a special flavour and zing tot he final dish. After one of the best places to experiment, experience and recreate the flavours of history is the kitchen.

Posted in Family and Society, Personal Musings, Quotes, Random Thoughts, Work

Trace Not These Steps

Interacting with peers on the neighbourhood level, workplace to society on the whole, one walks through various situations. From the good-natured ribbing to snide remarks, comments are always being passed around, whether one wants to actively join in it or happens in own presence; inevitably it happens. In such moments, getting affected is easy. Among all those remarks, taking some in the true sense and few with a pinch of salt or just let them float above the mind helps.

“Keep on the sunny side.” Ada Blenkhorn

To keep the mind sane and thoughts happen, a lot of just walking away helps. To pass a remark in defense to company who really wants to pull one down, doesn’t really help. Instead time gets wasted in sorting out blurry thoughts all the time, some of which in hindsight, one realizes isn’t really worth it. To keep the thoughts in one’s right mind, one needs to learn when to leave or abstain from joining in purposeless and meaningless thoughts. Once we learn to walk away from the taunts and comments, one learns to embrace the challenges as they come, keeping the mind of reasonable thoughts, sane, happy, clam and at peace with a will to put the inner best forward.

“A lot of walking away will do your life good.
Walk away from arguments that lead you to anger and nowhere.
Walk away from people who deliberately put you down.
Walk away from the practice of pleasing people who choose to never see your worth. Walk away from any thought that undermines your peace of mind.
Walk away from judgmental people, they do not know the struggle you are facing and what you have been through. All away from your mistakes and fear, they do not determine your fate.
The more you walk away from things that poison your soul, the healthier your life will be.”
Dodinsky

Posted in Christian, Life, Personal Musings, poetry, Random Thoughts

Setting the Clock Right

Before closing for the weekend, there was a final briefing to plan the schedule for the following week. With a quick glance at the clock, the briefing had started. With a quick glance at the clock, the briefing had started. After the set of instructions said and a slew of ideas discussed, the hands of the clock hadn’t progressed. Or in other words, the clock on the wall was dead.

Each one of us have our own internal clocks, ranging from the physical, mental and the spiritual type. While the former may get it’s due share through workout sessions, balance of the diet scales and taking the stress free zone; it is the latter that at times, needs a push. The human nature needs to maintain it’s innate balance by engaging the emotional, mental and spiritual aspect. When those clocks aren’t wound properly they may fail to function in synchronous with the remaining aspects of human life, creating a chaos within. Each sphere of our life needs help to function properly. By constant prayer, faith and belief in His Word, there would be help to restart our clock when it ceases to function properly. For everything goes as per His Time.

“And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” (Genesis 28:15)

A Boy and His Watchmaker

This watch my father did on me bestow,
A golden one it is, but ’twill not go,
Unless it be at an uncertainty:
But as good none as one to tell a lie.
When ’tis high day my hand will stand at nine;
I think there’s no man’s watch so bad as mine.
Sometimes ’tis sullen, ’twill not go at all,
And yet ’twas never broke nor had a fall.

Watchmaker.

Your watch, though it be good, through want of skill
May fail to do according to your will.
Suppose the balance, wheels, and springs be good,
And all things else, unless you understood
To manage it, as watches ought to be,
Your watch will still be at uncertainty.
Come, tell me, do you keep it from the dust,
Yea, wind it also duly up you must?
Take heed, too, that you do not strain the spring;
You must be circumspect in every thing,
Or else your watch, were it as good again,
Would not with time and tide you entertain.

Comparison.

This boy an emblem is of a convert,
His watch of the work of grace within his heart,
The watchmaker is Jesus Christ our Lord,
His counsel, the directions of his Word;
Then convert, if thy heart be out of frame,
Of this watchmaker learn to mend the same.
Do not lay ope’ thy heart to worldly dust,
Nor let thy graces over-grow with rust,
Be oft’ renewed in the’ spirit of thy mind,
Or else uncertain thou thy watch wilt find.
-John Bunyan

Posted in Daily, Food, Stories Around the World

Third Wave and On…

“Coffee is a hug in a mug.” Anonymous

On a long postponed visit to the extended family line, we had to put in a three hour journey to-and-back. While waiting in the traffic and not being in the principal driver’s seat was an added incentive for window shopping. Naturally the sign of “discount” had your truly squinting to make out the deals. But it was the special offer of “The Flying Squirrel” (exclusively bought online) and Seven Beans that had snared my attention. After seconds of hedging, my husband had the car in park while I made a quick dash for it. With our luck in alignment, the buy didn’t take much time and we were on back homeward bound.

“It’s amazing how the world begins to change through the eyes of a cup of coffee.” Donna A. Favors

Interestingly “The Flying Squirrel” or “Seven Beans” is but two of the many brands caught in the “wave of coffee”. Entering into the artisanal food category, the third wave coffee movement is a retrospective entry of coffee wherein both coffee lovers and manufacturers share the joy and appreciation of high quality coffee. Like fine varieties of wine and cheese, the third wave of coffee explores the connoisseur-ship, stimulation of the senses and exploration of taste in a simple but buoyant cup of coffee. The unique characteristics of that simple coffee bean are highlighted, ranging from the diverse methods of growing, cultivation, processing, roasting as well as the practices and salient variables among the coffee bean cultivars and beverage preparation.

“The first wave of American coffee culture was probably the 19th-century surge that put Folgers on every table, and the second was the proliferation, starting in the 1960s at Peet’s and moving smartly through the Starbucks grande decaf latte, of espresso drinks and regionally labeled coffee. We are now in the third wave of coffee connoisseurship, where beans are sourced from farms instead of countries, roasting is about bringing out rather than incinerating the unique characteristics of each bean, and the flavor is clean and hard and pure.” Jonathan Gold, LA Weekly. (March 2008, Pulitzer Prize winning food critic on the third wave of coffee)

Technically the terminology of “third wave coffee” was most widely attributed to Trish Rothgeb, a coffee professional in an article for the Roasters Guild newsletter titled “Norway and Coffee,” (2003) with the first mainstream media mention in an National Public Radio piece about barista competitions. Although there is a lesser known reference in an obscure trade publication called “Tea & Coffee Trade Journal Asia” (1999) by specialty coffee pioneer Timothy Castle obliquely referring to the same. While the first and second waves dealt in the ready availability and highlight the countries of origin with (or not) of their signature dark roast profile (respectively), the third wave coffee is often associated with the concept of ‘specialty coffee’ with reference to the specialty grades of green (raw and unroasted) coffee beans (distinct from commercial grade coffee) or specialty coffee beverages of high quality and craft. Though coined earlier (1974), “specialty coffee” was meant to refer to high-quality beans scoring 80 points or more on a 100-point scale.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from – or how you feel… There’s always peace in a strong cup of coffee.” Gabriel Bá

There is something in a cup of coffee that is dearly enjoyed across all age groups, from different countries, professions and cultures. To add to one’s own special highlight to that cup of coffee, along with the coffee wave, the addition of a tinge of vanilla, whisky, chocolate, cinnamon, cardamom or hot chocolate, can do wonders. Not to forget the ice-cream for the kids. Little wonder then, one would chose to miss an opportunity to ride “that coffee wave”.