How I nailed the humble upma! Mom’s lesson

Upma is mainly is very simple and easy dish that can be made quickly.

And that is where I underestimated it. I thought, how hard can it be to make upma? Just fry some onion and tomatoes in oil, add some water to it, bring it to a boil and then add sooji in proper ratio of water. No big deal. I can do it.

But my umpa never tasted as the ones I had eaten before that were made by others.

When I was in the Netherlands, it was OK. Just me and my husband had to eat it. But after coming back to India, I was ashamed that I cannot make this simple upma properly. I didn’t have confidence to serve it to anyone.

But then, that day came, when I was at my parents’ place and my mom was to prepare the upma! So I asked her if she will teach me to make it.

It is so stupid of me to not ask her this before. I had my whole life to learn it from her. She is the one who makes one of the best upmas I have ever tasted. I have heard people praising her umpa since my childhood.

I think it is a bit of laziness and a bit of ego that held me back.

Better late than never. Now I have learnt it. And after that I made it 3 times. And all the 3 times it turned out well. Not exactly like mom’s but a loooot better than what it used to be.

So now, I am not going to talk about the recipe but only the small things that make a huge difference in how the upma turns out.

Here are all the tips that I got from my mom!

1. Roast the sooji well. Half roasted sooji will not absorb water properly.
2. Add white udit daal in oil (tadka) and roast it till it is red. It adds different flavor to upma.
3. For 1 bowl of sooji, take 2 and a half bowl of water.
4. After you add sooji to the boiling water, stir it well using the back of the spatula to avoid forming lumps.
5. Keep on stirring till most of the water is absorbed
6. Sprinkle some more sooji so that the upma becomes dry instead of soggy. This sooji gets cooked by the steam itself.
7. Add a spoonful of ghee. It will take your upma to the next level.

That’s it. These are quite simple things which will raise the bar of your upma.

I am thankful that now, there is at least one dish that I prepare well.

Once the lock-down is over, you all are invited to enjoy my upma!! 🙂

So how do you prepare upma? And which is that dish that you have nailed and makes you feel proud? Let me know!

I did my husband’s haircut! #lockdown

I feel so proud of myself! Because the hair cut went really well.

I am thankful to my husband for giving the opportunity to do this!

Well… I tricked him to do it 😛

Few days ago, I was telling him that I want our own house so I can decorate it my way. Right now, we live in my in laws house. And he replied saying, I give you this (our)bedroom, you decorate it. At that time I just said “No, I don’t want a room, I want a house.” But later, when I was thinking, “How is he giving me something that is not his?”

Wait, I am getting to the point.

On the following Saturday, I told him about this thought and then I told him, he can give me one thing that belongs to him. 😀 “Give me your hair to cut!”

He didn’t hesitate much though. And I was ready with the trimmer.

My experience with hair cut was good. With the trimmer, things are very easy. We should just know what level you want to set. We can try with larger number(that will keep the hair long) and slowly move to smaller number as we need. We can use trimmer for side and back hair. But for front hair, we need scissors.

That is a tricky part.

It is when I began to use scissors, I realized how much efforts the traditional barbers put in a haircut. Suddenly I felt respect for the person who invented trimmers!

I had seen this post on FB –

It is not like I wanted to develop this skill of giving a hair cut, but I am glad I did it. Now I am more confident. Thanks to the lock down! My husband also said that he will allow me to cut his hair next time 🙂

Such a sweet heart!

Movie reviews – What if? Mad Max – Fury Road

This is part 2 of my previous post.

What if?

This movie was on my mind for about an year. I had seen its CD in a library. The CD cover had a picture of the lead pair – Daniel Radcliff and Zoe Kazan. Ooh! I like both of them, so I instantly became biased about the movie. Finally, while browsing through Prime movies list, I came across it and decided to go for it.

The movie is a ROMCOM. The leads meet each other when the boy is just about to recover from a broken relationship after about an year and the girl already has another boyfriend. They decide to stay friends and you know how things go from here. All ROMCOMs are the same. It is just the matter of how the show it. Well, this movie is very okayish. Too mediocre. But if you are also fan of the actors, you will be able to laugh on the jokes, feel the heat in the romance, etc. I will not suggest this movie to anyone.

It is my first Daniel Radcliff-non-Harry Potter movie. I was wondering how it is going to feel. Well, I could forget him as Harry Potter look and expression wise but his accent took me back to London. Also, he is an adult in this movie, unlike a teenager in HP. So his expressions are better and not limited to fear, anger and grief.

I have seen few other ROMCOMs of Zoe Kazan. She is so cute and adorable. She conveys the emotions of love, confusion, friendship so effortlessly. On the top of that, she always looks young and naive. She is the same in this movie. What can someone do if the writing is bad? Although here, I would recommend you to watch her other two movies – the big sick and the pretty one.

MAD MAX – FURY ROAD

This movie, I didn’t have on my mind. I was discussing with my husband if we should also take Disney Hotstar subscription and he was like, ‘at least first watch movies that are on Prime!’ SO, I went back to the movie list, and I just thought of giving it a try. I am not a huge fan of Tom Hardy. But I have seen him in other movies.

The movie is pumped with action. It is about the future when the very basic resources like water will be in scarcity, and people will have to fight for it. (we are already in that future, well, kind of) There are human slaves, women used as milk producers, men act as blood bag, and other such weird stuff. The fighters slaves find glory in sacrifice. So thats where we get glorious action sequence.

There is an old king, who has young wives who are treated like a slave. There is a traitor, Charliz Theron, who decides to help them to escape. So the fight begins. For some 20-40 minutes, there is no action from Tom Hardy. He is taken as a slave and turns out he universal (blood) donor, so they take him to the war. One fighters has a blood pipe connected to him directly so that there is continuous supply of the blood while Tom (MAX) is enchained in the front of the vehicle he is driving, exposed to all kinds of weapons.

The action is good. But again, the movie has very typical story line, unwanted people will die in the fight and the leads will make their way till the end by hook or by crook. Of course, they have planned a sequel. But the movie is entertaining.

Have you seen these movies? What is your take? Which other movies you will suggest me to watch? Let me know.

Movie reviews – Lock-down special

So far, in this lock down due to COVID-19, I have managed to see 4 movies.

They were not on my to-watch list but one thing led to the other and here I am writing a quick short review of all of them together.

Parasite

This is South Korean movie that has also one Oscar for  Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. I had heard about this movie then. But I wasn’t curious about it at any point. I just remember seeing this picture and it told me nothing.

Then one of the developers I follow tweeted something about it, and just that one thing involuntarily made me watch the movie. Well, and also the fact that it is on Amazon prime to which I have subscription.

The movie is about a poor family consisting of a mother, father, a son and a daughter who earn their living by doing odd, temporary jobs. It happens that all the four from the family, first the son, then his sister, then the father and finally the mother get different jobs at the same place, in a rich family. The boy works as an English teacher of a rich girl, he robes in his sister as the arts teacher of her(student’s) brother, his father as the chauffeur of the rich father and his mother as house help of the rich mother.
The poor live like a parasite on the rich family. Things get interesting when one night, the rich family is out to celebrate their son’s birthday and the four decide to celebrate their freedom in their house.

The movie depicts the social divide between rich and poor from different perspective. It also talks about battle for survival between the poor themselves.

I liked the movie. The things move quickly and every shot is interesting. However, I don’t know if it is worthy of Oscar. To be honest, they didn’t tell me a story that I didn’t know. They just told it in a different way, spiced up a little. Perhaps they have shown it in a bit sophisticated manner so even the westerners can relate. Cannot say for sure.

Contagion

I got a message on Whatsapp saying that this movie will be telecast on SonyPix and it is about a virus similar to Corona and it spreads across the world infecting and killing millions. The message also said that the movie talks about conditions like social distancing and home quarantine, etc.

SonyPix does not play on my TV. So I just checked if Prime also has this movie. It has. Plus, if you want to watch it in Hindi, then it is available on Youtube.

As the message said, the movie does talk about a corona like virus. It takes us from the first infected patient to the final stage where they find a vaccine and distribute it among the people. They have shown how the doctors investigate the spread of virus. They have to find the number, Rnot, the number of people a single person can infect.

The movie becomes interesting especially because we are experiencing all this at this very moment. When we see an infected person holding to a pole in the bus, coughing, touching his face, we feel it so intensely.This sh** is actually happening to many people right now! It bothered me. It might bother you as well. Also the fact that this movie was made in 2011. How did somebody predict that?

After all, it is a movie. It also mentions various people and their obvious behaviours in such times. Thankfully, most of the people are good.

The cast is too good, all my favorites. If you are locked down, you must watch this movie. If you are scared, you will be more catious.

The reviews of the other 2 movies, will be in the next post.

I will really like to know if you have seen these 2 movies? I really like to discuss movies. Let me know what you think.

I pledge

To use less plastic
To use water wisely
To not waste any food
To make minimum use of electronic smart devices
To conserve energy in whatever form
To take care of my own garbage
To do one thing for the nature everyday
To be kind to elderly
To be kind to everyone irrespective of anything
To do my duties religiously
To enjoy every day to the fullest

What do you pledge for?