Foodilicious!

Roasted Raan

Neither am I a connoisseur of food and drinks nor am I a gourmet, I am just a plain and simple foodie. I am, as the definition says, a complete amateur food lover who loves food for consumption, study, preparation and news.

You can never be a foodie if you are a fussy eater. A foodie always has an experimental attitude and can dare to try out any dish. A foodie is also usually a good cook. It’s the love for food and cooking that turns otherwise normal humans to foodies!

Mexican Enchiladas

How I became one? Well, my parents are both excellent cooks. Sundays were never without succulent preparations of raan (hind legs of goat/lamb) or crabs. They would experiment, try out new condiments and come up with gastronomical delights. I remember, my father had once prepared Chicken Chettinad and added a dash of oregano to it which had given the dish a whole new dimension! Sundays were always looked forward to and the joy of sitting and dining with family even if it was for one day in the entire week was like an icing on the cake.

Spanish Paella de Marisco

I would skim magazines for recipes and re-work them to my taste. Thus I began cooking at quite an early age of 13, under parental supervision of course! My mother taught me the importance of chopping the right way to get the perfect taste. For example, if the onion or tomato is chopped a tad bit larger than necessary it might make the dish way too sweet or sour. Chopping, I learnt, can change the whole dynamics of cooking.

Italian Cotoletta alla Milanese

My father, a hard core non-vegetarian, introduced me to various meat and vegetables and thus helped me to develop a versatile taste. From the usual chicken, mutton, lamb, duck, pork, beef and prawn to the rare venison, squid, octopus, salmon, tuna and mackerel I have had it all.

Thai Nasi Paprik

I am crazy about different international cuisines as well. I mean who does not like steaks, sizzlers, tortillas, nachos, pasta, noodles, tacos etc.? But having travelled a few countries, I have had the opportunity to try out some international cuisines in detail. Spanish paella, Lebanese falael and baba ghanoush, Mexican enchiladas, Italian cotolleta alla milanese, Thai nasi paprik and Malaysian gulai ketam are just a few of my favourites. 

Malaysian Gulai Ketam

The trick in trying out new delicacies in when visiting new countries does not lie in dining at expensive restaurants. A walk down the streets of a local market should do just fine. But this act might be a tad bit risky in Bangkok unless you want to end up gorging on grasshoppers and cockroaches! Mmmm...yum food for thought?

Geek? Naah! Tech Savvy? Oh Yeah!

My first brush with technology was when I was about four years old and someone had got me the handheld, blue and yellow video game. Oh it was a beauty! I would play with it all day with my fingers never tiring. I would show it off to all my friends but never let them touch it. I was happy and content with my rectangular box who never left my side, until one day I decided to sit down with my father's tool box and open the device. I had to use both hands to hold the screwdriver and unscrew the back cover. That was the last I saw of it. The video game stopped working after that of course.

I was sitting on the veranda, one afternoon, with a storybook in my lap and dreaming away when I heard our car halting outside the gate. Dad was home for lunch! He climbed up the small flight of stairs cradling a huge box in both his arms. Curiosity got the better of me and I couldn't wait for him to finish lunch. By the time he finished, my nimble fingers had managed to open the heavy packaging and I was staring at a big, white, rectangular box with a strange looking open in the middle. Dad came in and introduced me to my first video game console. In half an hour I learnt everything from connecting it to the TV to inserting the cassette and also changing the games and their settings. Mario and duck shooting, of course, became my favourite games. Mom and I competed with each other at Mario, Duck Shoot, Jewel Tetris, and the Olympic Games, never once paying any attention to the action games like Space War and Speed Racer.

I outgrew the craze for video games and took to computer based games when I was about 13. Dave, Mario, Prince of Persia, and Contra (!!) had me dazed. Spectacles didn't come as a surprise to my parents though for I was stuck in front of the computer whatever little time I had at home after school and practice. By the time I was in class 9, I knew how to assemble and disassemble a computer, a quality quite rare in girls of my age at that time (2005). Dad got me the internet connection after I complete my ICSE Board Exams. Six years have gone by since then and I have grown more tech savvy by the minute. Of course children now have more access to technology like XBOX, Play Stations, etc. than I had as a child.

Thanks to WEB 2.0 which made the internet more participatory, surfing is a complete feast for someone like me. Anything to do with a computer or laptop is never boring for me. I lap all information up like a hungry wolf. Learning softwares is easy too; all you need is some attention to detail. Surfing really helps! If you are ever stuck with the installation of a program or don't know what to do next, just GOOGLE it! I have a lot of friends who find it a task to manage their computers and programs but I always say, it is all about following the instructions. The computer is driven by set instructions programmed in to it and guess where this method is copied from? You guessed it! THE HUMAN MIND. Yes, even we are programmed to function the way we do, react and have reflexes. So why should the computer be any different?

A friend of mine had once asked me, "How do you know so much about computers, softwares and technology?" "Browsing and surfing," was my blunt reply. It's true! The next time you are using a program for the first time, don't panic, just browse through it's tools and 'Help' tutorials. You will learn more doing it yourself than some teacher lecturing you. Not boasting here, but I acquired a first class diploma in Multimedia softwares like the Adobe Creative Suite, Macromedia Flash, QuarkXpress, Macromedia Freehand, etc without attending a single class in the course I had enrolled for. I learnt it all at home, doing it by myself!


This post has just been about why I am so passionate about computers and technology and I hope you have enjoyed reading and relating with it yourself. Keep following my blog for more on technology and how easy it is to be tech savvy. But my next post will be about food, hey let's not forget I am a crazy foodie too! 

So stay tuned and stay happy!

Picture Courtesy: Cedar Electronics Limited

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