You might think roasting almonds is no big deal, right? You just toss them in a skillet or pan on high or medium heat, wait till they are slightly brownish or maybe put them on a cookie sheet for 15 minutes at 350-400 degree F and they are done.

But you are dead WRONG. Neither of those methods will EVER give you the tastiest roasted almonds EVAH at home.

THIS IS THE SECRET RECIPÉ!!!!! Tattoo it on your arm if you must.

1. Get a stainless steel cookie sheet. Yes, these are seriously the BEST kind, as I am finding out.
2. Spread natural unroasted raw almonds in an even layer on the stainless steel cookie sheet.
3. Crank up the oven to a low 200 to a max of 220 degree F.
4. Set the oven timer to 2 hours. NO less than 2 full hours.
5. Toss the almonds somewhere around the midway 1 hour mark.
6. Wait for 1 hour more and turn off the oven. Don't take the almonds out. Let them cool in the oven on the cookie sheet.
7. Devour the TASTIEST roasted almonds you will have EVER eaten!!

I read this technique in some vegan cookbook long back but I always went the impatient route. I realize now (having slow roasted them on low heat) just how many pounds of non-awesome roasted almonds I must have eaten over the years.

Non-awesome roasted almonds NO MORE!!!

I live in downtown Buffalo, but I don't think I know about many small useful stores within walking distance of my flat. What about you? Have you found some new useful stores around your neighbourhood recently? And no, restaurants and eateries don't classify as "small useful" stores. There are too many around anyway.

I found two:
1. Did you know that we have a full-scale upholstery store in downtown Buffalo that sells just about ANY upholstery fabric you need? It is called "Country Upholstery" and has slightly odd working hours: Monday thru Thursday: 6am - 3pm, not very much unlike the Amtrak station on Exchange Street. Country Upholstery also has a website: It is located at: 475 Ellicott Street

2. There is a leather scrap store on the 700 block of Main Street a few doors north of Chow Chocolat. It sells small leather scraps and resoles shoes that are worn out from dancing. I forgot its name though... But I am sure it also has weird working hours.

I found these two because I was looking for somewhere to find microfiber fake suede for my shoes to silence the heels. I think I will find it at one of these stores, as soon as I make it to them in their weird business hours.

Now, do we have any thrift stores around at walking distance? Found any cool stores in downtown buffalo recently? This is a suggested title now. Start posting!

How many of you cook in cast iron pans and pots? What do you cook in them?

My parents have always made their flatbreads and dosais in cast iron skillets. I always thought they were too unwieldy, uncomfortably heavy and have never wanted them. But my mum pointed out recently that she has nice biceps and I don't, possibly because I cook in light cheap cookware. I don't think that is the sole reason though... but I want to give cast-iron a shot anyway.

If not rippling muscle-building, they might atleast help me brown vegetables and tofu more efficiently and give me some extra iron that I always need.

So what do you guys think? Do you have cast iron pots that you use in your kitchen frequently?

Thinking of starting a freecycle community at Roswell...



I wish Roswell were more responsible about throwing things away in general. I have heard all the arguments about IT security etc. etc. but apart from hard disks, there is really not much security risks in freecycling peripherals. The quantity of IT-related peripherals, non-IT-related reusable "garbage" and other furniture that Roswell throws away into WNY's landfills on a regular basis is ridiculous and environmentally unconscious, especially for a cancer centre.

Something about shuttling from NYC to Buffalo finally did my immune system in and I got some serious allergies earlier this week. I woke up with blood shot burning eyes, highly irritated upper airways and sneezed a million times. I had a meeting later in the day and I decided to take the most logical course - a scaled-up dose of benadryl.

25 mg hardly made a dent in clearing my bloody conjunctiva, so I somehow persuaded myself to go up to 50mg and then 75mg. An evil little voice kept telling me that it was important to not look murderous during the meeting and the drug was just blocking some unseen little histamine receptors somewhere on the surface; how bad could it possibly be?

It was bad.

In fact, it turned out to be the most colossally illogical trippy mistake of the year. I had to write a paragraph-long email to cancel the meeting - a feat that took nearly 1.5 hours to compose. Not only was I nauseous for 4 hours, I was convinced at some point that the everyone in Buffalo downtown was dying. A detail-oriented pedantic voice was telling me that it was important to note that ONLY people with a roof over their heads were dying. I went to the kitchen to wash my face and get rid of the voice, but I could see there was was some REALLY significant p-value to back up this argument in the plaster-cracks just above the sink on the walls...


It followed logically then that I should at least try and bail out of my window. Luckily for me I couldn't get the screen out in a coordinated fashion so I gave up after a while, drank as much water as I could and went back to a sleep-pee-drink-some-more-water-pee-sleep-drink-even-more-water-cycle till I was finally persuaded that everything was fine with my world (well, except for the missed meeting) late in the evening.

No more benadryl for me. I now know what to list under medications to avoid. (e:metalpeter) had a valid point when he pointed out that my low body weight could have had a role in the overdose... I don't think I was even paying attention to the whole body-weight overdose issue once I started on a single-minded mission to clear my bloodshot eyes.

This was probably the single most scary experience after the one where I was pinned immobile to my seat in an automobile collision on an extremely foggy day. I could clearly see my driver with his skull bashed-in by the windshield slumped right in front of me, but I couldn't do anything to help till the police/emergency folks arrived and wrenched me out.

Lunch is served...


Ãœber-tasty cauliflower stew:

• Season olive oil with mustard seeds, urad dal, karuveppelai, coriander seeds, cardamom, dried red chillies and cumin.
• Add finely chopped garlic, ginger, jalapeños and sauté for a bit.
• Add salt and roughly chopped tomatoes and green peppers. Sauté till tomato is mostly cooked and its juices come out.
• Add uniformly chopped cauliflower. Sauté till tender yet crunchy
• Garnish generously with chopped coriander leaves.
• Serve and devour on a rainy day like today!

I really enjoyed Anne Bass's wonderful documentary, "Dancing Across Borders".


In particular, I loved this sequence from the documentary.


It showcases an intense ballet lesson that Sokvannara "Sy" Sar, a Cambodian who came to NYC to learn ballet, takes with Olga Kostritzky, simply the best beginner ballet teacher there can be.
Notice Sy's perfect form and the controlled leg lifts. I wonder if I will ever get there.

I had no idea Google put whole documentaries online on Youtube. You can watch the entire film here:

After pining for yoga class for a month, I finally made it yesterday. Thanks mainly to a strategically timed phone call from (e:Paul), just as I was getting ready to spend the evening in the office.

In class, Erin gave us the option of trying the Parivrtta Surya Yantrasana (compass or sundial pose) or leg splits. I was secretly interested in going the splits way because of my not-so-secret obsession with ballet. But the sundial/compass pose looked pretty cool so most of the class that had an opinion at that point voted in favour of trying it out. I decided to abandon my secret agenda and went with the class.

And, wow! The Parivrtta Surya Yantrasana was totally worth going with the class chorus.



That doesn't mean I reached the full expression of the pose. Far from it. But I ALMOST got there with a yogi's choice scaled-down version. (e:Paul)-Super-Yogi later told me that this pose was tough, even for him. He has a theory that he is only good at asanas that involve upper body strength (but we all know it's just a theory and a flawed one at that, because I did watch him out of the corner of my eyes, and he totally reached the asana!)

After yoga, (e:Paul) and I hung out for dinner. We cooked palak paneer (which, I thought was a slight disaster because our most-probable guess purchase of a "paneer"-like-Italian-basket cheese pulled a meltdown in the frying pan). I should have known better than to have trusted an Italian cheese to behave like paneer or at least have tested it before throwing it all in or just used the most-probably-fry-able Goya Queso Blanco, instead. But I didn't do any of these things.

I guess there is always next time but If you will excuse me, I need to go and bask in my yoga mediocrity and palak-paneer miscalculation now.

According to wikipedia, the US was the world's top producer of cheese in 2006, making about 4,275 metric tonnes of cheese every year. However, the US didn't quite make it to the top ten cheese consumers or the top ten cheese exporters.

Where is all the extra cheese going? Cosmetics? Bricks for cheese houses?