#Veganuary: Day 4 (All meals)

It’s wedding season in India and that’s the reason I’m getting delayed with my posts. I’m busy designing some stuff for clients. But here’s my day 4 meals. 

Breakfast was dosa. Yes, again. It’s my favourite. So there’s no change in that part of the meal. As for the other meals, it was an interesting mix. 

I had to meet a friend for discussing some work plans. We went to this restaurant near my place, That Madras Place. I love their Parsley Fries. It’s French fries tossed in oil with sauteed garlic, spring oniona and red chilli. It is quite filling but a little on the pricier side. 

For evening snacks and tea, my mother made some steaming hot Earl Grey tea. I ate that with the Brown Rice thattai. It’s a bit difficult not to have biscuits. But with time, you get used to it. 

I was to have dinner all by myself since everyone else had dinner plans. So I called up the owner of the same restaurant, who happens to be a dear friend too and ask her what the vegan dishes are. She said that all pasta cooked in tomato sauce wouldn’t have any butter or cheese as long as I mentioned no parmesan garnish. Apparently, the steamed rice dish with tomato sauce is tossed mildly in butter. So that’s off limits. 

So, I settled for the Tomato sauce pasta. Their quantities are quite big. So I had some that could be munched on the next morning. But it was absolutely delicious. Give it a try when you visit! 🙂 

#Veganuary Day 2: Dinnner

The evening snack was quite filling. After a good cardio session, I made little space in my tummy for dinner. But since I had to order in, I really had sift through vegan options in restaurants. 

It is quite disappointing and frustrating to see that not many restaurants in the city offer a vegan fare barring a few like Ashvita Nirvana and The Brew Room. But even in these places, most of the vegan items are cakes and other desserts. 

I finally settled for crackling potato from Ashvita Nirvana. It is freshly prepared, crisp and crunchy. Fried in sunflower oil and olive oil, this starter is seasonsed with chopped garlic, red chilli ans spring onions. It is a bit oily and heavy on the stomach. Their portions are also big. So, it was a bit much to eat. Saved some for the morning! 🙂

Day 3 updates will come in tomorrow. Sorry about the lag. It’s been a hectic week at work. 

#Veganuary: Day 2 (Breakfast, lunch, snack time)

Day 2: Breakfast, lunch and snack time.

Sorry for a late posting. There was too much work today. Anyway, here is today’s update.

Breakfast was podi dosa again. No change there. I am a killer for crispy, hot dosas and can have them for a lifetime. 

For lunch, we had a combination. My sister ordered some salad from Subway. It had only the mustard sauce and a little bit of chilli. It was healthy and delicious. 

My mother prepared phulkas (rotis) and cauliflower curry. It was thin gravy with peas and tomato. It is tangy and spicy and when paired with rotis, it leaves you asking for more. Then I had rice with yellow dal.

While I was full till my nose after lunch, by snack time I was again scrambling for something in my kitchen shelves. My sister and I then had multigrain bread with vegan Tomato pesto and vegan cheese. The pesto and cheese was a gift from some German friends. I am hoping to find them in Chennai too. 

Well, that’s all for now! See you soon!

Order your 2017 calendars!

Hello there! As most of you know, I am an illustrator and a writer/journo. I design for The Phoenix Company (www.facebook.com/The.Phoenix.Company.India). We have a lot lined up for this year. A website for starters and unique, aesthetic products. 

We begin 2017 with a bang! A one-of-a-kind calendar awaits you. It’s a a perfect combination of beautiful photographs, minimalist doodles (that don’t take away from the aura of the pictures) and some nuggets of wisdom that’ll keep you going through the year. 

In fact, it’s a challenge from us to you to spot the doodle as it is carefully blended into the photograph for every month. Can you? 😀

Simple. Classy. And unique. This table-top calendar is a must-have. 

Pre-orders now open. Sorry for the mild delay. Hope you had a great start to the year!

TO ORDER, comment below or inbox us. 🙂

#Veganuary: Day 1 (Snacks & Dinner)

Day 1: Snacks & Dinner

Snacks are utterly crucial for me. I need to keep munching on something and life is incomplete without the occasional chocolate chip cookie or cupcake. But since that is a complete no-no for a week, I looked up sites that have vegan alternatives. There are a few. But I didn’t get enough time to order in between work. So I just bought mini samosas fried in oil (yes, I agree, fried equals unhealthy. Mental note to self: I will slowly cut down.). 

But dinner was quite different. My mother made a thick broth of pumpkin and coriander stem with garlic. It was delicious but tends to leave a slight bitter aftertaste. If you are having it with toast, it is alright. 

The toast was unique too. It was sunflower seed bread. This is available at the Gormei Market. They are small slices but a pleasant change in flavour from the usual varieties. Since we couldn’t toast it with butter, we used olive oil. The bread was topped with pickled Sundried Tomato which we got from this absolutely delightful place, The Farm, which is on OMR in Chennai. Do visit them! They have some interesting things on their menu. 

I’m going to take a nap now since I’ve got a round belly after eating so much. 

See you folks tomorrow! Do tell me what you think in the comments section. 

#Veganuary: Day 1 (lunch)

Day 1: Lunch 

Tamarind rice and banana chips. As long as it’s not cooked in ghee, this south Indian delicacy is vegan!

#Veganuary : Day 1

So I’m going to go vegan for a week, starting today (January 4 – 11). My mother and sister are joining me in this and I couldn’t be happier. 

I will be posting my meal updates for the next seven days. I think it’s important because these posts can help someone else trying out the same thing. The dishes can be easily found online. If you are based in India, you’ll be familiar with these items. 

Day 1: Breakfast

This morning, my mother prepared crisp Podi dosas and I ate it with coriander chutney. It was delicious. If you’re used to eating dosas made from ghee, then you can substitute it with oil. They are easy to make and can be eaten for breakfast and dinner. 

Stay tuned for more updates on lunch and dinner.

GO VEGAN! IT’S #VEGANUARY!

Before I go on to writing my travelogue, I think this post had to be written. Do read it and please comment and respond if you want to join in or have recipes to share. It will be absolutely lovely to hear from you. Moreover, I will be giving a day-to-day update on my experiences which I hope will be useful for others trying to go Vegan 🙂

——–

Day 70: A fresh start for all of us, perhaps?

So here’s something I want to share with all of you. #January, world-over, is also celebrated as #Veganuary. It’s that time of the year when we a take a pledge to go on a vegan diet for a month. For some, this one month journey has led to them becoming vegan for  life!

Since many find it difficult to undergo a sudden change in diet for a month, they try it once or twice a week, for one whole week or alternate weeks or even a month and then try ways of adopting a vegan diet slowly in their lifestyle, making the shift gradual 🙂 This could involve consciously cutting down on milk products, honey and so on. 

I wrote about it in the newspaper last year and tried it for a week. It was difficult. But definitely, an eye-opening experience. 

This year, I’m doing it again. And my mother and sister are joining me. 🙂 Here’s a shout out to everyone else who wanted to try it or doesn’t mind trying it after reading this post. Doing it in a community always builds morale. And even if you’re doing it for a day, it’s a start. And it counts. 🙂 To all the vegans out there, help us out! Share some amazing recipes. And let’s give our two and four-legged friends a happy new year too! 

The doodle shows 2017 with happy faces of cows, pigs, chickens, bees and so on. :

Please tag your friends if you know they’d be interested 🙂 
The illustration is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. 

“Inside the classroom, there is love and acceptance like there is in few other places”

Teaching is one profession where it isn’t merely the student that’s learning something new. Children are often a mirror of those values that adults seem to lose in their quest for a better life or simply because they wear the mask of adulthood. Whether it’s an undying curiosity or the thirst for learning, young minds can teach us more than we can imagine.

In our second part of this series, we see what chirpy, intelligent and creative adolescents from the 6th to 10th grade learn from 23-year-old Yashasvini Rajeshwar. A Humanities graduate from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M), Yashasvini teaches English as a second language at a private school on the Tamil Nadu-Kerala border. The school caters to children (largely first-generation learners) of the local tribes in and around the area. From learning adjectives and prepositions to having their pieces published in national dailies, the beaming faces of these children coupled with their undying spirit is what keeps her going. As she opens their eyes to the world of Marquez and Wordsworth, she learns a lot more about life and being grateful. 

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE A TEACHER IN YOUR 20s?

There was a time when most of us cribbed about going to school. The incessant ring of the alarm clock would begin at 6am and with groggy eyes, we’d step out of bed and find our way to the shower. Soon, we would gobble down hot idlis, drink milk and hop on to the bus. Not much has changed for a bunch of 20-somethings even years after they finished school, except that they no longer sport a blue or white pinafore but a salwar set or a saree, as they head to their classrooms to teach young minds. Belonging to Gen Y, these youngsters are open-minded, a little low on patience (mind you, they end up really working on that) and a bundle of energy that’s seldom out powered by the jumpy, bright faces of second and third graders they teach. Their fresh, out-of-the-box method of teaching tiny tots seeks to shape the children into curious human beings with a strong conscience.

Celebrating the lives of these teachers, is a three-part series of articles that I’m starting on my blog, which will feature interviews with three teachers sharing their experiences about teaching and working with little ones. Peppered with sweet and heart-warming anecdotes, the blog hopes to open your mind to this wonderful profession of teaching and how, if it’s done right, it can significantly impact young minds.