Types of Kitchen Stoves and appliances

Every country has different types of kitchen stoves and it is very important for expats to have knowledge of kitchen stoves and respective kitchen utensils to use with kitchen stoves. For example, you will need special utensils to use with induction stoves.

1. Flame stoves

2. Induction Stove

3. Ceramic Stove

4. Hot Metal plate/coil based

Likewise, for health reasons, we should avoid the use of plastic as much as possible in every form. Thus, we should use steel utensils or glassware for cooking, storing and serving food. We should glass bottles for water. We should not use canned food and canned beverages because of the BPA coating. We should not reuse the plastic tubs of yogurt and other foodstuffs.
 We should strictly avoid the TEFLON coated non-stick.


Spoons: After coming to Switzerland, I have observed so many different types of spoons and spatulas, that really makes me think what are they meant for.

1. Funnel Spoons
2. Olive spoons
3. Pasta Spoon

Baking: Parchment paper: non-stick, heat-resistant, moisture-resistant specially treated for use in the oven.

Wax-paper: it is non-stick as it is treated with wax both sides; so do not use it in the oven as wax may melt or ignite.

Appliances:

1. Coffee Machine
2. Coffee Grinder
3. Bread Toaster
4. Sandwich maker
5. Mixer Grinder and juicer
6. Electric Tea Machine
7. Electric Kettle
8. Smoothie Maker

Grill: When the heat source is above or below the food and it is cooked by the dry heat using thermal radiation. When the source of heat is above the food, it is called broiling. It is cooking at a very high temperature and thus cooks fast.
Types of grills:

1. Charcoal grill
2. Gas grill (Propane)
3. Wood grill
4. Electric grill
5. Combo

BBQ: when you need to cook the food for a very long period over a low temperature.

Conventional oven: It has 2-heat sources above and below the food. If the heat is coming from below and hot air rises, so the upper chamber in the oven will always be hotter than the lower chamber.

Convection oven: It has 2-heat sources above and below the food along with fun that circulates the dry heat and cooks the food more evenly.

Baking: It needs dry air for cooking or to say baking the food.

Get together gossip topics

This thing has always intrigued me that when men and women meet in get together, what is their topic of discussion.

I have observed when men meet, they usually discuss the following:

1. Sports and games

2. Money and financial affairs

3. Politics

4. Women and Sex

5. Movies

6. Travelling and Adventure

7. Business

8. Cars and gadgets

9. Hobbies: Gym

Whereas, the following are the common topics for the females gossip:

1. Husband; Children; Family and relatives, especially mother-in-law

2. Home and its care, cleaning

3. Food and Cooking

5. Beauty care and products

6. Latest fashion and accessories

7. Movies

8. Shopping

9. Traveling

What do you guys usually discuss in your get together with friends and family, do comment me.

AM I an NRI

If an Indian Citizen(or Indian passport holder) lives outside of India for over 182 days in a year is an NRI i.e. non-resident Indian.

To open an NRI bank account, banks needs a valid visa status/work or resident permit proof on your passport.

There are two types of bank accounts for the NRIs: NRO and NRE

When you change your status to non-resident Indians: Firstly, we need to change our existing resident saving bank accounts to the NRO(we can deposit money, but taking out money is conditional). TDS (30.9%) is deducted on the interest earned on the Fixed deposits or savings.

If we need to  deposit or take out money frequently to and from the bank account in India, open an NRE account.

An NRI cannot open a PPF account. But, he can make contributions to an existing PPF account.A PPF account matures in 15 years.

You need to update your KYC with the financial institutions.

You need to convert your credit/debit cards to the international cards. Do ensure whether your card is part of the Global ATM Alliance else you need to pay the fees.


We need to activate the international roaming on the Indian mobile number to receive the OTP on the phone.

Traffic signs

I had this thinking that I do not drive a car, so I do not need to know about the traffic rules. A bicycler or a pedestrian should have equal responsibility while sharing the road with the follow drivers and they must also possess the complete knowledge of traffic signs to make sure their own safety.

Triangular signs are meant for warning.
Circular signs are mandatory or prohibition .
Rectangular sign is for supplementary or information.

Stop sign: It indicates to the driver a complete stop to give Right of way to others.

Yield sign(upside down triangle): It indicates slow down and see if the way is clear, then you can move. If not, then give right of way to other traffic or pedestrian.


Refuge island without traffic lights(Pic courtesy:wikipedia )

Hollywood

I have a Hollywood Cinephilia. Here goes the list of Hollywood movies I enjoyed watching from different genres.

1. 300:Rise of an Empire
2. Titanic
3. Ipman
4. Jurassic Park
5. Transformers
6. Kong: Skull Island
7. Valerian and city of thousand island
8. Jaws
9. Deep Blue Sea
10. Deadpool
11. wonder woman
12. The Iron Lady: Biographical
13. The Danish Girl
14. Th Spy next door
15. Blue Lagoon: the awakening
16. Flightplan
17. Awakening
18. Uncle Buck
19. Angry Birds Movie
20. City Slickers: Oscar-nominated comedy movie of 1991
21. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
22. Hangover Part III
23. XXX
24. Pacific Rim
25. The Perfect Storm: A book and a biographical movie 
26. Jack the giant slayer
27. Constantine
28. Nutty Professor
29. Fifty Shades of Grey
30. 47 meters down: A survival horror film showing cage diving
31. batman vs Superman: Dawn of justice 
32. Snake on the plane
33. Shrek after forever
34. Anaconda
35. Jurassic Park 3
36. Happy Gilmore
37. Music and lyrics
38. Ferris Bueller's day off
39. Man of steel
40. Non stop
41. As good as it gets
42. Patch Adams
43. The Scorpian Kind- from the Historical Fantasy genre
44.  Mission Impossible 2
45. Fantastic Four
46. Worlds Apart
47. Planet of Apes
48. How to train your dragon
49. The Conjuring 2
50. CJ7
51. Enter the Dragon: Bruce Lee's last movie before his death at 32.
52. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
53. Ace Ventura: When nature calls
54. Mama Mia
55. Pretty Lady
56. Underworld: Awakening
57. baby's day out
58. Herbie: Fully Loaded
59. Drakula: untold
60. Child's Play
61. 2 Fast 2 Furious
62. An incredible hulk
63. Cinderella
64. The Great Wall
65. Suicide Squad
66. Fred Claus
67. Seven
68. Sissi
69. The catcher in the rye
70. A Dog's way home
71. Captain Marvel
72. SpongeBob SquarePants 
73. My Sassy Girl (Korean movie)
74. Rusalka Opera
75. Radioactive
76. Wonder
77. Little Rascals
78. Blind Side
79. Selma
80. One night in Miami
81. What Men Want

All confusion around the bra

It is one of the most challenging topic for many of the females and some time very frustrating too.
So, in this post I am trying to demystify it little for all of us.

1. t-shirt bras: These are padded bras(to prevent the nipple show), usually seamless and underwired.

2. sports: they usually don't have molded cups protection.
sports bras for low impact exercise and sports bra for high impact exercise.

3. Push-up bras: It is untrue that these are only meant for smaller breasts. These are usually underwired and heavily lined(both at the bottom and sides). Such bras create great cleavage and go well with low-cut dresses.
Three different levels of push up bra: gentle, moderate and explosive.

4. demi cup bra: These bras cover only half of the bust i.e. cups of these bra cover only half of the bust.

5. Halter bra: These bras go well with the tank tops, strapless dresses, tube tops or racerback tshirts.

6. Adhesive or stick on bra

7. Balconette bra: Height of the cups are shorter and straps are set more wider than normal. These bras are more revealing. Straight across  neckline.

8. Plunge bra: Standard plunge bra: Looks more like a push up bra but with even less coverage at the front of the neckline. These bras have cups that are very low in the centre with a deep V-neckline and thus wires at the bottom front of the bra are very short.

Full coverage plunge bra: plunging V-neckline. more support + open neckline
Medium plunge: where does lie the center gore or bridge.

9. Bandeau Bra: No straps, no hooks, no cups.

10. Full-coverage bra

11. longline bra

12: Bralette: no underwire, unpadded , unlined(no lining, thus nipples might look through)

13: Nursing or maternity bras.

Design:
1. regular back bra
2. racer back
3. J-hook or cross over back strap
4. G-hook

Styles:

1. Padded(it might have removable padding as well) vs unlined bra: unlined bras can be demi cup, balconette, bralette.

2. Seamed vs Seamless bra. Seamed bras have seams running through the cups.

 Types of seams:
i. Horizontal seams: For more conical shape of the cups.
ii. Vertical centre seams: for uplifted look
iii. diagonal seams
iv. transversal seams.

No doubt seamed bras give better support, but seam line showing through the clothes may look awkward. But you can wear seamed bra with dark and printed clothes.

Seamless bras:

Types of cups:
i. Soft cups: Such cups does not provide much support. wire-free cups
ii. molded cups:

Bra cup style:
1. Balconette: Little smaller than demi cups.
2. Balcony cups: wider straps, goes well with most square and open necklines.
3. contour cups: Ideal for any woman.
4. demi cups:
5. full cups
6. lined cups:
7. Minimizer cups: goes well with shirts.

Demi cup  or balcanette bras are most common and used on routine basis.

'Indomitable Spirit' by the former president of India Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam

It has been a few days I have started reading a book 'Indomitable Spirit' by the former president of India Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam. I really admire him for the kind of work he has done for my country and also for his determination, dedication, and sincerity. In today's world of instant feel good and quick results, I am not getting the kind of satisfaction I wanted to draw from reading this book. However, whatever it is saying makes sense. This book talks about how different people and incidences influence our lives like our teachers, our education system, etc. I didn't have the choice to select my teachers, parents or education system. But, I am looking for something that could make me feel better, happy now. The only message I have drawn from reading this book so far is how to be a good parent, a good teacher and a good influencer. Being a female, you are always reminded that 'your body clock is ticking', sometimes it feels like you are sitting on a time bomb. This book gives me the comfort that the purpose of having a family should not be just filling a gap of your life to make yourself complete and a fit for the society, rather it is a big responsibility and should be taken seriously. Being an independent, educated woman, I have always valued my salary over the joy of contribution to my work field. This book makes me redetermine that the purpose of the job should not be just to earn money and pay the bills rather adding value to society. And purpose of education should not be just able to read and write, rather be a life-long autonomous learner. I think these are the skills that give purpose to our life and keeps the modern-day diseases like depression at bay.

When I reflect back on my own attitude being a lecturer in a college, I had the attitude that just knowing and explaining the academic content to the students is the only job of the teacher. Now, I realize being a teacher is such a big responsibility. What I was doing then was just reacting to the attitudes of the students. I think this is the big takeaway personal realization for me from this book.

Various food categories and associated terminology

Nowadays shopping is not only about buying the goods and paying the money, and you are done.

There are so many advertising things that often makes you confusing, but a good knowledge of such things can greatly influence our decision.

1. Organic or Bio: It indicates 95% of the ingredients used are natural or organic.
2. Ecocert: 95% of its ingredients are plant-based and at least 10% of all its ingredients by weight are organic.
3. Cereal: It is a grass which produces edible grains like maize (Makka in Hindi), wheat, rye, barley(जौ), oats (जई) etc. This grass is grown as the agricultural crop.
4. Jawar ka atta: White millet or sorghum
5. Eggs: free-range or cage-free; Pasteurized or non-pasteurized
6. Milk: Raw or Pasteurized(or UHT i.e. Pasteurized at ultra-high temperature, so even no need to refrigerate.UHT is for long shelf life ).Another thing associated with milk is fat percentage or skim milk. Homogenized or non-homogenized. Homogenized milk does not allow to form a cream layer at the top while boiling. A milk can be pasteurized and non-homogenized, homogenized but not pasteurized as well as pasteurized and homogenized. Pasteurization is followed by Homogenization. Again, homogenization increases the shelf life of the milk. 
7. cold pressed oils
8. Kochbutter Vs vorzugsbutter(i.e. cooked butter vs preferred butter): The fact that cooked butter is inferior to the preferred butter is negated by experts and retailers alike. The only difference is that with cooked butter up to 10 percent foreign cream and/or frozen butter can be processed. Preferred butter is always 100 percent Swiss cream.
9. Polished vs Unpolished rice
10. Polished vs unpolished lentils
11. Olive oil: It is so much in trend these days. Olive oil comes in various quality grades. Lower grade is "Virgin", which can be used for cooking and the highest grade is "Extra virgin" which is used for salads. Olive oil is perishable and has its shelf life of only 2-years after its harvest before opening. Olive oil, which has the label estate production is of higher quality because it should have been grown and milled on the form. There are certain geographical indications like DOP(protected designation of origin). Historically, the wines of France have been classified under the AOC or Appellation d'origine contrôlée system: Appellation of Controlled Origin, a classification created by the French government in the 1950s.In the 1960s, Italy created a similar system, modeled after the French: DOC or Denominazione d'origine controllata, Designation of Controlled Origin. In the 1990s, the European Union created a new, overarching system under the aegis of the Common Market Organization (CMO), designed to offer producers and consumers a uniform labeling protocol: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI).

Food containers and symbols

An intelligent consumer always take time to notice the various symbols on the product.

There are usually two types of symbols on the storage container:
1. safe use information
2. Recycling information

1. safe use information
i. Can the container be used for food storage? Cup and fork symbol
ii. is it microwave safe? squiggly waves symbol
iii. is it dishwasher safe? Dishes with water lines or drops i.e. water lines over the dishes show that intended for only top racks; while water drops over the glasses show that it can be used in both bottom or top rack.
iv. can it be used for strong the food in refrigerator? Snowflake symbol
v. Conventional oven safe: mitten sign

2. Recycling Information:

i. Plastics
ii. Glass
iii. Metals: Aluminum, steel
iv 

Home Science and housewives

I never wanted to be a housewife. Now, I wonder how wrong was my thinking. I used to think that a housewife just cleans and cooks, what is so significant about this. Yes, these jobs may seem very trivial, but have an huge impact on our lives, if understood properly. Currently, we are living in such complex and modern world, and surrounded with so many technical advancements. Microwaves, dishwashers, variety of cleaning supplies usually harmful chemical based, we need to be very vigilant and informed what are we serving on the table, as well as what are we using to clean the house.
Overtime, I have developed this thinking that every individual is a house wife or house husband. It should not dislike a house wife, rather I should appreciate the contribution made by informed individuals towards building a healthy society.I always associated home science with the subject intended for only house wives. As in many schools, it is an elective subject, and gave me the impression that one could do without the knowledge of this subject. But, in todays time, I always google the internet to find the things which are usually the core of Home Science.

What are the core components of Home Science?
1. Food, nutrition and cooking
2. Cleaning
3. Health and hygiene
4. Clothing and Textiles
5. Home furnishing and interior design
6.Housing
7.Home Management and consumer education: Budgeting

All about Laundry

1. detergent with odor resistant agents
2. detergent for white clothes
3. detergent for black clothes
4. fabric softner: to make clothes extra soft and easy to iron
5. fabric bleach
6. detergent for colored clothes
7. detergent for sensitive skin
8. detergent for all
9. detergent for baby clothes

All about food

Salads:

1. Lettuce
         
      i.) Romaine Lettuce: It can tolerate heat, so can be used in soups as well.
      ii.) Iceberg Lettuce: This is very heat-sensitive.
      iii) Oak Leaf

2. Desserts

1. Mousse(France): Foam: can be sweet or savory. Usually served chilled with an extra dollop of whipped cream and fruits.
2. Souffle(France): It is baked egg-based dish which puffed-top in nature.
3. Lava cake
4. Sponge cake: Black forest cake.
5. Blackcurrant cake
6. Tiramisu: coffee-based Italian dessert.
7. coffee: French Press coffee
8. Torte: multilayered cake
9. 
   

Cleaning my house

When I was in India, I never thought that cleaning could be such a big thing. Firstly, I used to live in my own house, so I never bothered about how much I need to pay when I have to move out of the house. But, once I have to live in rented apartments and that too in foreign lands like Canada and super clean Switzerland, cleaning kind of become a priority for me. There are so much variety of cleaning products and many brands and I often get confused or feel overwhelmed. So, here I am sharing my journey of learning about different types of cleaning products.

1. Floor cleaners and disinfectants
2. Bathtub/Shower/washbasin cleaner
3. Tiles cleaner
4. Window glass cleaner
5.  Shower glass cleaner
6. Oven/grill and gas top or kitchen counter cleaner
7. toilet cleaner
8. Suction pipe cleaning

Some products are environment-friendly, while others have so many chemicals in it.

1. Chlorine is a very common bleaching agent and has very strong fumes, so we should use a face mask or vinyl hand gloves while cleaning.

2. Ammonia is also a gas and heavily used in cleaning.

3. Borax is also used in multi-purpose cleaning.

Sorting the Waste: One important aspect of cleaning is to properly sort the waste into recyclable and landfill waste. Waste sorting is very important from the environmental cleaning and sustainability point of view. Most people, especially in developing or underdeveloped countries as a fancy thing, but it is the need and demand of today's time for securing the better environment for the future generations.

Plastic is everywhere, it is such a synthetic material that has not left any place unaffected. But, there are different types of plastics, and all plastics are not recyclable or reusable. It is very important to know the various types and uses of plastics to keep our families healthy. Because plastic is a very durable material and last for long, but all plastics are not meant for reuse. Out of ignorance, sometimes we make the poor choice and make the lives of ourselves and our families at risk. Some plastics are not biodegradable and need to be properly disposed of, to keep our environment safe.

For deciding the re-usability and/or recyclability, we need to see the packaging of the product. It can have seven different symbols of "chasing arrows" or Mobius loop with 1 to 7 numbers inside it.

1. PET(PETE): It is polyethylene terephthalate. This type of plastic is recyclable but not reusable i.e. it is intended for only one-time use. It does not contain BPA or phthalates if it is not temperature abused. Otherwise, some studies have shown traces of antimony (a toxic chemical) leaching out from the plastic to the water when kept in the heat for prolong duration.

2.HDPE: It is High-density polyethylene. This plastic can be recycled and is considered one of safest forms of plastics. It is a thermoplastic made from petroleum and can withstand somewhat high temperatures. This plastic is reusable and recyclable.

3.PVC: Polyvinyl Chloride. It is one of the toxic plastic and should be strictly avoided. It is soft and flexible because it uses phthalates, which are very harmful to the endocrine systems. This plastic is non-recyclable.

4.LDPE: Low-density polyethylene. It is considered less toxic than other plastics. It can be reused but not always recyclable.

5. PP: polypropylene. It is a thermoplastic polymer, it means that it is strong, tough, and has high resistance to heat and acts as a barrier to the moisture. Most PP plastics are microwave and dishwasher safe. This plastic is considered food safe. It is considered safe for reuse and less likely recyclable.

6.PS: Polystyrene. It should be avoided wherever possible as it is carcinogenic in nature. It can not be recyclable.

7.Others: PC(polycarbonate): This plastic usually contains BPA, which is very harmful to endocrine health. Polycarbonate gives a very durable, microwave safe plastic.