My Journey of Breakfast

Until I got married, breakfast meant nothing to me or it only meant plain or stuffed parantha with yogurt and pickle with a hot cup of tea. And, on special Sundays, bread toast and sandwiches.

Then, I picked up sprouted beans, fresh fruits, tetra pack juices to fresh juices. Boiled egg and omelet to poached eggs(water or oil poached).

When I landed in Europe, then whole grain rustic bread and rolls with a whole new variety of cheeses and butter and a hot cup of coffee.

Then, I started eating sauteed vegetables as a hot salad in breakfast with mozzarella cheese and olives.

Poha and upma landed somewhere in between this breakfast journey.

My mother-in-law favorite is a piece of white bread with fruit jam or jelly or peanut butter.

My husbands favorite is a piece of white bread with butter, sprinkled with black pepper and sugar.

Lately, I have started eating granola or oats in breakfast, which is known musseli in Europe. And, banana smoothies is also a personal favorite.

A 3-min soft boiled egg is also a newly discovered entity in my Sunday's breakfast.

Buttergipfel - normal croissant made with the maximum amount of butter.
Gipfeli - could be a buttergipfel as well, but it's the regular croissant.
Laugengipfel - the brown croissants coated with some kind of food grade alkali (lye?)
Weggi - pastry roll, usually with a sausage in it. Swiss pinky-in-blanket

Sausages and Salami

Wafer thin Smoked chicken

Smoked Fish.

french style Brioche

Something Technical

1. EVM: Earned value management
2. Selenium: It is a set of tools and libraries that automates web browser actions.
3. Arduino: It consists of a physical programmable circuit board, referred to as a microcontroller and a piece of software known as IDE(Integrated development environment) that runs on a computer, which is used to create and upload program on the microcontroller. Arduino is an open-source hardware and software company that manufactures single-board microcontroller or microcontroller kits for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense objects in the physical and digital worlds.
4. NodeMCU: opensource IoT environment. 
5. Types of work organizations:
1. Corporations(corporate jobs): These are meant to make profits. So, its employees have to work really hard to always be a good performer. These are big companies, lots of meetings and paperwork.
2. Startups
3. Entrepreneur
4. Private Limited companies
5. Public Limited companies
6. Spring Framework (Spring) is an open source software development framework that provides infrastructure support for building Java-based applications on any deployment platform. Released in June 2003 by Rod Johnson under the Apache 2.0 license, Spring Framework is hosted by SourceForge.

Shopping Mall

I love to visit shopping malls. There are so many interesting shops that you might like to explore.  I always like to put the things into the categories. Following are a few categories you always find in any big shopping mall.

1.  Beauty Products
2. Cameras and Photos
3. Wellness Products
4. Baby Products
5. Books
6. Mobiles Phones and Telecom specialist
7. Pharmacy and Perfumery
8. Lingerie and Swimwear
9. Women's, Men's and Children's Fashion
10. Watches and Jewelry and Accessories
11. Hairstylist
12. Grocery
13. Sports Shop
14. Home and Consumer Electronics
15. Video Games and consoles
16. Shoes
17. Bookstore
18. Travel Center
19. Optician
20. Toy store
21. Food Court
22. Event area

Christmas

Nutcracker:

It is again that time of the year, autumn, with the crunch of dry leaves under my foot, gives me an indication that winter is approaching soon. And, with the arrival of winter starts the festive season. Colorful electric light clad streets, Christmas tree, family dinners, and exchange of gifts. Streets and trees are also clad with fresh white snow, backyards are displaying the beauty of snowman, it seems heavenly! During Christmas time markets are beautifully decorated and flooded with gift options. One particular item that really amused me was 'Nutcracker'. It is something which is found only Christmas time in the stores. I was first introduced to this amusing toy or doll in Canada. And, during Christmas, Christmas- themed shows are also put up for the family fun. One of the classics in this theme is 'The story of Nutcracker'.

Fiddler on the roof:

Marcel the Moose: A story of a deer named Marcel.

Another thing that I recently discovered while my stay in the Christmas dominated countries is that kids leave milk and cookies for the Santa on Christmas eve, indicating the message of sharing and caring with others.

Christmas Tree: It is not a pine tree.

Lighting:

Strasbourg: One of the oldest Christmas Market in Europe.
  

Journey of beds

In India, to date, traditional, heavy wooden beds are common. In Bengal, it is the wooden canopy style beds which are very common. Another trend, I saw in India was the wrought iron beds. Storage beds are also a common style in India.

But, when I moved to North America, I found a whole new world of furniture. My first encounter was the inflatable mattress. The next encounter was with the platform bed, which has a metal platform to put the mattress on it. When I moved to Europe, I found another kind of bed or say boxspring type bed.

While in India, I knew that bed comes in only two sizes, single or double. While exploring the world, I also got the chance to explore the world of beds. Beds to come in a variety of sizes, single, double, twin, king and queen size. During my recent travel to Germany, I also came across a new term i.e. French Bed. I started dreaming something very elegant and romantic, considering such a poetic image of Paris. After exploring little on Google, I found that it is a fancy word to mention about a small bed. In case you are investing in a wooden bed, there are different kinds of wood to select from, like pine, oak etc.

140 cm wide is a double bed.
160 cm wide is a queen bed.
180 cm wide is a king bed.

200 cm long is good for anyone with height under 6'2".
A lot of emphases is put on the mattress.

Accessories:

1. Fitted Sheets
2. Blankets
3. All season Quilts
4. Duvets
5. Pillows

Beauty and Woman: Girly Talk

Being beautiful comes naturally to a woman. Though, I strongly believe being beautiful does not necessarily mean the physical, external beauty. You must agree when two girls meet, they always talk about dresses, makeup, shoes, and accessories. And, I am not an exception. Sometimes, I feel the guilt that I am being too selfish by indulging so much into self-care but Self-care is not selfish at all. After coming to Europe, I have fallen into a new love of knowing about all this. I love to put things into categories and classes.

Following is a list of all the categories related to fashion and accessories, that every female aspires to have.

1. Clothing
1. Coats
2. Trench Coats
3. Jackets
4. Quilts and puffers
5. Capes and Ponchos
6. Dresses and Jumpsuits
7. Gowns
8. Skirts
9. Shirts, Tops,  blouses: Button-down shirts; tie-hem shirts; curved-hem shirts; Peasant top
10. T-shirts and sweatshirts
11. Pants and Trousers
12. Jeans
2. Bags
1. clutches
2. Tots
3. shoulder bags
4. Small and mini bags
5. Cross-shoulder bags
6. Backpacks
3. Fragrances
4. Scarves
5. Accessories
1. Wallets and card cases
2. Hats and gloves
3. Sunglasses
4. Belts
5. Keys and Handbags charms
6. Jewelry: Jute; Dogra; Oxidised
7. Watches
6. Makeup and cosmetics
7. Footwear: Shoe love is true love
1. Specification: Insole
1. Outsole: rubber, TPR, EVA
2. Insole
3. Inner material
4. Outer Material
5. Color
6. Functionality: water and wind resistant
2. Sandals or flip-flops
3. Flats: lace-ups, driving mocs, slip-on mule
4. Boots
5. Sneakers
6. Pumps: High heels(heel is over 2 inches) or kitten heels: where the front of the wearer's toe is covered i.e. closed toe without buckles. Formal shoes.
7. Wedges: Sole of the shoe is flat and think.
8. Stilettos: Pencil heel
9. Ballerinas
10. Open Toe
11. peep toe
12. Ankle strap
13. T strap
14. Sling Back
15. Kitten heels
• Types of Heels
1. Block heel
2. High Heel
3. Wedges
4. Kitten Heel

Luxury Fashion Brands

1. Burberry: London
2. Michael Kors: American
3. Gucci: Italy
4. Coach New York
5. BCBG: America

Phir Zindagi...

It is a beautiful, sensitive Hindi movie with a message. Life keeps throwing challenges and sometimes we are in a total dilemma.  How a mother, portrayed by Ratna Pathak Shah, makes the heart-wrenching decision of donating the organs of her young but brain-dead son. His young son was the victim of a road accident and was not wearing the helmet and suffered the severe internal brain damage.

This incident reminded of an incident happened with one of my dear friends a few years ago when she lost her husband due to the liver failure and could not find the matching donor to save the life of her husband.

The other character in this movie is played by Nasruddin Shah, which is my all-time favorite. He performs extraordinarily well in the sensitive roles.

The information is only brain-dead people can donate their organs. And, the message is why is it so important to protect ourselves from the head injury.

Love Locks or pyar ka thaga

Bengali Vs Punjabi food

After my marriage into a Bengali family, my whole grocery list changed. The first course of a Bengali meal is bitter, which is usually in the form of Shukto.

1. Raw banana or cooking banana
2. Drumsticks: tak
3. Pumpkin; tak; jhal
4. Beigun or Brinjal: sukto; sarsoin; jhol
5. Bari; charchari
6. Kerala or Bitter Gourd: sarsoin; fry; charchari; sukto
7. Potol or pointed gourd
8. Pepe i.e. Raw papaya: dal; jhol
9. Aloo
10. Rang Aloo
11. Mustard Paste
12. Chichange
13. Sim: tarkari; ga makha makha sarsoin
14. Saag: palak; pui saag; lal saag; mooli saag

All the vegetables are cut in long.

The ingredients needed for Tok are:

1. Mustard seeds or Paanch Phoron
2. Tamarind
3. Bari
4. Drum sticks
5. Mooli
6. prawns

Sukto: drum sticks; aloo; raw papaya; begun; raw banana, bitter gourd, drum sticks, kerala: cut all vegetables long, add panch foron, fry all the vegetable, add water, mustard paste and at the end ghee and milk.

How to make halka jhol:

You will need raw banana, pepe, aloo.
All veggies will be cut long.

First add some mustard oil, paanch phoron or kalo jeera, dry red chilli, fry the vegetables little, then add some water.Wait for the boil, then add turmeric, salt, red chilli and at the end jeera(it is a must).

You can follow the same recipe with Aloo, Kochu, baigun, bari and seem with or without mach.

In Bengali cuisine, nothing is wasted. Each and every part of the vegetables or plat is used. So, bengali do use flower for cooking, before marriage, I only knew about the gobi phool and after entering into a bengali household I came to know about other edible flowers like Bauk phook(Agastaya Flower); Kumro phool; Banana blossom; Sajana danta phool(drum stick flowers);Jukti phool also known as sneeze wort or green milkweed climber or green wax flower. 

Janam Din: Birthday traditions

In West Bengal, the mother prepares the special food for the birthday boy or girl. Payas i.e. rice pudding is a must that is prepared by the mother, however, mothers do not eat the birthday payas of their own son.

The special birthday thali includes:

1. 5 types of fries
2. Dal i.e lentil soup
3. Bhaat i.e. rice
4. Fish Preparation
5. If possible,  chicken preparation
6. 5 types of sweets i.e. Rasgula and Sandesh
7. Churchori

Thali Decoration:

1. One big dish with Rice in it with 5-types of fries
2. One small dish with home-made Payas at the center and 5-types of sweets
3. And rest of the dishes will go in small bowls around the platter.

Bengali Ranna: Bengali Cooking

A Bengali always crave for the Bengali food, no matter where (s)he is posted in the world. No matter, how delicious I cook, but a Bengali does not feel satisfied without Sukto, Charchari, halka macher jhol and tok, which are typical items of Bengali food.
Mustard and poppy seed paste based dishes are all-time favorites among Bengali's like sajana datar posto (drum sticks posto) or in mustard gravy or sajana datar charchari.

Jhal having Potato, danta, seem, vadi, tomato

1. Pui saager Posto: don't make it watery.
2. Baigun Basanti: Add little sarsoin or mustard seeds else it will ruin the whole dish by making it extremely bitter. While making the sarsoin paste, add green chili and a little salt with it.
3. Lentils: 
1. Sona moong dal: Raw mango dal
2. Massor dal: pepe diye massor dal (raw papaya in lentil soup) or lao dal
3. Urad dal
4. Chola dal
5. Toor dal
6. Macher matha diye mosor dal
7. Chana masala
4. Charchari:
1. bengun ucche charchari: Begun, seem, arbi, daler bari, saag, kumro, aloo, rang aloo, mooli with paanch foron, red dried chili, and mustard oil, if not niramish add Prawns.
5. Posto:
1. Ol kopir posto: Cut the ol kopi in thin long strips.
2. Aloo posto: Cut potato in charchari style.
3. Pyaz posto
4. Aloo pyaz posto
5. Ladyfinger posto: cut the lad finger in halves, little fry it, add posto and little water to boil the ladyfingers and make a thick gravy.
6. Chichinge Posto: Lightly scrape the chichinge and cut it in long slices and lightly fry and boil in posto paste
7. Drumsticks posto.
6. Sarsoin (Mustard): You can cook tomato(long, thick cut) with sarsoin for the thickness of gravy.
1. Kerala: always cut in round.
2. Drumsticks Sarsoin: cut in long slices, add a tomato and mustard paste and boil properly.
3. Ilish sarsoin
4. Begun Sarsoin
7. Niramish Jhol:
1. Kalo jeera or paanch foron diye niramish jhol: long cut vegetable: aloo, raw banana, pepe, begun: add panch foron in hot oil with red dried chili, fry all the long cut vegetable for a white then add water and boil it, add salt, red chili, turmeric and let it simmer for a while untill raw banana is soft. 
2. If not niramish: add fish.
8. Bhate bhaat:
1. Masoor dal with onion
2. Masoor, moong dal mix
3. Ladyfinger: make jharas bhaate with boiled potato
4. Potato
5. Begun: make begun bhaate with boiled potato
6. Tomato: make tomato bhaate with boiled potato
7. kumro
9. Maach (Fish):
1. Bhaja
2. Sasoin
3. Posto
4. Jhol
5. Jhal
6. Tel Jhal
7. Bhapa
8. Kaliya
9. Mali curry (in coconut milk)
10. Bhaja
1. Aloo
2. Beigun
3. Jharas
4. Potol
5. Ucche(Bitter Gourd)
6. Green onion and long cut potato.
7. Kumro flower fry
11. Mansoin (meat)
1. Kosa: served in flat plate
2. Jhol: served in bowl
3. In coconut milk
12. Rice
1. Plain rice
2. Jeera pulao
3. Fried Rice
4. Leek Rice
5. Basanti Pulao
6. Payas using Gobind Bhog chawal
13. Types of fish:
1. Aar maach: less bony
2. Betaki (barramundi): Paturi; fish fry; fish kabirazi
3. Bata: cooked entirely; it is a bony fish.
4. Chitol:
5. Kata pona
6. Chara maach
7. Ilish
8. sutki
9. Rohu
10. Pabda
11. katla
12. Pomfret
13. Prawn: Lao chingri
14. Galda
15. Mrigal
16. Mourala
17. Magur
18. Tilapia
19. Parshe
20. Koi
21. Khoira
22. sole
23. Tangra
24. Loite
25. Punti
26. Topshe
14. Dolma or potoler domla: Stuffed potol
15. Torkori
1. Gobi(big florets)+Beingun(long cut)+bari+kochu(long cut)+tomato(long cut) jhal
16. Eggs:

1. Egg devil chop

Banana flower

My fish journey outside India:

1. Cod fish
2. Wild caught Salmon(Pacific and Atlantic)
3. Halibut
4. Prawns
5. Basa
6. Pangasius
7. Forelle
8. Rainbow Trout
9. Pollock
10. Bluefin Tuna: Very expansive and usually used in Sushi
11. Dorada: Spanish fish
12. Tilapia

Maan Kochu bata with mustard

Bengali Spice:

1. Paanch phoron: Black mustard, yellow mustard, cumin seeds, onion seeds, saunf 

Types of Rice:

1. Basmati Rice: White or Brown
2. Jasmine Rice
3. Red Rice
4. Golden Sella
5. Parboiled
6. Sticky Rice
7. Rissoto i.e. Ambrosia Rice
8. Dehradun Rice
9. Raw Red rice: polished or unpolished
10. Wild rice

Jaggery(Gur):

1. Jhola gur
2. Kajoor gur
3. 
   

Bread:

1. Pitai Parontha
2. Muglai Porontha
3. Malabar porontha

Fish preparation:

1. Fish fry
2. Fish cutlets: Boil fish with little salt and turmeric and mash it with boiled raw banana and potato; season it and fry
3. Batterfry
4. Tandoori

Desserts:

1. Peethe(suuri chaler peethe)
1. Pati sapto
2. Cheena

Tip:

1. If drum sticks get dry, so soak them in water for some time before cooking.
2. 
   

Health Journey

Nowadays, people have become health conscious. With the sedentary lifestyle, life has also become challenging health-wise. With the advancement of technology and the medical field,  no decline in health issues seems noticeable.

1. Vitamin D: For the last two decades, the deficiency of vitamin D is heard quite often. Maybe it is one of the lifestyle blunders we are doing unknowingly i.e. following a fat-free diet. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin,  and lack of healthy fats in our diet makes it hard to absorb enough vitamin D in our bodies despite taking enough sunshine or vitamin D supplements. Vitamin D supplements should be taken during daytime for better absorption into the body. The excess of Vitamin D in our body is not good for our bodies either.
2. Iron: Females usually suffer from the deficiency of iron due to monthly periods. Deficiency of iron is closely linked to hair fall as well. According to Ayurveda, vata dosha (the excess of air component) also causes hair fall. A regular good scalp massage for 6-months can help in thickening of hair as well as regrowth, some trials in research have shown encouraging results.
3. Vitamin B12: The main source of Vitamin B12 is animal meat. So, the deficiency of Vitamin B12 is more prominent in those who are vegetarian or Vegan. It can store into the lever. This injection is given in the muscle.
4. Magnesium: This mineral is easily gained or lost through our skin. So, a salt bath is a good source of Magnesium.
5. Probiotics: For healthy gut flora or microflora in our body, people take probiotics pouches. But, we should not take probiotics more than 2-3 months at a stretch.  
6. Wheatgerm
7. Macadamia nuts: Highest fat content among the edible tree nuts; good for skin and hair due to its fat.
8. Brazilian Nuts: Good for thyroid.
9. Kombucha: Fermented tea
10. Refresh Tears: For dryness and irritation of eyes.
11. MgO7: Mag O7 works to break down and remove intestinal debris, helping to create a balanced, healthy gut. Through it's unique and gentle formulation, Mag O7 also works to break down intestinal build up and remove unwanted waste.

1. Probiotic: I used to think that only eating healthy is enough for good health. However, it is partially true. No doubt, eating healthy is the first step towards a healthy body and living. When we eat the food, we first break down the food using our teeth, and enzymes present in our saliva also help to break down the food. It then is swallowed through the neck and goes down to the stomach through the food pipe. The stomach releases the acids (Jathar Agni) and a lot of enzymes that further break down the food. The stomach releases the enzyme called Pepsin, which helps break down the protein.  It next reaches the small intestine. Juices from the liver called biles help to break down the fat; also juices from the pancreas (insulin) and gallbladder helps to digest the food in the small intestine. Whatever food is not digested by the small intestine, reaches the large intestine where it absorbs the water and other useful things and rest is discarded as waste from the body. 
2. Germs are like the invaders to our bodies. There are four major types of germs:

1. Viruses: They thrive in living cells and cause diseases like chickenpox and the flu. To prevent it, get yourself vaccinated, or get shots or get an immunization. 
2. Fungi: Microscopic organisms that can cause rashes and athletic foot.
3. Parasite: That can cause diarrhea. For parasite cleaning, n alkali environment is required for stopping the growth of parasites inside our body. For this, people usually take Besan powder in Europe.
4. Bacteria: That can cause infections like strep throat and pneumonia. In the case of a bacterial infection, a doctor can prescribe the antibiotics.

So, to assist our immune system, we can take dietary supplements with natural bacteria and yeast cultures that regulates the balance of bacteria in our intestine. We need bacterial and yeast strains for the healthy intestinal flora and intestinal mucosa, vaginal flora, oral and pharyngeal flora. (https://www.burgerstein-biotics.ch/) . It is advised that we should not take the probiotic for more than 3 months at a time. 

Endocrine System: They produce hormones. The pituitary gland is a very important part of our endocrine system. The thyroid gland produces hormones which regulate how our body uses the calories from the food we eat i.e. metabolism. Adrenal Gland: It releases hormones to handle emergency situations. Pancreas: It is the largest gland of our endocrine system and produces insulin. Reproductive Gland i.e. ovaries and testes: they produce the estrogen and testosterone 

The nervous system handles the adrenal.

Water bottles and water filters: Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by the information and the modernization. In India, I have been brought up drinking the tap water. Then, we started using the filtered water and again shift came when we started using the bottled drinking water. Then, I heard about the BPA contamination, so further shift came with RO filtered water.

But, when I moved to Canada and Switzerland, I was amazed to see all the big grocery stores are stuffed with drinking water bottles. I asked many about this that why do we need filtered water bottles in developed countries where tap water is so pure and safe. Even I took a tour in Switzerland organized by the municipality about how water reaches in our homes and again asked this question why do I see so many filtered water bottles in the grocery stores when as they were suggesting tap water is so clean, refreshing and healthy. They said it is a big business and they can not comment much on this. It kind of satisfied my curiosity as Switzerland is a big capitalist country. 

But, lately, I come to know about the BPA and lead contamination in the drinking water while getting supplied through water pipelines. I only thought the water should be unpolluted but never thought the water supply pipelines made of PVC, brass and use lead as a stabilizer is of equal concern. Especially in Switzerland, where we take pride in saying that this house or building is 150-years old and so. So, it is quite possible that the water pipelines are made of old material and miss the recent guidelines, which results in water contamination. That is the reason that portable water filters and filtered drinking water is so common in the supermarkets.

Vinegar: It is acetic acid. While wine is ethanol. When wine is fermented with acetic bacteria, it turns into acetic acid.

Nature Love FOOTSPA: This natural therapy foot care treatment claims to promote healthy detoxification and helps to improve metabolism.

Sourdough Bread: This bread is better than regular bread because it is made by fermented starter than the standard baker's yeast. Therefore, it could be easily digested and causes no or less bloating after eating.

Pregnancy: Old wives' tales

There are certain fruits that one should avoid during pregnancy like papaya and pineapple because they may induce labor pain or cause miscarriage.

Infancy: Zincovit Drops are very popular for the infants and ensures infection free infancy. I did not have any idea that infants do need to take the multivitamins and minerals until a friend of mine requested me to bring a bottle of Zincovit drops for her daughter.

One should not drink green tea while pregnant because green tea has too much of caffeine in it.

Montessori Mama