Everyone who watched this great athlete Michael Phelps win the Olympic Gold medals held him in awe. The television stations then transmitted his rigorous practice schedule and his hours of swimming day after day after day.
So the news that he smoked marijuana in a party , hit the headlines and everyone wanted to comment on his actions.
This incident recalls to mind the many public figures who face reprimands for their actions in the public eye. It seems to be the price to pay for their...

Technology and innovations have come a long way. I know how much has changed just in my kitchen.
From the days I sat near the grinding stone which looked large and menacing while my grandmother used to grind batter for idli and dosa to the days when refrigerator is present in all kitchens. From the small grinding stone present inside the kitchen to grind fresh coconut pastes for sambhar and kurma now we have not just the blender and mixie but immersion blender and food processors.
Not...

Last week celebrating Karthigai I made traditional items such as Sweet appam, pori urandai, Adai and vadai and bonda, avial etc. Of all of these my usual standards for all these years are always appam and adai and avial.
Some of friends who visited me commented at my choice of combination. I served Adai with jaggery and butter and avial.
Everyone present had adai with mulagai podi. Most of my friends are from Thanjavur so I thought to myself they don’t know the right combo to...

My friend's daughter came to give me a demonstration for a set of knives. My friend had called and requested I see this demo by her daughter a college student.
By doing a demo she earns money even if the prospective customer does not buy anything. For my friend's sake I agree and so welcomed this young girl who came with a big bag.

In it were a big case of knives and then some literature about these...

Winter was definitely on the mild side in Chennai and Madurai where we grew up. We can really narrow the winter months to December and January at the most. Other months like November and February can be considered as Fall if so.
Winter was marked by the vegetable we used to get then. One of the famous, at least famous in my family was Koorkan Kizhangu.
This is a root vegetable similar to potatoes and its size was small more like baby potatoes even smaller. Would be dark in color and...