educate and reuse

It is a mystery of the brain, how it is able to retrieve and repeat the same 'feeling' in front of a particular stimuli. I was thinking these past days (when being without job and wasting too much time alone in the house) about why some of the past 'feelings' I no longer experience. I remember when I was very young (14-18 years old) I used to get so emotional about certain stories (from love stories to stories of dying of cats and dogs in Bucharest) and I would immediately dream about them (the next time I would go to bed, of course), or about music, or about movies. Or invent something to get emotional about!

After the age of 20, these feelings continually decreased in sensitivity and also in number. Sometimes my mind, my heart were empty. Empty!

Today - after a long time - I am happy to re-feel the joy of listening to quality music (such as Stranvinsky, Bjork, or even Nicole Kidman, because I adore her, but who doesn't).

I believe that I have trained my system to respond to those stimuli.

fried rice (with omelette)

Cook Basmati rice in a rice-cooker and set it aside when finished.

Cut some onions into small pieces and bake them in olive oil, add Soy sauce (light and dark) plus Oyster-sauce, add the rice and put herbs to it (coriander, turmeric, cumin seeds).
Bake it and stir.

Stir fry vegetables (fresh or deep frozen) which you have been cutting into small pieces (you may use, bones, carrots, spring onions etc). Add above herbs also to this pan.

Bake an omelette (5 eggs) and cut it in small pieces.
Mix rice, vegetables and omelette, add some more soy sauce and oyster sauce if you like.

potatoes (aloo)

2 medium potatoes cut small pieces, one onion cut, a little ginger and garlic.
Spices: turmeric, coriander, salt.
First fry few cumin seeds (half of tea spoon) in oil until it starts to smell. Add the onion, garlic, ginger and fry them a little.
Add the potatoes and spices. Add the lid and keep it in low fire.

Check from time to time to see if the potatoes are done.

vegetable pulao

Cut an onion, some garlic, chilli (capsicum works also). Put half of the onion in the frying pan with oil. When this is done, add the rest of the onion, the garlic and the chilli.
When they start soften up, add turmeric powder, coriander and the vegetables. Keep on low fire and mixed evrtyhing together. Add the rice (dried, not boiled) fry it a little with the vegetables, add some salt.
Add the water (2 times more than the rice), cover with a lid and keep it in low fire.

When the water is fully incorporated it's done.

potatoes and cauliflower

We need 2 medium size potatoes and similar amount of cauliflower. Wash everything and cut the potatoes small, aprox. 1 cm wide squares, cut the cauliflower in small pieces.

1 onion + garlic + turmeric, coriander, chilli powders will be fried in oil. When the onion is a becoming soft, add the potatoes + cauliflower and mix them a little. Add salt also. Cover with a lid and keep in low fire for about 10 min.

Meanwhile cut medium tomatoe and after the 10 min are over, add it to the rest, mix and cover for another 10 min.

When it's done, add some green coriander leaves.

boiled chicken

Wash and cut the chicken into smaller pieces, the size of a chicken leg.
Put pepper, chicken spices (vegeta) and salt on it and spread it on all the sizes. Add a layer of oil and spread it on top of the spices.
Take a pan and put one spoon of oil on the bottom. Arrange the chicken so that the pieces are the the same level. Add water until it just covers the chicken. Put the pan on the oven at small fire and cover with lid, so that the vapors are not lost during boiling.
From time to time turn the pieces on the other side, to cook properly on both sides. When it's about done - the water is almost over - add garlic. Now leave the bowl without lid, so that the chicken will fry a little in the remaining oil.
Remove once the chicken is done (water is evaporated completely).

Can be served with vegetable salad and boiled potatoes.

fried rice

Put few cumin seeds (jeera), garlic, and green chilly in oil until gets pink :)
Add some water to cool down the oil.
Then add turmeric powder, salt and tomato, cut very small. Keep until the tomatoes melts a little.
Add the rice (which is already boiled).
Keep it on fire until rice soaks all the water.
At the end put some coriander leaves.
Can be served with sour cream or some fat yogurt.

may... 13th

My car didn't start today.
Now I am usually not much into the "13th of month" thing, but can you really help but wondering? And the stranger thing was that yesterday I was thinking "hmmm, tomorrow is 13th of May, maybe I should stay home and read a book or something...".

Well, luckily not other "horror" happened today and the car can be fixed. At some expense... :D

apple with carrot

This is a simple salad, very light, but consistent enough to get you through a lazy evening, when you are not in the mood to cook. You will need: 2 big carrots, 1 medium-big apple (sour apple is better than sweet one), oil, pepper and some vinegar (in case the apple is not sour enough). Pass the carrots and apple thru the grater, use the biggest holes. Add a little pepper, add a little oil and mix. Now taste for sour taste, if you feel it is too sweet then you need to add few drops of vinegar. Simple, isn't it?

my first duck

In my time-to-time search for my purpose in life, I came across these drawing lessons, which I am posting here for my future reference. I have read few sub-chapters (in the beginning section) and to be frank they are enough straight-forward and tutorial-shaped for a programmer like myself, who has only eyes for "flexible design", "optimizations", "test cases" and others like this.

If you somehow feel drawn to sketching, painting or just training your eyes for taking pictures, this site seems like a good place to start. BTW, first chapter is anyone-can-access, for the next ones you need to make an account, which is as simple as pressing "Next".

Currently I am too shy to show you my first duck, but in the future if I will have time to invest and if I will progress any better, I will sure post here my improvements.

hb has left for vienna

This means I am all alone in my house, anybody wants to throw a party? :)

Well, he's only away for 2 weeks, but I am sure the time will pass too fast to make use of it (like study for example) and too slow for me not to get bored. However, I have come across a very nice site about colours. That is if you are colour lover. It brings pleasure to the eyes, not only radiation.