This week has been one of those when I can’t wait for Friday evening to come soon! And so when I realised that today was Hump Day, I started browing Pinterest for some Hump Day Humour and decided to share them with you. So here you go, a laugh to get you through the balance of the week until you can put up your feet on Friday!
Happy Wednesday! Friday is not too far away, so just hang in there!
The Mountbattens: Their Lives & Loves – Andrew Lownie
Dickie Mountbatten: A major figure behind his nephew Philip’s marriage to Queen Elizabeth II and instrumental in the Royal Family taking the Mountbatten name, he was Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia during World War II and the last Viceroy of India.
Edwina Mountbatten: Once the richest woman in Britain and a playgirl who enjoyed numerous affairs, she emerged from World War II as a magnetic and talented humanitarian worker loved around the world.
From British high society to the South of France, from the battlefields of Burma to the Viceroy’s House, The Mountbattens is a rich and filmic story of a powerful partnership, revealing the truth behind a carefully curated legend.
Was Mountbatten one of the outstanding leaders of his generation, or a man over-promoted because of his royal birth, high-level connections, film-star looks and ruthless self-promotion? What is the true story behind controversies such as the Dieppe Raid and Indian Partition, the love affair between Edwina and Nehru, and Mountbatten’s assassination in 1979?
Based on over 100 interviews, research from dozens of archives and new information released under Freedom of Information requests, prize-winning historian Andrew Lownie sheds new light on this remarkable couple.
This recipe is from my memories. My mother used to go to the market and do her rounds of the temple in Matunga about thrice a week from time I can remember. It has stopped now because of COVID, and had reduced to about twice a week a couple of years back, but this used to be the routine all through my growing up years. On those days, she would have to come back home and then make dinner for us. Some days, when time was short, she used to rustle this dish up to go with rice and any leftover stir fry vegetable. An extremely quick recipe, this can be made in less than 10 minutes start to finish. My mother used to add tomatoes to it, which, because of the quick cooking time would be slightly raw and which I hated at that time. So I would make sure I avoided getting any tomatoes in my plate. My sister, on the other hand, loved the tomatoes, so to us, it was a win-win situation. My version does not have any tomatoes, but you can add them if you want. This can also be a version of Kadhi, albeit one without any thickening agent like coconut or chickpea flour.
This dish is prepared across Tamil households and made when you need to make something very quickly. It can also be drunk as a cooling yoghurt based dish when it is hot outside as it will cool the body down. I served this with a carrot thogayal and a vegetable stir-fry for lunch with brown rice.
Mor Chaar
Ingredients:
Method:
Today’s quote is gold in my opinion. I have written about having an attitude of gratitude and this is something I have been doing for some months now. When one starts to acknowledge and be grateful to what we already have in our lives, we already find ourselves enriched and abundant. If you haven’t already started doing so, please take a few minutes each day to pen down what you are grateful for in your life that day.
GG & BB have started school with BB already having physical lessons on a compressed schedule and GG still on virtual classes, but she will start going to school a few times a week from Monday.
With more and more Vaccinated Travel Lanes starting from Singapore, I am waiting for when there will be a VTL with India so not only can I go down and meet my parents, but my helper R can go home and get her son married off. She is insisting that at least I go with her for the wedding, but unless there is quarantine-free travel available, this will not be possible.
We’ve started prepping for the biggest Indian festival – Diwali and from next week, I will start making the sweets and savouries I usually make. I am quite excited about the festival as its one that’s close to every Indian’s heart.
That’s all from us this week, take care and stay safe everyone.
The House at Sugar Beach – Helene Cooper
Journalist Helene Cooper examines the violent past of her home country Liberia and the effects of its 1980 military coup in this deeply personal memoir and finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award.
Helene Cooper is “Congo,” a descendant of two Liberian dynasties — traced back to the first ship of freemen that set sail from New York in 1820 to found Monrovia. Helene grew up at Sugar Beach, a twenty-two-room mansion by the sea. Her childhood was filled with servants, flashy cars, a villa in Spain, and a farmhouse up-country. It was also an African childhood, filled with knock foot games and hot pepper soup, heartmen and neegee. When Helene was eight, the Coopers took in a foster child—a common custom among the Liberian elite. Eunice, a Bassa girl, suddenly became known as “Mrs. Cooper’s daughter.”
For years the Cooper daughters — Helene, her sister Marlene, and Eunice — blissfully enjoyed the trappings of wealth and advantage. But Liberia was like an unwatched pot of water left boiling on the stove. And on April 12, 1980, a group of soldiers staged a coup d’état, assassinating President William Tolbert and executing his cabinet. The Coopers and the entire Congo class were now the hunted, being imprisoned, shot, tortured, and raped. After a brutal daylight attack by a ragtag crew of soldiers, Helene, Marlene, and their mother fled Sugar Beach, and then Liberia, for America. They left Eunice behind.
A world away, Helene tried to assimilate as an American teenager. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill she found her passion in journalism, eventually becoming a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. She reported from every part of the globe — except Africa — as Liberia descended into war-torn, third-world hell.
In 2003, a near-death experience in Iraq convinced Helene that Liberia — and Eunice — could wait no longer. At once a deeply personal memoir and an examination of a violent and stratified country, The House at Sugar Beach tells of tragedy, forgiveness, and transcendence with unflinching honesty and a survivor’s gentle humor. And at its heart, it is a story of Helene Cooper’s long voyage home.
