Welcome to New Year's Eve Party

We are in last month of the year 2014. After 3 days we will enter a new year with 365 days of opportunities to help ourselves accomplish our dreams. Most of us would have already made plans of how to celebrate the New Year’s party. Instead of celebrating with unknown people at an unknown place, we can easily organize a house party with family and relatives.

Celebrating at our home with family members & relatives gives us many advantages. We don’t have any time restriction for holding back our party. We don’t need to invest on the venue. It saves our time money & energy. People can stay back after party, so that our relatives don’t need to drive back to their place. It’s not an easy task though to host New Year’s Eve party at home. We have to consider so many major facts such as decoration, food, drinks, music and entertainment. These are the key factors for making party successful and memorable.

Decoration is one of the critical and time consuming tasks. For that we can use easy things such as balloons, strings, masks and other decorative things which are easily available in the market & those are very easy to use. In this way we can decorate our house.  We should shift few things such as furniture, decorative show pieces to make place for all to accommodate

We should arrange a nice music system with trendy songs. That will help us to enjoy up to fullest. We should plan some games for kids as well as for adults. Keep some gifts ready for game winners and some surprise gifts for family members & relatives that will help them to keep this as souvenir for this party. Arrange nice food like mouthwatering starters, some tit-bits along with drinks, main course and some sweets with both options veg and non- veg.  Major part of party is drinks. Do arrange drinks according to our guest’s choice that should include alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. 

Now we are ready to welcome New Year, wishing one and all a Very Happy New Year 2015.

Something about Garnishing ......

Drinks are the major part of any event. We find different kinds of mocktails and cocktails, some of those will be classical and few will be completely innovative. Cocktails have different parts such as base liquor and other mixing ingredients, style of mixing, type of glass used but presentation is the key factor of the drinks. The decoration is an essential component in the presentation of cocktails. Cocktails are such versatile drinks that it would be impossible to express them in words. Mixed drinks can be anything such as easy mocktails or classy and innovative cocktails.

With the help of different kinds of garnishes and other decorative things we can make drinks look attractive and eye appealing.  It is the crowning glory of any mocktail or cocktail. Decorative straws, small umbrellas which are meant especially for mixed drinks, swizzle sticks etc. or the use of some fruits as garnish for drinks such as apple, pineapple, oranges, kiwi, strawberry, cherries and many more. We can also use some other things such as celery stick, olives, mint leaves, chocolate powder/cubes/shavings, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg powder, and some fresh herbs. These ingredients give a decorative look to the drink along with additional flavour of its own to the drink. 

Some drinks demand that they be decorated in a certain way as tradition dictates, and there is something almost ritualistic in these decorations. For example dry martini is served with garnish of green olives and similarly Bloody Mary cries out for stick of celery. Some drinks are traditionally decorated by coating the rim of the glass with castor sugar or salt. Except classical cocktails we can use different things in innovative cocktails to showcase our skill. While showcasing our skill we should keep one thing in mind that garnish which we are using for any innovative cocktail should match appropriately. 

Cocktails or mocktails should be fun, and we can be as fancy or outlandish as we like. For that    we can make different shapes and sizes of garnishes according to the size of drink & glass. For examples 3-4 cherries with toothpick pineapple slice cut into four pieces, mint leaves, lemon wedge/slice/spiral, wafers for creamy drinks, and halved/whole strawberry for frothy drinks. We can also use chocolate sticks to impress lady patrons. Along with this we can also sprinkle some chocolate/nutmeg/cinnamon powder on top of the drinks to give some different flavour to the drink.  

Breakfast – The most important meal...

Breakfast is the first and very important meal of the day. The word expresses everything within, breakfast means break the fast because the previous night, we don’t eat anything after dinner. We eat our dinner generally between 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm. So we need something very healthy to start our new day. Eating healthy breakfast gives us mental and physical advantage. When we start off our day, our body needs fuel. Breakfast provides us with the nutrients and energy that lead to increased concentration in the work. By not having breakfast on daily basis, we are more vulnerable to cravings and less likely to make healthy choices in the morning and throughout the day.  Skipping breakfast can lead to increase LDL (low-density lipoprotein) that means bad cholesterol.

Eating healthy breakfast is very important for everyone, but it is more important for children and adolescents. Because kids are more active than anyone else, they do plenty of physical and mental activities throughout the day. So it’s really necessary for us to know that are we providing all the necessary nutrients and energy to our kids to perform all kinds of activities? It is shown in research that generally people are very active during morning, to keep that activeness in our body we need proper healthy breakfast. While having breakfast we should consider few things such as bread, grain, milk and milk products, fruits, dry fruits, egg, and juice. If we take all mentioned foods in our breakfast, that will provide us all the necessary nutrients such as vitamins, proteins, fiber and other necessary things. Having healthy breakfast helps us to reduce hunger throughout the day, and help us to make better food choices at other meals of the day.

There are many benefits of having healthy breakfast which are as follows:

·         It provides great energy to us to perform all the necessary physical and mental activities.

·   It helps us in maintaining our weight, generally people who skip breakfast are either    overweight due to too much eating on the meals of the day or they are underweight due non  availability of necessary nutrients.

·         It helps kids to concentrate well in the classroom and playground.

·         It keeps us energetic throughout the morning.

·         It helps us to maintain bad cholesterol.

·         It keeps us healthy for long term than the other people who skip their breakfast.

·         It is very beneficial especially for pregnant women.

·         It keeps our mood happy, due to proper intake of food in the morning.  

·          It helps us by preventing from common diseases by increasing our immunity power.

Healthy Breakfast means a Healthy You

Yoga - A road towards good health

In today’s world, every single individual is running behind money. While running this rat race, we don’t get a chance to look after our own health and we do ignore pity health issues while living this hectic day to day life. We avoid going to hospital for periodic health checkups because we find it very expensive. While we are young, we have sufficient amount of strength, power and stamina that helps us to go on. But what after few hectic and stressful years? Will we have the same amount of strength, power and stamina in our body? And the answer is ‘NO’. Now it’s a necessity to take a break and think about this very seriously. Good health is called as good wealth. What is use of earning money at young age and spending that money on our health issues at old age? So try to live healthy from the beginning itself that will help us to remain healthy till the end.

In Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism ‘Yoga’ means ‘Spiritual Discipline’. The correct history and origin of yoga is uncertain. Yoga is the oldest science of the world and the origin of yoga is in India. The history and development of Yoga is divided into three periods. They are Pre-Patanjali Period (before 500 B.C.), Patanjali Period (500 B.C. to 800B.C.), and Post Patanjali Period (800A.C. onwards). There is confusion in who is the actual inventor or first teacher of Yoga. According to classical and ancient text Lord Shiva is the first teacher on the other hand Bhagavad Gita says Lord Krishna is first teacher of Yoga.

Yoga is a part of our life. Yoga is not at all new to us. We have been practicing yoga since we were a baby. Yoga keeps our body healthy and mind clear.  Yoga can be many things to many people. Our strong body parts are looking to become flexible and flexible body parts are looking to become strong. Yoga is far more than mastering postures and increasing flexibility and strength of body parts. Yoga helps us to achieve both - getting and maintaining physical, mental and moral health. There are different asanas (poses) for different body parts that helps us to keep that body part active and fit for long time. Regular yoga protects us from many health issues as well as it increases concentration and stamina in our body. Progress in Yoga not only depends upon our efforts on the mat but also what we do off the mat during the rest of the day. Every moment in our life unbinds various situations that require our response. We may respond in a complete positive way or in a complete negative way. And if we don’t respond even that is counted as an action. 

The entire world came to know about yoga and its health benefits. Due that we can find so many yoga classes across the globe. Now people are focusing on money as well as good health at the same time.

•  The major benefits of yoga are as follows.
•    Flexibility of Body parts.
•  Yoga for strength and good body posture.
•  Good breathing system.
•  Reduces stress and brings calmness and peace.
•  For healthy heart that reduces heart diseases.
•  Helps in concentration and creates positivity in mind.
•  Helps kids in natural and successful way of body growth.
•  Helps us to improve immunity that avoids frequent illness.
•  Weight loss and all round fitness
•  Help us in improving our relationship with our spouse, friends and loved ones. 

Yoga takes us into the present moment, the only place where life exists.

 

Sweet Flames

An overall meal experience is incomplete without a delicious dessert. Generally the main dish is heaviest, heartiest, and most complex dish on a menu. Every individual likes some kind of dessert after the main course, to complete a meal. Mostly people preferred ice creams, pastries, soufflés, custard, etc. And people who have very good knowledge of food, like to have complex but really tasty dessert such flambé dishes. Making flambé dishes is not a very difficult task. Flambéing is very simple as it does not require elaborate ingredients and cooking. 

We can easily make flambé at our home. Basically flambé means setting alight the liquor added to the dish either during or at the end of the preparation.  The liquor added mostly is brandy or liqueurs. This is mainly done to impart the flavours of the liquor to the food. The most important point we should keep in mind while making flambé dishes is that we should keep our liquor warm so that it ignites fast. While making flambé we have to take few precautions because we are dealing with fire and alcohol and we very well know that alcohol catches fire immediately. While making these dishes at home, add liquor at the end so while presenting the plates our guests will be able to enjoy our skill and flames. Making flambé dishes is all about showmanship. 

Pineapple Flambé

Ingredients:-                                               

Pineapple slices: -              2nos

Pineapple Syrup: -             50ml

Caster Sugar: -                  15gm

Kirsch or Dark rum: -        15ml

Equipment Required: - Pan, Dessert plate, sauce boat or bowl, service gears and all purpose fork & Spoon.

Method: -

·         Light the gas burner and place pan on it.

·         Add ¾ pineapple syrup in the pan and heat it.

·         Add slices of pineapple and cook

·         Baste the slices occasionally and frequently sprinkle with caster sugar, allowing the syrup to reduce until it is almost caramelized do.

·         Add Kirsch or Dark Rum and allow heating up.

·         Tilt the pan gently to ignite. Steady the pan then place the slices on the plate and pour the sauce slowly and steadily with the flame on pineapple slices.

·         Or we can pour the liquor at the end after placing pineapple slices and sauce on the plate that allows us to keep the flame on for a while and attracts guest attention.

·         Flambé dishes are best served under dim or low light effects so as to enhance the visual appeal of the flames on the dish.

To serve a hot and tasty flambé dish for your guest, follow the simple recipe as above and incase of any assistance or queries, feel free to contact me on vinay@aih.edu.in

How to choose Smart Cell Phone

Cell phone is not a new word for today’s world but 15 years ago it was really new for people. Now Cell phone is the latest addition of primary needs. Earlier the primary needs used to be Shelter, Food, & Clothing but an addition to it is a cell phone and that too a smart phone with all the necessary features. Buying a cell phone is tough decision. Buying a cell phone can happen due to so many reasons such as you may have lost your previous phone or the old phone is not working properly and many other reasons. Let’s focus on some good features that any smart phone should have, that will help us to satisfy all are necessities. There are many companies in the market who are selling different kinds of handset at various price scales. Before buying, we should think and list down all our needs which we are looking in the new cell phone that will help us to buy a good smart phone.

     Operating system: - The most important factor is the operating system. We should choose what kind of operating system we are looking in our cell phone, such as Android, Windows, IOS, or Blackberry. Once it is decided then we can focus on other things.

    Memory: - The second aspect for choosing a cell phone is memory. Nowadays people are storing everything in their cell phone that can be anything such as photos, videos, word documents, excel sheets, power point presentations and many more. To store all this, a cell phone should have a good in-built memory and should have great expandable memory too. For a buying decision, a cell phone should have a minimum of 8 GB internal memory and up to 64 GB expandable memory. 

     Camera: - Due to latest cell phones with high mega pixel cameras now, people are not buying normal cameras. We use our cell phones to click our photos and cell phones which are really handy to carry anywhere. So for that we should check front & rear camera capacity. Front camera is used mostly to do video chatting and for that the front camera should have a minimum 3.2 to 5 mega pixel and rare camera is used to click various photos at various places at various timings. For that the rare camera should have 13 and more mega pixel along with different kind of settings such as flash, auto balance, different mode settings according to light and many more.

Mail Facility: - Due to internet and latest phones it is easy for us to set up different email accounts on our cell phones. For the same we don’t need to carry our laptops and data cards. It gives us freedom from staying at one place and does our work. Now with high end cell phones we can work on the go. So while choosing a cell phone we should check if there is a push mail facility and other related settings.

Processor: - with all above facilities, a cell phone should have a great processor that will give good speed to our cell phone. I recommend a phone with at least a dual-core processor, as it will have a longer shelf life than a phone with a single-core CPU. Single-core phones are cheaper, and some OS’s like Windows Phone and BlackBerry don’t offer dual-core devices yet, but if you have the option, go with dual-core or even quad-core. You’re not buying a phone; you’re buying a tiny PC. Along with that we should check that our new cell phone is supporting all kinds of internet settings such as 2G or 3G. 

Battery Life: - The last but the most important thing is battery life with all the above features our phone required a good battery life that should last for long. According to above features we required minimum 2500 mah power. Good battery will help us to work on the cell phone for the entire day once it is charged.

Price: - price is again a key factor while buying a phone. The price range will be $300 - $650 for any smart phone with all above mentioned features. So think wise before investing that amount of money. Does our cell phone full filling all our required needs? 

Hope with these information you will be able to gift yourself the most precious thing of your life – a Cell Phone.   

Har Ghar Kuch Kehata Hai !

In today’s world everyone dreams to live in luxurious & well designed house of their own. There are a lot of enthusiastic and passionate people  who like to decorate every single space available in house and make it look  beautiful  and attractive by using different furniture’s, fixtures, colours, fabric and many more decorative show pieces. Every house says a lot of things about people who stay in that house.  While interior designing a home, every individual should consider minute details which will give a different and attractive look to their house. For this people take help from interior designers, they discuss all their likes and dislikes which helps a lot to the interior designer to select different things to make that house look wonderful.

While decorating a house, there are many things to look into, such as space planning, furniture, ceiling, flooring, linen, colours and most important thing lighting. Every room in the house needs special attention like living room, kid’s bedroom, master bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. We will discuss every room individually because every single room will have different people using them. For that we need to consider likes & preferences of people who are going to stay or use that particular room.

Bed Room or Master Bed room:

A sanctuary where we retreat to every night to unwind and a place where we start our mornings in harmony. A bedroom is a very special and most private place. When starting with a master bedroom and don’t know which direction to turn, paint seems to be the obvious first choice. Once the color is decided for a bedroom, then we should plan the furniture which will be adequate and will not take much space of room such as bed, dressing table and wardrobes. After selecting the shape and size, we should plan the outer look of furniture with the harmony of that room. Its linen turn now, choose curtains and designer rods to hang them up on the wall this will give the best compliment to the room’s color.Lighting is another important part of any room.

We should consider designer and modular kind of light fixtures that will give a trendy and classical look to room during any time of a day. After the bedroom is planned, now we should focus on the attached bathroom. We could choose designer and trendy bathroom fittings for wash basin, WC, and shower that will go well along with master bedroom.

Kid’s Bedroom:

While planning for kid’s bedroom we should consider the age of child/children who is/are going to use that room. Colour should be bright that will help to keep the child fresh and happy whenever he/she is in that room. If the child is less than 10 years old, we can paint some cool cartoon characters in their room to make more attractive. If the child is above 10 years old, we can paint some kind of design on one wall and rest of the wall can be painted in normal way. Bed can be in a different shape, if we have 2 kids we can use bunker bed which will take same amount of floor space. We can have study table at one corner along with some shelf where kids can store their books and do their study on timely basis.

Living Room:

This is the first room as we enter in the house. Generally this is the biggest room in size in compare to other rooms of house. This helps other people to know something special about us. For that it needs the right colour composition and choice of furniture to set the tone for our living room. We could use modern decorative artifacts which are classy and trendy that will show our knowledge and taste in art. Along with that we can add on some latest electronic things such as Led television and home theater with amplifier. Light fixtures can be trendy which have different settings which help to change the colour and brightness of light according to the requirement of the situation. 

Kitchen:

A territory of women where men need to focus more on comfort along with perfect use of space is the Kitchen. It is an intrinsic part of every house and a place where lots of time is spent by a woman. Kitchen should be designed in such a way that it should look stylist as well as it should be easy in handling. For that nowadays every house has a modular kitchen which gives more storing capacity in small space. Modular kitchens are easy to install and maintain. A modular kitchen offers convenience and ergonomics because of that it is in good demand.

Always follow your desires and preferences while designing the house. An expert advice will add on charm to your house.