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Showing posts from September, 2011

Concrete Thinkers

                                        Our children are concrete thinkers. Maybe, all of us understand that to some extent. We have been cautioned at some point of time, that a particular concept is abstract for them. But how much and what to what extent should we get into specifics is something that I am slowly realizing. It started with Dr. Yamini in one of the story narration sessions for Ramam. I had a book with no text and just illustration and to my mind; it was the perfect book for Ramam to narrate. One look at it and Dr.Yamini (NIMHANS) said it made no visual sense. The story line is something like this. A boy has to get his kite stuck on a tree -top down. In the illustration, the tree top and a boy sitting on a buffalo were at the same height. To Ramam’s mind he has to just stretch his hands to get the kite down. How is he to visualize the tree top is is at a much higher height and the boy is at a much lower level. This illustration was very misguiding. Does he understand wha

When Kindness Kills

When Kindness Kills                                           I and Ramam decided to celebrate Onam ( A festival of Kerala) at the army club, RSI, Bangalore. It was an impromptu decision. I and Ramam seated ourselves comfortably in one of the restaurants. I placed an order for Chicken lollipops and Sprite for him. Dr. Yamini (NIMHANS) had suggested me to write things out rather than repeat them verbatim every time .These are called visual chits. I proceeded to make these.   As I rummaged my bag for a pen and didn’t find any, I decided to borrow it from a gentleman across our table. Being the gentleman that he was, in the true army style, he objected to me getting up from my chair, walked to our table and handed over the pen to me. He noticed what I was writing. I thanked him and returned his pen. The visual chits said “No clapping hands, No shouting, Eat quietly.”                                      We continued our starters, and I noticed the gentleman had just ordered beer and Rama

GFCF Cake Frosting

 I have wanted to share two of the recipes for icing on a GFCF cake. It has been on my mind for quite some time but somehow I have not posted it on the blog. The first is my own creation; yes I was quite excited with the idea. I used finely cut pieces of Bourniville Dark chocolate, (their label mentions use of cocoa butter and no milk products) with cashew nuts,  dalda (hydrogenated oil),  and put them in a blender. I did this as a frosting for my daughter’s b’day cake in July (yes! been quite some time) and she was hugely appreciative of the effort. Decorated it with Marbels (again dairy free). The cake was of course made from Orgran chocolate cake mix.                                                    The second one is the GFCF vanilla cake frosting. Also Morappam is another easy to make 40’clock GFCF snack. Use leftover idli/dosa batter. Add finely chopped onions, green chillies, coriander leaves, and grated carrot, to the batter. Take a spoon of oil. To the heated oil add m