The Greek Celebration Bread - Christopsomos

Its back to breaking some bread with all of you :) The second bread in the book is the Greek Celebration Bread. You can find it here.This bread, as many of our fellow bread bakers declared is the best so far!! It is beautiful to look at, very easy to make and more importantly, is a lesson in making poolish.




We tried the Christopsomos bread in the Greek Celebration bread list. And we weren't disappointed. The spices added a new dimension to this bread. Did I mention that this is a perfect bread for breakfast? Just a warm slice with some butter or with a chocolate dipping sauce, or with a fruity preserve or even as French Toast. This bread works beautifully without being overtly sweet. While, personally, I like my sweet bread sweet, the glaze did the job for me. There were a lot of discussions on the online forum about the use of glaze. A lot of people didn't try it, while a couple of others swore by it.




Our thumb rule for this challenge is to learn and do the best we can and go the whole hog with the ingredients. We used poolish instead of barm, skipped the cloves and used lemon extract instead of almond extract. We also decided to give the sesame seeds a miss and we certainly didn't miss it! :D




Do try this bread for a weekend brunch and you will be delighted at the results!

The Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge - Anadama Bread

2 weeks ago, two people huddled and whispered sweet nothings in each other's ears. They argued, they cajoled each other and finally were convinced by the other to do it. They did something they've been wanting to do for a long time, but worried about whether the deed will be done in vain. The deed we are referring to is the buying of our first bread book The two people were A and I, who huddled at Borders Book Store at the Culinary section. He argued that we were novice bakers and that bread was still going to be challenging, I cajoled saying that nothing could teach us how to bake bread if not constant trial with the help of a celebrated book. The book was 'The Bread Baker's Apprentice' by Peter Reinhart.

2 days later, they excitedly click on Pinch My Salt, a popular blog and a huge favourite of N's repertoire of blogs only to find that Nicole had very benevolently thought of people like us and invited her readers/fellow bloggers/bakers for a challenge like never before. Bake every single bread in the book. Yes, the same book that we'd argued over. N said a million times 'I told you so,' while A went on to fill up the form, join the Google Group and read up the book like it was the Bible. Well, it is indeed a novice baker's Bible!

Yes, we are among the 200 mad people who've signed up for this challenge and exchange eager tweets/about a 100 emails a day :D and tons of inquisitive questions with amazingly researched, knowledgeable answers given in minutes. People like us have been inactive in the group in terms of any knowledge shared (coz we have none with regards to bread baking) but have gone through each and every email with wonder. Thanks to each and every one of you for making this bread baking process such a fun activity and its unbelievable how much we've learned in these last few weeks!

This is the original recipe by Peter Reinhart. We halved the recipe to make just one loaf since we are going to try baking a bread every week from this book. That makes it 4 loaves for a month, and we certainly didn't want to bake too much of the same thing!

In A's handwriting:

We also made some changes with the ingredients and were quite happy with what the results! We cannot post the full recipe here thanks to copyright issues, however, the link given above is from Google Books and does have the recipe. We've given the list of ingredients (with our measurements for one loaf) here with the changes we made given in italics.

Ingredients

Soaker:

1/2 cup cornmeal, preferably coarse grind (called polenta, sometimes or corn grits) -
1/2 cup water at room temperature

The soaker has to be prepared the previous day. The day before you want to bake the bread, prepare the soaker by mixing the cornmeal with the water and cover with a plastic wrap. This needs to sit overnight.

The bread dough:

2.25 cups Unbleached Bread flour -

We used bleached AP flour thanks to a stupid mistake we made by picking up the wrong bag at Costco! However, we also had to add a 1/4 cup of flour more than this because the dough was still sticky at the end of kneading.

1 1/4 tsp Instant yeast

We used Active Dry Yeast instead of Instant yeast because that is what we had. Reinhart mentions in his book that when one uses Active Dry Yeast instead of Instant yeast, we may need to use 25% more than the prescribed amount of instant yeast. We did just that and it worked out great.

1/2 cup Water, lukewarm (around 90-100F)
3/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp molasses

We didn't have any molasses and our one month shopping rule doesn't let us go grocery shopping for anything else apart from milk, eggs and fruits through the month. So, we added brown sugar instead of molasses, and yes, molasses is on the next month's list :D just in case!

1 tbsp shortening or unsalted butter at room temperature

We used butter and not shortening.

Cornmeal for dusting

Optional, according to Peter Reinhart, a MUST according to us!

We made a mistake by taking out the bread a little early and not letting it cool thanks to uber excitement! Also, the dough seemed to be slightly too much for a loaf. We still stuffed it though :P However, we loved what we had! The bread had a sweet tinge to it, and was crunchy thanks to the cornmeal and absolutely lovely even on the next day. We made French Toast with the bread the next day and the texture was the same. This sure is a keeper of a recipe.

On the flip side, like I mentioned earlier, we had to use bleached AP flour thanks to our stupidity at Costco. We picked the wrong bag of flour :| This was the first time we were picking up flour from Costco and didn't notice that it was bleached! Anyway, it didn't seem to affect the bread baking process as much. We'd love to try this again with whole grains and make this a regular at home.

This experience has been more than a learning experience. Some emails have left us rolling on the floor with laughter. Some avid bakers have named their Starters and its hilarious to listen to them talk about their 'babies' or the starter's kids :)

And check our fellow mad bread bakers at Nicole's blog here! Do visit this page also to see the bread bakers' map on Google Maps. People from all over the world, passionate about bread baking are doing this and its a marvelous effort! Go ahead and leave Nicole a comment about how much you'd have loved to be a part of this ;) It will make her day for sure!

P.S. - Peter Reinhart himself responded to Nicole's challenge and has promised to keep an eye out for us, mad bakers! Yay!

The AnBurgers...for those who cant have Angus!

I love burgers and fries, but most of the stuff available is non vegetarian and very obviously doesn't fit my lifestyle. However, I realize that even if I was a non vegetarian, I wouldn't have touched the burgers served here with a barge-pole. I saw the movie SuperSize Me. I've wanted to watch this movie for ages now and finally got to watch it. I almost fasted that day. That movie scared me. I knew all the facts stated in the movie, but to watch it happen to this guy scared the living daylights out of me. I also remembered the book Fast Food Nation I'd read a couple of years ago. Then, I wondered if I could EVER eat a burger and be happy about it. And when I shared my fears to A, he, as usual, being the the one who thinks and come up with action plans decided to make a dinner out of this fear that night. We didn't have burger buns and didn't have the time at 7 PM to bake them either. So, A created these two types of patties - beans and Tofu-veggie and we had a burger w/fries dinner that night. One of the best dinners we've had and one of the best times together cooking in the kitchen :)

Here is the recipe for you guys!

Advisory: The burgers that you're about to witness are very healthy and do not contain any potatoes ;)

Ingredients (makes about four 4" burgers):

For the AnTofu burger (that's right...the first two alphabets are a shameless way of copying McDonalds and taking credit for it :D)

1/2 lb firm tofu
1/2 cup bread crumbs*
salt and red chili powder to taste
1/2 tsp crushed, dried oregano
1 tsp Kraft BBQ sauce
1 jalapeno, finely chopped (you can remove the seeds if you want)
1 small red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/4 cup corn cobs (thawed and drained if frozen. If using fresh corn, boil it in water and remove the cobs and drain them)
1 tsp olive oil

* the use of bread crumbs depends on how well you drain the water from the tofu so adjust accordingly. It is not necessary to drain all the water from the tofu. the idea is to have enough moisture to hold the burgers while cooking them.

For the AnBean proteinaceous Pattie (yup, we did it again!) (makes about six-seven 3" patties)

1/2 cup chick peas
1/2 cup navy beans
1/2 cup black beans
1/2 cup Great Northern beans
1/4 cup coarse corn grits
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp olive oil

1. For the AnTofu burger, wrap the tofu with a tea towel and place a 3 lb (or similar) weight and let it drain for 15-20 mins.

2. When done, crumble the tofu in a bowl and mix everything else.

3. Make large balls and flatten them to 1/4-1/3" thickness. Try to pack as much stuff as you can to make a nice dense ball. This will hold the burgers while cooking them. I guess one could try using a burger press, but we cant guarantee if it'll work ;)

4. In a flat bottomed pan, bring some oil to heat and cook the burgers on each side for about 7-8 mins on medium heat. Try one burger to see if it 'holds up'. If not, add some more bread crumbs and try it again. We had to do this once as our first burger fell apart a little bit. Once the burger doesn't disintegrate, you could make 3-4 at a time.

5. Take 'em out and place on a plate lined with paper towel to drain any excess oil.

6. For the AnBean patties, mix all the beans in a bowl by tossing them with your hands. take 1/4 of this mixture and pulse them 2-3 times in a food processor or a blender. Remove the resulting thick mass.

7. Mix this with the remaining beans and everything else.

8. Form balls (as big as you want) and flatten them to 1/4-1/3" thickness. cook them just like the AnTofu burgers.

9. Serve with accompaniments like pickled cucumbers, mustard, ketchup and fries. We had ours with some baked sweet potato fries.

This extremely healthy veggie burger/sandwich what with whole grain bread and all the beans and veggies goes to Srivalli who is hosting this month's Monthly Mingle, an event started by Meeta of WFLH.

These are two vegetarian burgers with totally different tastes. The AnTofu burger has the smoky taste from the BBQ sauce and the AnBean burger has its own distinct taste from all the beans.

Another thing is that these are essentially Vegan burgers. Or at least these can be easily adapted to suit your vegan appetite. neither contain any potatoes ;) As far as the event goes, we don't have any kids yet but we were kids ourselves at one point of time ;) So we KNOW how hard it is to feed them vegetables. These burgers are packed with nutrients. The AnTofu burger is a great source of proteins, vitamins and minerals. The AnBean burger is once again, loaded with proteins and is a good way to feed legumes to kids. And to make them aware of the existence of vegetables that are not called potatoes ;)

If that's not enough, you could ask your kids to make those patties for you...saves you time (or maybe not!) and it keeps them happy. And you could give them a couple of pointers on how to take pics so that they don't have any trouble creating their own food blog :D

Vegan Mexican 'Stuffed' Bread.

First of all, we'd like to acknowledge Jaishree of Ruchi and Trupti of Recipe Center for passing a galore of awards! These include One Lovely Blog, Triple Award, Uber Amazing Blog, Adorable Blog and a Friendship award. Thanks a lot :)

Coming back to the post, well, it was one of those days when N felt like eating some spicy Mexican food and I felt like baking. As N and I walked into the kitchen, our eyes caught a glimpse of a yeast packet staring right at us. So we thought of this really cool dish :) Its like a burrito but instead of a tortilla, the filling is inside a bread...a yeast bread ;) And we had ourselves (yet another!) feast :D


Ingredients

For the Bread

1 packet active dry yeast
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp crushed oregano

For the filling

1 1/2 cups cooked red kidney beans
1 cup firm tofu (crumbled with hands)
1 medium onion coarsely chopped
1/2 cup tomatoes, finely chopped
1 tsp turmeric
salt to taste
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp chili powder (we used Ancho and Chipotle chillies)
2 Jalapenos, finely chopped and not deseeded ;)

1. Dissolve the sugar into the warm water. If it gets cold, warm it again. Add the yeast to the water and let it become frothy. This takes about 10 mins.

2. Mix all the dry ingredients for the bread in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Pour the proofed yeast into the well and slowly work the flour into a dough.

3. Add the olive oil and continue kneading till you get a nice non sticky but moist dough. Add more flour if the dough is sticky. Coat it with some olive oil and let it rise until doubled in volume.

4. While the dough is rising, prepare the filling. Heat the oil in a pan and saute the onions. When the onions start to become translucent, add the tomatoes. Add the turmeric, salt, chili powders and cook until tomatoes absorb some oil and start to disintegrate.

5. At this stage, add the remaining ingredients. Cook at medium heat until a nice thick consistency is obtained. The filling should not be runny. This should take about 10 minutes. Make sure that the filling has cooled down before you use it on the bread.

6. After the bread has doubled in volume, push it back and knead it a couple of times. On a floured work-surface, roll the dough into a 8" long X 5" wide rectangle. Apply the filling lengthwise next to one of the edges, leaving 1" margin on all sides. Wrap it like a burrito such that the filling stays in the middle of this 'roll'. Place this roll into a loaf pan and cover it. Let it rise for 20 mins.

7. Bake at 375 F until the bread is done. A skewer should come out without the bread dough. It might come out with a little filling though ;) We also applied some vegetable oil and broiled it for a few seconds to give it a nice golden crust.

Viva Mexico!!! This thing rocked :D I guess its harder to prepare this compared to a burrito, but I guess as far as I am concerned, very few things beat the smell of freshly baked bread :)

UPDATE: Sending this to Vaishali of Holy Cow for the Vegan- Mexican event, and to Susan of YeastSpotting fame. She is behind the immensely popular blog Wild Yeast.

Eggplant Caponata

While A sat waiting for me outside the doctor's office flipping through various 'health' magazines, he watched this recipe on a Mario Batali show on Food Network. He, very obviously, ditched the magazine and concentrated on the show. We came back from the hospital and A immediately went and bought an eggplant. In true bourgeois homes style, he left for work asking me to prepare the Eggplant Caponata as shown by Batali, one of A's favourite chefs. While I am an eggplant afficionado, I saw that this recipe consisted of tomato and thought it will be like another Baingan-wali sabzi ;) But, boy, oh boy! Was I surprised or what! This recipe is a winner (inspite of the horrible pics!) and came out perfectly delicious and it is a regular now.

Without any further ado, this is the recipe. Here it is for your convenience (Thanks Nags!)

• 1/2 cup virgin olive oil
• 1 large Spanish onion, chopped in 1/2-inch dice
• 3 tablespoons pine nuts
• 3 tablespoons currants
• 1 tablespoon hot chili flakes, plus extra for garnish
• 2 medium eggplant, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (to yield 4 cups)
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves or 1/2 teaspoon
• 1/4 cup basic tomato sauce, recipe follows
• 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 5 sprigs mint, chopped

1. In a large 12 to 14-inch saute pan, over medium heat, heat the olive oil until hot but not smoking. Add the onions, pine nuts, currants and chili flakes and saute for 4 to 5 minutes until softened.

2. Add the eggplant, sugar, cinnamon, and cocoa and continue to cook for 5 more minutes. Add the thyme, tomato sauce, and balsamic vinegar. Bring the mixture to a boil.

3. Lower the heat and simmer the mixture for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature, garnish with mint and chili flakes. Serve the caponata spooned on crostini or in middle of table with crostini on side to allow guests to help themselves.

Basic tomato sauce

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 Spanish onion, 1/4-inch dice
4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves, or 1 tablespoon dried
1/2 medium carrot, finely grated
2 (28-ounce) cans peeled whole tomatoes, crushed by hand and juices reserved
Salt

The changes I made to the recipe, apart making it for 2 people? Here you go:

1. More cocoa :P

2. Less tomato/tomato sauce and store-bought

3. Regular white vinegar instead of balsamic vinegar.

4. Used a regular white onion and not a Spanish onion

We ate it with some home-made bread, the recipe of which I may post later.

I thought this could very well serve as a great pasta sauce if thinned out with some more tomatoes or make it more liquidy with a little stock or pasta's starchy water. We initialy wanted to make a bruschetta of this and so the thick consistency! This is not an exotic recipe for all the hype in the name. Do try and let us know how it turned out!

Herby Panzanella!

Dill is one of my favourite herbs. My mom usually uses it to add flavour and greens to Akki Roti, an all time fave at my house. When I first saw Dill or Sabakki as we call it at the Indian store, I was ballistic, and bought a bunch home. In my enthusiasm of having correlated that dill = sabakki, and that it was easily available, I used up the entire bunch of dill for my first Akki Roti experiment. A hated it. It was way too bitter and I had to beg him since then everytime I had to buy dill! Ultimately, I stopped. Not because he said no. But, actually, I stopped being the romantic newly-wed wife who woke up early to make delicious breakfasts for the early bird husband of hers. So, no reason to buy dill, I thought and left it at the herb stall at my Indian store after having touched it lovingly. Last week, when I went to the Indian store, I made an on the spot resolution to wake up early from the next day and reaffirm my love to A. After a week of the dill lying in the fridge, I figured that if I my love for A had not made me wake up early, this rotting dill certainly won't! But I had to use it!

I'm an insomniac and have endless nights thinking about food, unkept promises and resolutions. One such night proved to be an inspiration. I dreamt/thought about a creamy dill dressing for a Panzanella salad. Though I'm not a salad person, I love my Panzanella! The next day, I opened the fridge to be greeted by wilting mint leaves too. So, I decided to be firm and use up the mint too. This is what I did!

Ingredients:

1 bunch of dill leaves, chopped
A couple of mint leaves, chopped
2 tbsp yoghurt or sour cream (optional, I did not add it because I did not have it. But I'm sure the taste'd have gone up a notch)
1tsp powdered cumin seeds
1/2 onion, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1 carrot, chopped lengthwise, into thin strips
Pieces of bread - preferably stale
1 tsp lemon juice
Salt
Pepper

1. Blend chopped dill, mint and yoghurt/sour cream together in a blender. Add some salt and pepper to the dressing.

2. In a bowl, add the chopped onions, tomatoes and carrots, add salt and pepper, lemon juice and powdered cumin seeds. Mix well.

3. Add bread, mix well.

4. Pour the dressing over the salad and mix well. Let it rest for 5 mins.

5. Attack it with a vengeance (I always eat salad with a vengeance. No prizes for guessing why!)

With my last helping of the salad, I also added some fat-free herb crackers to make it salad ala herb overload. It was delicious to bite into crunchy crackers in between the soft salad! I did not lettuce that day, however, am sure lettuce is a great addition. This is the only salad I dreamt about again! However, this time, I dreamt it with some olive oil and Parmesan action :P

Birthday on a roll!

I celebrated my birthday last week. The first one after getting married! Previous birthdays started to flash across my mind.

* With my family - this means it was MY day. I was the emperor and every single wish I made on that day had to be fulfilled :)

* In the hostel - in this case, my batchmates used to proudly wear their thick soled and very heavy military boots just to give me birthday bumps. Its original purpose was for the NCC!

* In the U.S - here, my roomies spared no opportunities to throw eggs on me or to smear me with cake.

Back to present! I didn’t know what to expect! All of the above, perhaps ;) But my birthday began on a fantastic note when N came running with a huge baking dish at midnight. It was the best cake I've EVER had! A chocolate-cherry-nut cake…..when I dug my teeth into it, I exclaimed in my mind “Move over Kashmir….there is a NEW paradise on earth!” It was THAT good! And eggless on top of it! N later told me that she followed Mahanandi’s recipe. The cherry gave it a unique “liqeury” flavor and the nuts made it decadent and gave it that crrrrrrrrunch.

On my birthday, we had lunch at the Hindu temple of Atlanta (yes, besides a nerd, I am also a tad religious :)). For dinner, N made some fabulous lasagna rolls. She followed a Food Network recipe to perfection! Well, there were a few rolls too many for the amount of the rich sauce made, so, instead of the sauce she made for the rolls, she dunked them in marinara and they still tasted heavenly. I must admit that even though I was supposed the ‘emperor’ on that day, I actually ended up bowing to the culinary prowess of my significant other.

We didn’t stop cooking between lunch and dinner. The bakeware that we’ve purchased is placed strategically in order to meet our eyes ever so often! So, I gave into the temptation and decided to bake some stuff. I made some savory garlic conchs, mushroom squares, apricot-orange jelly stuffed bread and some chocolate spread bread. The dough was essentially adapted from the Challah bread recipe. For the sweet flavored bread, I added some orange zest to the dough whereas I added additional salt to the savory bread dough.

For the mushroom filling, I used:

1 can of sliced mushrooms (7 oz)
1 tsp red chilli powder
½ tsp salt
1 tsp olive oil
1tsp Parsley flakes (dry)
1 tsp Rosemary (dry)

I heated the olive oil in the skillet and added the mushrooms and the spices. The herbs were added when the mushrooms were almost done.

For the garlic conchs, I prepared some garlic butter. I melted about 2 tbsp unsalted butter in a skillet and added 1 tbsp olive oil to it. I added 1 tbsp minced garlic and sautéed it for sometime. When almost done, I added some oregano flakes and chives to the butter to give it a nice aroma. I made sure that the garlic did not turn brown.

N and I also made some apricot-orange preserve. We peeled and chopped 6 apricots and added one orange (sliced, without skin) to it. We mashed the fruits with a wooden spatula, added ½ tbsp pectin and 2 tbsp honey and microwaved the mixture for 10 mins. The mixture was then closed and cooled in the freezer for 2 hours.

After the dough rose, I knocked it back and then made balls out of the dough. For the conch, I rolled the ball into a thick strand and then flattened it. I applied the garlic butter on one side. I started rolling the dough and while doing so, I applied some garlic butter on the other side too.

For the mushroom squares, I flattened the ball into a 1/4 inch circle. Using a knife, I cut some edges to form a square. I put some of the filling in the center and then folded over the edges towards the center.

For the apricot-orange jelly filled bread, I flattened the dough into an oval shape and then placed some of the jelly in the center. I folded the dough over in order to leave some room in the middle such that some of the jelly could be seen.

For the chocolate spread bread, I shaped the dough just like the conch. Since the dough was slightly stickier than the savory dough, it turned out like a croissant!

All these were baked at 400F for 20-25 minutes on a greased pizza tray. I brushed the tops of all these rolls with some milk. You could use egg too. And here’s how they came out…

Well the fun doesn’t end here! I was so blown away by the birthday bash that N threw for me that I had to do something in return. Since I couldn’t wait until her ‘real’ birthday (which is at least 5 months away, while the fake one was celebrated last month!), I decided to take her to Florida. We visited Pensacola, Navarre beach and Fort Walton beach near Destin. Here are some snaps of the beautiful beaches!

How is any of this related to the food blog? Well, we would like to recommend this place called Another Broken Egg Café. We literally hogged on French toasts and an “Earthquake” sandwich which had sautéed onions, mushrooms and sprouts with mayo. The sandwich also came with country style potatoes which were devoured within 30 seconds of taking its picture :D. They also make their own “tack” sauce which was really delicious! Nothing was overwhelmingly greasy. It was homely, and simple and delicious and fairly healthy which was quite surprising! Here’s a glimpse of our meal at the café.

Overall, I had a superb time! I’ll never forget my first birthday after getting married. And in the rare event of my memory getting feeble, I’ll just read this post :).

Challah: the Eat-away Braid...and a tag!

First of all, I am pretty new to the blog world and therefore not very familiar with the netiquittes :) So I'd like to address the unintentionally ignored tag. The responses are given at the end of this post. Also, we have tagged Nags and Shreya to keep the ball rolling. We know they like tags!

Coming back to the post, I think we've discontinued from the "Baking Binge" for a couple of posts, although we've been baking like crazy :) Take a look at this cartoon. I think we're at level 3 now :D.

This time we followed Rosa's Challah bread recipe. Once again, the ingredients were cut down by half (except the yeast....I shudder at the thought of a dough that doesnt rise!). And for the topping, we used sesame seeds. Her recipe worked like a charm!

The smell was heavenly and so was the taste! The bread had a nice, golden outer crust but was very soft on the inside. Rosa, you are a magician and nice enough to share your tricks of trade through your blog :) So I guess this is yet another -"tried and tested", approved, baked, photographed and devoured immediately- post after following the Focaccia! See it for yourself :)














Once again, for the detailed recipe please check out Rosa's blog. She also gives some excellent tidbits of wisdom every now and then :)

Disclaimer: The cartoon is meant solely to depict the stages of evolution with a lighter side to it. It is in no way, shape or form a comparison between Daring Bakers and Homer Simpson ...although the concoctions by daring bakers are certain to turn ordinary mortals into one in terms of appetite :D.
___________________________________________________________________

We've been tagged!

1) LAST MOVIE U SAW IN A THEATRE?
A- Baby Mama - at N's behest. I wanted to watch Iron Man!

N- Can I say that I have NOT yet watched 'The Sex and the City?' BTW, Baby Mama sucked, yes.

2) WHAT BOOK ARE U READING?
A- Principles of Nonlinear Optics by Butcher and Cotter. I think my geekiness has been exposed!

N- To Kill a Mockingbird

3) FAVOURITE BOARD GAME?
A- Scrabble!
N- Who will he play with? ;) Scrabble for me too!

4) FAVOURITE MAGAZINE?
A-Science Magazine, Nature, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal of Physical Chemistry (B and C), Materials Today and Advanced Materials. I think I am a certified nerd now!

N- Err..my list won't sound as hi-fi as someone else's. I'd say mainstream political magazines, oh, gossip ones will do too :P

5) FAVOURITE SMELLS?
A-Food, Jasmine.

N- Fresh coffee, Monsoon, smell of earth, bread :), chocolate cake, chai, and lots more!

6) FAVOURITE SOUNDS?
A- Flute, mandolin, violin, acoustic guitar (peaceful vibes).

N- My voice ;) How vain can I get? But I do not listen, I just talk :P

7) WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
A- Being dismissed/ignored.

N- Hearing a 'NO' to my offer to watch Sex and the City :(

8) WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN U WAKE?
A- Give me some coffee and bring on the day :)

N- Can't it be night again? Or, can I have 5 more minutes (read: forever)

9) FAVOURITE FAST FOOD PLACE?
A- Papa John's pizza (I order more frequently though)

N- Any road-side joint in India (this works for A too. He is just being pseudo ;)) and ya, Papa John's with an extra order of cheese is the only choice in the US no?

10) FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
A- Haven't thought one yet.

N- Now, you know who thinks of sensible things and the future. Sigh. I want twins. Period. Nakul and Nakshatra... and...

11) FINISH THIS STATEMENT—’IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I’D’
A- Put it in a bank. Yup, I'm boring!

N- Hmm...ya, put it in a bank, or maybe, go on a world tour!

12) DO U DRIVE FAST?
A-Yes I do :)

N- Do I have a choice in this country? ;)

13) DO U SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
A-No.

N- No, not yet ;)

14) STORMS–COOL OR SCARY?
A-If I'm home, and if the storm doesn't cause electricity to fail, pretty cool! If I'm driving or outside, scary!

N- Cool all the time! Much fun to be had ;)

15) WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
A- Camry

N- None of my own, but my dad's Premier Padmini for both good and bad memories :)

16) FAVOURITE DRINK?
A- Ganne ka ras (Sugarcane juice)

N- Chai? Brings loads of memories

17) FINISH THIS STATEMENT-IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD…
A- Travel across the world.

N- Me too!

18) DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?
A-If cooked well enough, yes.

N- No, coz they are healthy. For that matter, I hate broccoli

19) IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY OTHER COLOUR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?
A-I like it the way it is. Absolutely no changes in its hue :)

N- Red!

20) NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS U HAVE LIVED IN?
A- Chennai, Jaipur, Delhi, Haldia, Panipat, Ambala, Karnal, Rajkot, Mumbai, Gandhidham, Surat, Gainesville Florida, Ann Arbor Michigan, Atlanta, Georgia.

N- Err... do you want to know this fact about me? Bangalore and Hyderabad before Atlanta!

21) FAVOURITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
A-Cricket, Baseball, Football (NFL), Basketball.

N- None after marriage, thanks to an overdose. Sigh.

22) ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
A-Indranee.....very kind of you

N- Indranee - she's nice coz she gave me a chance to talk ;)

23) WHATS UNDER YOUR BED?
A-We dont want to go there...its not vacuumed very often :D

N- I send A there to clean up. So, I dunno!

24) WOULD U LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN??
A-Given the same parents, absolutely!

N- No. I'd like to be born with a good figure, and a creamy complexion :D

25) MORNING PERSON OR NIGHT OWL?
A- Morning person.

N- Night owl

26) OVER EASY OR SUNNY SIDE UP?
A-Somewhere in between

N- Sunny side up

27) FAVOURITE PLACE TO RELAX?
A- Home sweet home!

N- Hmm...near a water body :)

28) FAVOURITE PIE?
A- Pumpkin and Pecan

N- Is there a chocolate pie? :D

29) FAVOURITE ICECREAM FLAVOUR?
A-Oh come on, I cant name one! Butter Pecan and Praline cream are joint first.

N- I can name one. Chocolate is the word.

30) OF ALL THE PEOPLE U HAVE TAGGED, WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?
Err..Nags :D coz she LOVES tags, so says N ;)