Celebrating New Year Eve with Pepper Chicken

New Year eve is the time for celebration. And no celebration is complete without food. This time I have prepared my special ‘Pepper Chicken’ to have for dinner. Let me share the recipe with you, and of course I have a picture of the one that I prepared.

I dedicate this recipe to my friends—Rinku Mohapatra. About a couple of year back she once had prepared a similar dish for me—‘Pepper Pork’. I liked it very much and derived my ‘Pepper Chicken’ from the ‘Pepper Pork’.

Jag’s Special Pepper Chicken

Ingredients: Chicken (500 gm), Chopped Onion (3 medium size onions will be enough), Cooking Oil (100 ml), Ginger Paste (3 tsp), Garlic Paste (2 tsp), Green Chilli (2 pcs),Turmeric Powder (2 tsp), Red-Chilli Powder (1 tsp), Coriander Powder (1 tsp), Cumin Powder (2 tsp), Salt (2 tsp) and Black Pepper (25 gm).
Preparation: Roast the black pepper for about a couple of minutes and grind them. Marinade the chicken with Ginger Paste, Garlic Paste, Turmeric Powder, Red-Chilli Powder, Coriander Powder, Cumin Powder, Salt, Black Pepper (keep aside about 1 tsp of black pepper powder for later use), Oil (use 75 ml of the oil and keep 25 ml of the oil aside for later use). Let it marinade for about half an hour.
In a pan heat 25 ml of oil and fry onion and green chilly in it till onion turns golden brown. Add the marinated chicken and stir well and cook for about 10 minutes. By now the oil should separate from the chicken. Add a cup of water and boil for 3-4 minutes. Add the remaining pepper powder and remove it from the heat.
Garnish: Chopped Coriander leaves
Server: Pepper chicken goes well with steamed rice. You can also have it with roti.

Let's talk Brandy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Winter is the time for Brandy. Perhaps the most popular brandy based cocktail is ‘Brandy Alexander’. I have my own variations of ‘Brandy Alexander’. ‘Brandy Alexander’ as well as my variations of it are after-dinner cocktails; they are more like desserts rather than cocktails. Let me share some of my variations of ‘Brandy Alexander’ here.


Jag’s Brandy Alexander, as you like it:


Primary Alcohol, by volume—Brandy

Served—Straight up (without ice)

Garnish—Cherry, Cashew , Nutmeg (Jaiphal)

Drink–ware—Cocktail Glass

Ingredients—Brandy (30 ml), Skimmed Milk or Fresh Cream (30 ml), Chocolate Cream (30 ml), Ice Cubes

Preparation—Put the ingredients in a blender or cocktail shaker and mixes well till the entire liquid becomes cold. Strain in a chill cocktail glass and garnish with cherry, cashew, and nutmeg (grated or powdered).


Jag’s Brandy Alexander, Guava tango:


Primary Alcohol, by volume—Brandy

Served—Straight up, without ice

Garnish—Fresh chopped ripe Allahabadi Guava, Nutmeg

Drink–ware—Cocktail Glass

Ingredients—Brandy (30 ml), Skimmed Milk (30 ml), Guava Nectar (30 ml), Ice Cubes

Preparation—Put the ingredients in a blender or cocktail shaker and mixes well till the entire liquid becomes cold. Strain in a chill cocktail glass and garnish with fresh chopped ripe Allahabadi (Surkha, which has deep pink flesh and few seeds) Guava and nutmeg (grated or powdered).

You can try this with Litchi as well. But you don’t get fresh Litchi in winter.

To make the drink more interesting you can replace the milk or cream with ice-cream. In that case you will need an electric blender to mix the ingredients, and remember not to include the ice cubes. Selecting the right kind of ice-cream is important. Do not select one that has a strong flavor.


CHEERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Creating order out of the Agile chaos

Whatever approach we follow, the principles behind all software development success are similar. The traditional as well as the Agile method require good team work, communication, appropriate tools and facilities, and some kind of agreed upon protocols to be followed. Enough is already written about Scrum and Sprint, or Chicken and Pigs. Let me highlight some of the factors that contribute to the success of Agile methods.

Agile is not synonymous to chaos. Shifting from the traditional SDLC models give a notion of breaking free from the traditional binding rules and leads to chaos. But that is not true. Most often Agile process do not work well when stakeholders are not matured enough to handle changes.

Communication is the lifeblood in Agile process. Unless a strict regime of open omni-directional communication is established you are exposed to risk.

Size does matter. The risk of success or failure depends on the team size. You must decide on an optimal team size that can contribute positively to meet the desired goals.

Estimations are supposed to go wrong – But not in Agile. If you think estimates are only estimates and they will go wrong, then you are bidding for trouble. Plan only as much as can be taken up during a Sprint. Keep the rest for next Sprint.

Keep stand-up meetings short. Only three questions to answer by each Pig. What have you done since the last meeting? What are you planning to do till the next meeting? Is there anything stopping you from meeting your target?

Strong Chickens. You have to get strong people to guide the Pigs.

First have enough process orientation in place. Agile is not for organizations which do not have any process orientation maturity. Before jumping on Agile evaluate whether your organization has enough maturity towards process orientation.

Did I miss out anything? Feel free to put your comments.

Technology Made Simple - Bluetooth

Imagine attending a phone call without looking for the phone in your pocket or bag. Imagine your keyboard, mouse, monitor connected to the CPU without any wires. A decade back it was imagination. Bluetooth has changed this imagination to reality.

Bluetooth is the new technology that is significantly changing the way we interact with machines. Bluetooth is a short-range radio technology aimed at simplifying communication among network devices and between devices and the network. Bluetooth uses short-range radiolinks to replace cables between computers (or any other Bluetooth Device) and their connected units. Many companies had been trying to utilize this technology on a commercial scale but it was Erricsson Mobile Communication that started the project named Bluetooth in 1994. Today virtually any digital device can be part of the Bluetooth system. The dynamic connectivity-nature of Bluetooth makes it possible for this system to replace USB, and it is an improvement on Plug-and-Play-systems.

How it works
Each Bluetooth device has a small radio microchip that operates in a globally available frequency band (2.402 GHz to 2.480 GHz). Each radio chip has a Software controlled identity code (address), which ensures that the devices remain connected to a particular device (its master). Bluetooth devices will have a master unit and one or more slave units. For example if you have a Bluetooth enabled PC with the mouse, monitor, keyboard and all other plug-in devices Bluetooth enabled, the CPU will act as the master and the other devices as the slaves. All communication among the devices is through the Master unit. There is no direct communication among slave units. If slaves wish to communicate with each other directly they can establish a new connection with one of the devices acting as a Master.
When Bluetooth – enabled devices come in range of one another, a piconet is established. In other words an electronic conversation takes place between the devices to determine whether they have data to share or whether one needs to control the other. This is automatically done by the devices and the user dosen’t have to press a button or give a command. Once the conversation occurs the personal-area network (PAN) or piconet, is established. Range of the piconet may vary from 1 to 10 meters. Once the piconet is established, the members of the network randomly hop frequencies in unison so that they stay in touch with one another and avoid other piconets that may be operating in its vicinity.
Let us consider a real life example for better understanding. You have a state of the art living room with Bluetooth enabled devices. There is a music system with a DVD player, a satellite TV receiver and a Television; there is a cordless telephone; and a PC (personal computer). All these devices are Bluetooth enabled. Each of these systems forms their own piconet to communicate between the main unit and the peripherals. The cordless telephone has a transmitter in the base and another in the handset. The base and the handset are able to identify each other by their address (Software controlled identity code). When the base is turned on, it sends radio signals asking for response from any unit with an address in a particular range. Since the handset has an address in that particular range sought by the base, it responds, and a network between the base and the handset is formed with the base as the master and the handset the slave. The computer and music system go through similar exercise and establish network in the address range, which is pre-defined by the manufacturer. Once the network is established, the system begins to talk among themselves. Each piconet hops randomly through the available frequencies, so all the piconets are completely separated from one another. Thus the living room has three separate piconets, each made up of devices that know the address of the transmitters it should listen to and the address of the receiver it should talk to.
Technically speaking, in order to establish new piconets the procedure of inquiry and paging are used. The inquiry procedure enables a unit to discover which units are in range, and what their device addresses are. With the paging procedure, an actual connection is established. Only the Bluetooth device address is required to establish a network.
As in our example of the state of the art living room, the three piconets can communicate with each other using their Bluetooth address. For example you can send a message from the PC to the phone or from the phone to the music system and so on.

Scope and Advantage of Bluetooth
Bluetooth has certain advantages and disadvantages over other wireless technologies. Major advantage of Bluetooth is that it is designed as a short range, low power, and a low cost standared. Technologies like WiFi and HomeRF (i.e. 802.11) is not practically able to fit into products the size of a headset. Bluetooth operates using 2.5mW of power, compared to 100mW for WiFi.
Users of Bluetooth technology do not encounter any legal obstacles since Bluetooth operates in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz ISM band. This offers users the advantage of not having to obtain license from the local communication authority.Bluetooth is capable of transmitting and receiving data at a mere 720 kbps. This is quite low compared to 54 mbps of WiFi network. The limit on its transmitting and receiving rate makes it unsuitable for creating a wireless LAN.

Re-uniting Pieces of the Mind

Communication is an art as well as a science. The science part of it can be improved by education and training where as the art part of it needs to be perfected by practice. Since I became an information disseminator I have hardly practiced my skills without being paid for. When I started My Story, I hoped that my practice continues without having to look at my bank statement in the beginning of every month. But like me, My Story has also become irregular.

A friend of mine once told me that a writer should write something every day. But I am not a writer – I am a Technical Writer isn’t it? So how am I different from a writer? Well that’s out of scope.

Since the last time I put something on this cyber notebook a series of events have taken place. But this is not a place where I put up news – better visit www.ndtv.com for that. But the most interesting thing to happen in my life is something different. I received an offer from an IT major and returned home happily. Yes I was very happy. I broke the news at home but I was apprehended by a rather off beat remark from my sister-in-law “Dada, don’t you remember the day your present company gave you the opportunity to work with them.”

Pieces of my mind

I have no words to describe the bloodbath at Nandigram.

We still call it democracy ??????????

When Britney Shaved her head !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Most of you must have gone through the ordeals of being robbed of your most valued possession – the locks which you love to watch while facing the mirror each morning. I vividly remember teachers in my school who, loved to ensure that students (male ones of course – no one protested about sexual discrimination then) do not keep long hair. I never have had any sort of fascination about what grows on my head (externally of course). It’s a sort of no-love-no-hate situation that I cherish till today. The hair that made headlines last week prompted me to share my story with you all.

Dates are immaterial – I don’t remember the date. But I must be in my 2nd or 3rd standard; and my brother, two years younger. Pair of nuts, as we always had been. Baba used to take us to the barber every couple of months. And both of us loved it since that would be the day when chocolates would be aplenty. It was one such visit to the barber that I will never forget.

It was Sunday and we were taken to the barber for our usual round of haircuts. We returned with our pockets full and everything was fine. Mithukaku, our uncle next door started commenting about our hair. It was perhaps the first and last time I took notice of what grew on my head. And Mithukaku went at length to mock about the haircut and how we looked. Both of us were disappointed and thought of a plan to get rid of the ugly black stuff on our head.

So started – Operation Shave Head. I took out the razor from father’s shaving box and went to the garden. My brother was equally excited about the proposition of shaving the head. So it was decided that I sit in the garden and shave my head first and then do the same for Rupu. Till then Rupu would see that ma doesn’t come to the garden.
I was half way through, hair fallen all around me, my hand moved smoothly and I hoped everything would be fine. Suddenly ma appeared from nowhere. In his effort to guard ma, Rupu was peeping into the kitchen more than required and had instigated ma’s curiosity. So ma followed Rupu to the garden, and there she was right in front of me – bewildered, angry, surprised, and what not. ----------rest of the story is up to your imagination.