Sriram Tantri: 2014

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

SRIRAM DRAWINGS

Sunday, 6 July 2014

RIO DE JANEIRO

7/7/2014

RIO DE JANEIRO

If you like parties, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil has the biggest of them all. It is called Carnival and takes place in February or March each year.

CARNIVAL

The highlight of the Carnival is the colorful parade. Thousands of people, dressed in elaborate costumes which are often decorated with feathers, sequins, mirrors, or metal, dance to samba music. As soon as the party is over, many people start making costumes for the next Carnival.

FACTS

Rio de Janeiro means "River of January." The Portuguese explorers who named it arrived in January 1502. Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Brazil until 1960, when a new city, Brasilia, was given that honor. Carnival takes place just before Lent, when Christians often give up certain foods. The people want to have a good time first. On New Year's Eve people throw gifts into the sea. They hope the Sea Goddess will bring them luck for the next year.

RIO'S BEACHES

Rio has a 30 mile coastline and many beautiful beaches. The most famous of these is Copacabana. Football, volleyball, and surfing are popular pastimes on this 21/2-mile stretch of white sand.

RIO'S FAMOUS STATUE

Rio's most famous landmark is the statue of Jesus Christ, which overlooks the city from the top of Corcovado mountain. The 130-foot- high statue, called Christ the Redeemer, was built in 1931. The local people like to think the statue's outstretched arms are embracing and protecting the city.

THE MARACANA

The Maracana is one of the largest and most famous stadiums in the world. Over 180,000 people once watched a football match there. now it is an all Seater stadium holding 95,000. Pop concerts take place there as well as sporting events.

Friday, 16 May 2014

MOUNT FUJI

MOUNT FUJI

Mount Fuji's famous cone shape and snow-capped peak make it one of the world's most recognizable mountains. It is also sacred to the Japanese people.

A volcanic country

Mount Fuji rises 12,388 feet above Honshu, the largest of Japan's islands. It is the highest of the country's 186 volcanoes, and one of around 60 that are still active. When Mount Fuji last erupted, in 1707, ash covered the city of Tokyo 62 miles away. There is a post office at the summit of Mount Fuji Letters posted from here carry the postmark "Japan's highest point.' Around 300,000 people climb Mount Fuji every year. It was against the law for women to climb Mount Fuji until 1872.

The crater

The crater at the top of Mount Fuji is covered in snow for eight months of the year. Many climbers walk around the top of the crater, which is about 2,000 feet across. Mount Fuji actually consists of three separate volcanoes. These have erupted over a period of hundreds of thousands of years, changing the shape of the mountain dramatically. The mountain we see today was formed when the three volcanoes erupted around 10,000 years ago. In 2006 Shigeyoshi Sasaki set a new record by climbing Mount Fuji 121 times in one year.

Pilgrims

Thousands of torch- carrying climbers head for the summit of Mount Fuji in time to see the spectacular sunrise. At the summit there is a shrine to the goddess Konohana-sakuya, known as the Blossom Princess. According to legend, this beautiful princess didn't grow old, so she rode to the top of Mount Fuji on a white horse and ascended to Heaven.

Friday, 21 February 2014

about millets

ABOUT MILLETS

Millets are a group of highly variable small seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for both human food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Millets are important crops in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa (especially in India, Nigeria and Niger), with 97 percent of millet production in developing countries. The crop is favored due to its productivity and short growing season under dry, high temperature conditions.

The most widely grown millet is pearl millet, which is an important sized crop in India and parts of Africa. Finger millet, proso millet, and foxtail millet are also important crop species. In the developed world, millets are less important. For example, in the United States the only significant crop is proso millet, which is mostly grown for bird seed.

While millets are indigenous to many parts of the world, millets most likely had an evolutionary origin in tropical western Africa, as that is where the greatest number of both wild and cultivated forms exist. Millets have been important food staples in human history. Particularly in Asia and Africa, and they have been in cultivation in East Asia for the last 10,000 years.

Organic proso millet (Panicum miliaceum) is also known as common millet, hog millet or white millet. Naturally gluten free, both the wild ancestor and the location of domestication of proso millet are unknown, but it first appears as a crop in both Transcaucasia and China about 7,000 years ago, suggesting that it may have been domesticated independently in each area. It is still extensively cultivated in India, Russia, Ukraine, the Middle East, Turkey and Romania. In the United States, proso is mainly grown for birdseed. It is sold as health food and due to its lack of gluten it can be included in the diets of people who cannot tolerate wheat.

Millet is a gluten free grain and is the only grain that retains its alkaline properties after being cooked, which is ideal for people with wheat allergies. With a texture much like brown rice, millet can be used in pilafs, casseroles or most oriental dishes that call for rice, quinoa or buckwheat. It can be ground into flour and used in flat breads or mixed up to 25% with wheat flour for use in yeast breads. After it has been soaked for a couple of hours, millet in its whole grain form cooks like rice in about 20 minutes. Millet cooks well into vegetable loaves and adds body to soups and stews. Millet added dry to your biscuit, brad and roll doughs adds a crunchy texture and brings variety to your baked goods.

The millet seed is a small round, ivory colored seed, very small in diameter. Millet is thought to be one of the first grains cultivated by man. The first recorded comments regarding millet date back to 5,500 BC in China. Millet could have been domesticated hundred or even thousands of years before this in Africa where is still grows wild throughout the continent. Found in ancient pottery and ancient writings alike throughout China, millet was an extremely important grain. Much of millets success has been its ability to produce well in hot, arid, drought prone areas where nothing else grows well. Millet can also be harvested only 45-65 days after planting. Through the centuries Millet spread its way through Europe and was most often eaten boiled whole as porridge but was sometimes made into a flat bread which the Egyptians first developed.

recipe in millets

How to make Millet Veggie Burger

1/2 cup dry millet (soak in water overnight, and rinse well)
1 1/2 cups water
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cups arugula (or dark green of choice)
2 stalks celery, minced
2 carrots, minced
2 tsp. sea salt
1 T. cumin
1/2 tsp. chili powder
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 1/2 cups millet flour (or gluten-free flour of choice)

Add the 1 1/2 cups of water to a saucepan, and bring it to a boil. Add the (soaked and drained) millet, reduce heat to a simmer, and cover for 15-20 minutes until tender.

In the meantime, preheat your oven to 400F and chop your veggies! I chopped the onions by hand, but got tired of chopping by the time I got to the celery. So I threw the roughly chopped carrots, celery and arugula into my food processor, instead Sure, it’s one more bowl to clean– but the resulting mixture was so uniform!! Perfect texture for veggie burgers.