Adhi Potoba

The cold and cough season has affected our house severely. Mostly on account of the cretins on my commute that use the subway as their own personal Petri dish. The cough has been especially rough on Scanlynn. I on the other hand have been bred on the fine air in Pune city with an S.P.M. count of over 150. As we entered the 4th day of our seasonal suffering, I remembered a concoction my ayurvedic doctor would prescribe. I would take most of what my vaidya prescribed with a pinch of salt. Not to mention the fact that some of his prescriptions actually required a pinch of salt. But I remembered that he had given me a recipe for a cough tea that could be taken if you were looking for a non-chemical alternative to calming the tickles in your throat. It was a good change from regular tea, and it did the job. And as a bonus it is herbal and all natural. Ingredients 4 cups water 3 tsp grated ginger 1 stick cinnamon 10 cloves of cardamom 3 cloves 1/2 tsp black peppercorns (crushed) 1/4 tsp nut

Growing up I had always been attracted to red foods. I could never really understand this fascination, but a red curry always seemed more appetizing than a green curry. Beets seemed more attractive than cucumbers. I never gave it much thought till I came across a research paper done by our friends at the TWBA / Chiat Day agency for their client, Heinz ketchup. Apparently, this is a very common phenomenon and not as I thought, one more of my many irritating habits. A plate of food where the central item is red always looks appetizing. This is because the eye associates the colour red with many appealing things. Freshly killed meat and blood. An abundance of blood in one’s body also signifies good health. And thus the eye looks for this colour on a plate. I just wish that I could’ve known these facts when I was young. It would’ve made refusing some rather unappealing dishes that mom tried to shove down our throats easier. It also explains my disdain for all things green. Like this Palak