This is a follow-up to Sukumar’s post on Why can’t you make toasted bread and crisp dosas in your microwave oven?

A week ago, I saw an ad on the television about a new microwave. Whirlpool India has introduced MagiCook 22C Grey 22Ltr Convection Microwave with a Micro Tawa option, which can make a Dosa, Pizza, Parathas etc. This convection microwave uses Combination cooking method which combines traditional cooking(bottom up heating) with the microwave technology for shallow frying. For the CRISP mode, it is a combination of Microwave and Grill together, when the Tawa is set to a certain power level the active layer of the dish is uniformly crisped and browned to perfection thus creating the Maillard Reaction.

I started my research to understand the basic Oven and its types.

An Oven is an enclosed compartment used for heating,baking or drying. The earliest known ovens existing in the Indus
Valley Civilization and the proper front loading ovens were used in the Ancient Greek for making breads.

Now let’s see what is the difference between Microwave Oven, Conventional Oven and Convection Oven.

A microwave oven works by passing microwave radiation through the food.A conventional oven has heat radiating from a single or multiple sources and heating the internal area of an oven and cooking your food.

A Convectional Oven uses a fan and a heating element to create air flow patterns inside the oven, thus ensures optimum browning of the food in the fastest possible time, sealing the juices and prevents drying out of meats.

Look at the picture below, let me now tell you about a Convection Microwave.

Convection microwave ovens combine a convection cooking with microwave oven to cook food with the speed of a microwave oven and browning of the convection oven. Convection microwave ovens are more costly than the regular microwave ovens.

A convection oven will have about a 25 to 30% reduction in cooking temperature, and a 21% reduction in cooking time, compared to a conventional oven. This comparison will vary, depending on factors including, for example, how much food is being cooked at once or if airflow is being restricted by using an oversized baking tray.

Convection Microwaves were initially considered to be high-end kitchen appliances. They were more expensive than a conventional oven. Over time the price of convectional microwaves has dropped and can be bought for around the same price as a conventional microwave.

Please share your experience if you have tried it already. Does it really make good dosas and Parathas? 

Imagine living in a world where there are no newspapers or books to read. Think of the days when there was no alphabet or script to write or read. That is how life was for early Cherokee Native Indians until one man gave the gift of their life and erased illiteracy. 

Around 1760 a boy named Sequoyah (also known as George Gist) was born in the Cherokee village of Tuskegee (now in the state of Tennessee) to a Cherokee Indian mom and a settler dad. He and his mom were abandoned by his father and they lived with his grandparents. As a young kid, he was interested in the stories of his grandfather and village storytellers. He loved to hear about the adventures they described. As Sequoyah grew older, he saw how the Cherokee culture was changing and his people were quickly adopting the ways of settlers. He was worried that the old stories and ways of doing things would be lost. He wanted to find a way to help people remember these things. 

As part of the settler encroachments Sequoyah fled Tennessee and moved to Georgia where he worked as a Silversmith. Once when a customer purchased one of his works he suggested that he sign his work, like it was usually done by the silversmiths. When the customer Charles Hicks learnt that Sequoyah didn’t know to write he offered to teach him. Sequoyah visited Charles Hicks, who showed Sequoyah how to spell his name and write it in English. Sequoyah was thrilled with the idea which began his long journey into writing in Cherokee.  Then he moved and joined the Cherokee Regiment to fight against the Red Sticks. While he was at the war camp he realized the need of literacy for his people when he saw the settlers using alphabets to write to each other and remember important events while the Cherokee people had no means to communicate. However, the letters and sounds of their language were not the same as the Cherokee language.  

Sequoyah tried many different systems for writing of the Cherokee language. At first he tried pictographs but soon he realized that there were too many symbols. Then he visited a nearby school to watch how children learned to read and write in English. He borrowed spelling books so that he could learn more about how written language worked. He began by noting each of the different sounds or syllables used in the Cherokee language and he gave each syllable its own symbol. Although some of the symbols he used came from the English and Greek alphabets they represented different sounds in the Cherokee syllabary. Talking Leaves, the 86 letters that make up the Cherokee language syllabary was born. 

It took 12 long years of hard work when he finished his syllabary, but the council of Cherokee Indians did not like his work and thought it was witchcraft. Sequoyah tried hard to convince his people that his alphabets were useful. He taught his daughter Ahyokah the syllabary and brought her before the council. Sequoyah had the council give him a message to write down. Then he brought his daughter to read it back to them. The council was amazed, but thought it might be a trick. The council sent four young men from other Cherokee villages to learn the alphabets, and then the council tested each of them to see if they could read messages written by the other young men. This finally the council was convinced that Sequoyah’s system worked. 

The Cherokee people quickly realized how useful the writing system was. It was easy to learn and could be used to share news among all the Cherokee. Within months thousands of Cherokee became literate. By late 1820s, a printing press was created with Cherokee symbols. It was used to print the first newspaper written in the Cherokee language- Cherokee Phoenix. Till date the syllabary has only 86 letters with no changes. What a perfect job! 

Sequoyah’s syllabary helped the Cherokee preserve their history and culture. Today more than 320,000 Cherokee Indians live across the United States. Though they all speak English many still use Cherokee writing. It is an amazing story of a man, not literate in any language, created a system for reading and writing a language and a means of communication for the entire community. There are lots of unsung heroes around the world who have changed history and Sequoyah is truly one among them.

Please join me in welcoming guest blogger Sujatha Manivasagam  (she reads and comments on many of the posts here). She is a former team mate of Priya Raju and I.  She reads a lot on a variety of topics. And it shows in this first ever blog post that she has written. Please be generous with your comments and encourage her. She eventually wants to start her own blog.  Way to go Sujatha. – Sukumar

—-

Right from the days of childhood, as a new year unwinds my dad would sit with us, talk about what we did last year and also plan on a few new resolutions for the year. Some of the resolutions would happen but most of them would go down the drain in a few days, anything relating to studies especially…. This trend continued through my adulthood, but over the past few years, my husband and I plan on changing one thing in our life every year and work around it. Last year we decided to eat healthy and avoid eating outside. Since it was one small change it helps us focus and we did stick to it for the most part, occasionally when we eat outside we did make healthy choices.

During our family TV time, we had watched movies like Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth”, “March of the Penguins ”, Discovery channels “Planet Earth” series etc. and we always talk about what we can do about it, Last week we watched an Oprah’s show on “Going Green” with simple changes we can make around the house to save the environment. And we put together our goal for 2008, “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle”– the 3 steps to Going Green. As a first step, we started looking around our house and made a few changes on our journey towards going green.

The amount of trash accumulating in the landfills are alarmingly high, so before we throw anything into the trash bag, think if we can reuse or recycle it. Over the past couple of years we have donated books, clothes, toys, computers, furniture etc. to local donation centers, libraries and schools. I have also made up my mind to think twice before we buy something – this is not easy, but I am working on it.

Paper is the number one material we all throw away everywhere – for every 100 pounds of trash 35 pounds is paper, my second area to sneak into and explore. In my kitchen, I use my kitchen towel mostly and also got the select-a-size napkin (it is the half-way perforated one) which cuts the napkin use by half. Just cutting down one paper napkin a day makes a huge difference. We went Paperless with our bank statements; it is saving trees and also preventing identity thefts. Every time we say “no” to the ATM and gas station receipts. At office my husband reduces the paper usage by making double-sided prints. In the grocery shop, instead of paper or plastic grocery bags I am planning to use reusable cotton bags which can be washed and reused.

As part of reducing the power usage around the house, we did simple changes like replacing regular light bulbs with Compact Florescent Light bulb (CFL), using a Power strip to plug in our TV, computer and other appliances and switching it off every night and unplugging empty cell phone chargers. We use rechargeable batteries for all our daily home electronic devices such as wall clock, remotes etc. that reduces the amount of combustible metals going into the landfills.

Using energy efficient Washer and Dryer and also using cold water to wash that saves a lot of energy. One major change we made is to program the thermostat 2 degrees below average during winter months and 2 degrees above during summer.

We use the car for my husband’s work commute, running errands etc. and use the SUV only when the whole family goes out. It’s also easy to understand that shutting down the engine of the car while waiting for somebody reduces the carbon emission and fuel.

Water conservation is something every Chennai resident learns from the early days of their life, so I do use water efficiently. We changed the shower head to a low flow shower to save 50% of the water used. I always run the dishwasher only if it is full, hand-wash the dishes if it is less. In the washing machine, we reset the run cycle every time based on load size.

Other major plans and changes around the house is to use natural (plant based) eco-friendly cleaning products instead of chemicals thus reducing the amount of toxic gases and chemicals around our home.

I read a news article about our former President Mr.Kalam’s visit to Kochi, where the local folks had cut down trees in a small area to create a helipad for his visit. On hearing this, Mr.Kalam expressed deep concern about the cutting down and immediately ordered to plant 3 new saplings for every tree that was cut down. This summer I plan to plant a single tree, a shrub or a small container of herbs that will help clean the air.

Global Warming, Energy Conservation, Saving the world these are some of the alarming words we hear everyday as we flip channels or newspapers. Although it may sound a monstrous task at first sight, making small changes around our house and in our lifestyle can help save the environment and help the beautiful universe survive for a few more years. So, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle and please pass the word and try to make one change today – “Let’s be the change we want the world to be”.

Here are a few numbers which would force you into Going Green.

1. If each American household replaces one bulb with a CFL bulb, it is like reducing the carbon emission equivalent emitted by 800,000 cars.

2. More than 380 million plastic bags are thrown away in the United States every year, and those plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade in landfills. And while paper bags do eventually biodegrade, an estimated 14 million trees a year have to be cut down to make 10 billion paper bags.

3. We use 2,200 paper napkins a year, per person on average. So if we all gave up one napkin a day, we could save a billion pounds of paper waste from going to landfills a year.

4. Receipts from 8 billion ATM transactions every year are one of the biggest sources of litter on the planet. If everyone left their receipts in the machine, it would save a roll of paper more than 2 billion feet long—enough to circle the equator more than 15 times,

5. Shutting your car off while waiting for 10 minutes less per day can keep 550 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the air every year.

6. People use an average of 2.5 gallons of fresh water for every minute they shower.

All data presented here have been collected mostly from the following websites

Oprah’s Going Green 101:http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200704/tows_past_20070420.jhtml

Elizabeth Rogers “The Green Book”: http://www.readthegreenbook.com and Google Search on “Going Green”.