And Vijay Says…

I have zero knowledge of formal cooking . I admire people who do . I have wanted to start a restaurant many times in my life and have either chickened out or been talked out by friends . That said – I absolutely enjoy cooking Indian food (especially from Kerala where I was born and raised) . Since people routinely ask me about how to make Indian food – here is a post to help you get started over the holiday season . My apologies to my vegetarian friends – I will try to do one on vegetarian dishes later .

You need a few basic utensils

1. The best knife set you can afford . At a minimum see if you can invest in a good chef’s knife . At holiday time , you can get one for little over $100 . Pick up a large cutting board as well . A good knife makes cooking enjoyable and a bad one makes you order delivery .

2. At least one each of good quality non stick pan , a cast iron skillet and a non stick pressure cooker . When it comes to frying fish or egg plants – I prefer cast iron .

3. Cooking over gas is infinitely better for the dishes I routinely make . When we moved from our first house – we wouldn’t buy really good houses only because they had electric cook tops 🙂 .

4. You will need two blenders – what we call “mixie” in India . A large one for blending curry bases and a small one for grinding the spice mixes

It’s mostly about the spices

To the best I can say from my 45 years of eating it – Indian cooking doesn’t care for things like the actual taste of meat or fish . I am only half joking here . Smell , taste , color etc that we think of as great all come from judicious use of spices . When we say “this chicken curry tastes good” – it means the poultry is well done and we love all the other things that went into it . If what you remember is the chicken itself – the chef has generally failed . You get the idea 🙂

Also – all meat is well done . Rare and medium rare largely don’t exist for Indian cuisine .

The exception to preference for spice dominance is mostly when it comes to vegetables . They get a lot more care and attention than the meat and is generally considered a first class citizen like spices .

Let’s just say I cook much less vegetables than meat dishes . I don’t have the level of skill to make them as well as I could cook meat and fish .

Basic shopping list

1. Onions and tomatoes – vast majority of dishes use both . Don’t worry about expensive versions – you will cook them so much that it won’t retain much of original flavor when used in meat dishes . It’s for texture and body largely – with a few exceptions

2. Ginger and garlic . Tastes infinitely better when used fresh . But you can get a 25% as good version in bottles at groceries

3. Green chilies , lemon, curry leaves , cilantro and mint . Most cooking will need at least two . Many of us grow all of them in our yard

4. Yoghurt . Again – if you can make at home that’s awesome . But unlike with ginger and garlic , what you buy from stores is fine in this case

5. Cooking oil . Regular canola is fine . For regional cuisine – you will need coconut oil , peanut oil and so on . A small bottle of ghee is a nice to have addition

6. Mustard seeds , cumin seeds , dry red chillies

Optional : Coconut milk , cashew , peanuts , almonds

Minimum spices

1. The holy trinity – Chili powder , coriander powder and turmeric powder . Kashmiri chili powder gives color more than heat . Buy these from Indian stores – the one you get from Walmart doesn’t stand up to Indian cooking

2. Whole Garam masala – a whole mix of assorted spices like bay leaves , cardamom , cloves , pepper corns , coriander seeds etc . Take the help of an Indian friend (ideally become friends with their moms to get a home made mix ) to source this . You can make a small batch of powdered garam masala by lightly roasting the mix and then grinding it . Again – in a pinch you can use the prepackaged version which doesn’t pack even half the punch

Spices don’t last a long time . So buy in small quantities, keep them in airtight containers and throw away what doesn’t give a great aroma when you open the pack .

Remember that dried spices pack more punch than fresh ones . A little goes a long way . You only need half of less of dried spice if you are substituting for fresh ones . If you are new to Indian cooking – err on the side of using less and work your way up .

As you gain experience with spices – you will learn to categorize them such as earthy , medium and aromatic . This doesn’t matter till you gain mastery .

The basic meat dish in ten steps

1. Marinate the meat/poultry in the holy trinity (turmeric, coriander, chili powder) , salt, ginger garlic paste and some acid – lemon juice is my favorite . Yoghurt is great too . Longer you do it the better . Aim for a minimum thirty mins though .

2. Except for beef – cooking with bones is the best way to get maximum flavor . You can pressure cook the meat to gain efficiency – so a cheaper cut of meat is totally fine for most regular dishes . Low and slow gets you lot more flavor – but that only works when you have time .

3. Most normal cooking is easily accomplished in a non stick pan with a lid . When temperature nuances come into play – you may need cast iron .

4. Add two spoons of cooking oil to the pan and put some mustard seeds into it . When it splutters , you know it’s time to start adding the rest . You generally should avoid the max flame setting when cooking with non stick pans

5. Add green chilies , and ginger garlic paste first . Optionally add some curry leaves if you like the Kerala version . Do it on low flame – if you burn things it will taste really bad . This is where you can add some whole garam masala .

6. Then add chopped onions . How you slice is totally up to you . Don’t worry about knife skills if you are going to blend the gravy anyway . A bit of salt at this stage will help draw out the moisture from the onions . Don’t brown the onions – you only need them to change from their original color to a translucent level .

7. Now comes the holy trinity – which all should be added with low heat . Start with a very small amount of turmeric . Cook it for less than a minute . Then hit it with coriander powder – which is what really gives the curry flavor . For a whole chicken of three pounds , the most you will need is about three teaspoons . Cook it down . The mix will turn brown at this point . The last part is where you add red chili powder . If you cook it for long – your dish will be largely brown in color . The later you add the Kashmiri chili , the redder the end result . If you need more heat – don’t bet of Kashmiri chili to bring it . Use the hot version first and then add the Kashmiri chili

8. At this point – add the chopped tomatoes . Tomatoes bring a sour note to balance out the heat .

Judging the water content – you may want to add a half cup of water to the mix at this point . Close the lid and let it simmer till the whole thing is a red liquid with cleared oil on top – which will take maybe less than ten mins . Depending on whether you like the gravy smooth or with more texture – you can decide to blend it at this point . With red meat – I also add some chopped mint at this point . Now will be a good time to add more salt as needed .

9. To this mix – add the marinated meat . If you have the time – you can brown the marinated meat for a few mins before adding the red liquid you created for gravy . Now cover and cook till meat is done . Again, if the meat is a tough cut – you can pressure cook the marinated meat before you add it to the liquid . Finally add a little bit of freshly roasted and ground garam masala and stir it in .

Your basic curry is ready at this point !

10. Now you have a few options for “value add” to your basic curry . You can thicken the gravy with coconut milk . If you prefer a richer flavor – you can soak some cashew and/or almonds and blend it to a paste in water or milk and add it to the finished curry and cook for a few mins . The third option is adding heavy cream . Always remember that these things all bring down the heat level as well . So if you like it spicy – you may want it extra spicy to begin with then bring it down a notch with the cashew paste or cream . If you like a bit more of sweetness – soak raisins and blend it with cream and add to the dish .

If the heat level went down a bit – don’t try to add chili powder again . You will ruin it . Switch to crushed pepper . Pepper used early in cooking tends to burn – so if at all I am using it , I use it at the end .

Now comes the magical finishing touch . Warm up a little ghee – add some cumin seeds to it (optional additions – curry leaves and red whole chillies in those cases where you don’t add cream etc ). When it splutters , put it on the curry . The aroma goes through the roof ! Chopped cilantro on top is a nice garnish for all dishes . Adds to the aroma too !

A simple pilaf to go with it

1. Warm up some ghee , add some cumin seeds, whole garam masala and sauté some frozen green peas and carrots . You can pick up a bag of mixed peas/carrots/corn from the local grocery .

2. Add left over rice to it . I prefer basmati but any rice is fine really . The point is that it shouldn’t be freshly made or hot . Add some salt and pepper to taste . I do this at high flame for a few mins

3. Optional : dump a small can of coconut milk into it and stir it in . Also from the value add category – add lightly roasted cashew on top , fried onions and chopped cilantro

The whole thing takes ten minutes and smells and tastes heavenly .

Give it a try and let me know how it turned out . Happy holidays !

There are only two things in my life where I am even remotely a perfectionist – when it comes to writing clean code , and training dogs for competition . And those things can be traced back to specific instances .

As a young developer I once was asked to add some extra logic to an application which was mostly written by me – and had a very short time to get it done before it had to be deployed . The code base was dirty to put it mildly and I had to struggle with it to an extreme to fit in something new . I was pretty sure I will get fired for the mess – but with some heroics (and a good friend who did QA on the fly with me ) I ended up living to fight another day . It was enough of a painful experience that it made me obsessed about writing clean code from that day .

I was quite good in training dogs from a young age . My German Shepherd and I were a formidable team in my college days and we won a lot of competitions . And then we ran into a better team and lost a very prestigious show by a small margin of points . The judge took me aside later that evening and explained why the lack of perfection is why I didn’t win – and I agreed with him that it’s not my dog that was at fault . It was me . Those days I took winning dog shows way too seriously and became obsessed about even minute things about how I worked with my dog . I no longer compete – but I still enjoy training my puppy and I am still obsessed with precision .

Outside these two things – I never really cared about perfection all that much . I could bring it on when it mattered – an important assignment in college , a critical must-win deal , daddy-daughter dance at my daughter’s school and so on .

I live my life on what I call “appropriate approximations” .

Vast majority of things don’t need precision . If I am forecasting the next quarter in the middle of current quarter – I don’t worry about a 10% variance . I will progressively get closer to the pin over time . Since my boss knows this – there is no issue . If I am folding shirts to put in the rack , I don’t need them perfectly stacked . These are reversible issues – in the worst case , I can change to a higher level of precision on the fly with minimum trouble . Another good example is this blog . I don’t proof read or even do a spell check on what I write here . My readers are generally quite forgiving and I appreciate it a lot !

If I am hiring for my team – that’s something where I will take the time and attention to get it right . That’s not easily reversible without pain if I get it wrong . If it’s the first time I am explaining a valuable idea to a client – I don’t care for precise assumptions . But if we have general agreement and are trying to get a legal contract done , then I insist on dotting every i and crossing every t .

So what’s the big deal with all this ? As you would have guessed from the title of this blog – you don’t live and work alone . People around you could very well have different views on the need for perfection . If you don’t figure out a way to harmonize , everyone could get frustrated in a hurry . This is true in personal life and at work .

Here is how I deal with the perfectionists in my life

1. Mind my own business

If someone cares to neatly arrange everything on their desk , let them . If they want to do it for my desk too – I usually let them . Basically if it doesn’t truly cause a problem for me , I ignore it – and occasionally even indulge them . Don’t make it a big deal as much as I can . Live and let live !

2. Delegate to them appropriately

I don’t enjoy ensuring spacing in documents is perfect and consistent . I don’t get distracted by two random sentences being two font sizes larger . But I have colleagues who like to do it and they do it well and with passion . If the overall solution comes across better as a result – use that passion instead of fighting it .

3. Provide clarity on time and scope

If you don’t – then perfectionists will generally go for more scope than is useful , and might not do it in reasonable . My favorite QA colleague was very very good at finding bugs – but when we struggled to get new functionality into production in one day , I often would remind him “dude – if a bug stops deployment , or will make the company lose money – tell me and I will code again . If it’s a corner case that we can fix next week , pls just raise it as a lower priority issue that we can fix in next release” .

As a development manager, I learned to assign problems with perfection requirements like compliance , reconciliation etc to developers who thrived on perfection and give them clear timelines to plan and execute . I also learned to use them judiciously for QA on code that people like we delivered 🙂

When you bring them in is a make or break issue . Perfectionists don’t often like constraints on time . If you bring them in too early – you need to restrict scope . If you bring them in with little time left on the clock – aggressively restrict scope . My general principle is to not leave a lot of room to negotiate in the context of a near term deliverable . Instead I take the ownership of any potential failure arising from the constraints I place on them .

4. Teach, learn and evolve

One of my big lessons on this as a young partner came from a client who told me “I was quite distracted by the pictures in your slide deck – but since you drew the picture for me on the white board, I am onboard now and will award you this project”. I had no one to blame but me for that deck . A perfectionist team member did warn me a million times that the graphics on the deck should be redrawn . I said NO and went with what we had thinking he was being paranoid . He was right and I was wrong .

Similarly, in reverse – at least a few times I have been successful in debating with my perfectionist friends on the idea that there is a point of diminishing returns to being perfectionists . When there is no immediate stress of a near term action – such debates can be done in a healthy way . We can then point to what we agreed on when we are in crunch time .

Generally the world looks down at people who give up – they are called all kinds of derogatory things like “loser”, “quitter” and so on . We are taught from an early age on why hard work can overcome all challenges – often with stories of heroes to make that point .

I think this sets us up for failure more than success – at least for most people . There are always exceptions and by all means let us applaud them .

I started off this way too – thinking it will be a shame to quit jobs or projects or whatever and that it will all get better if I just worked harder , smarter etc . All that happened was that I became more miserable both physically and mentally . So I changed my mind .

To my horror – I realized that the hard correction I made was a terrible mistake . Quitting too quickly made everything worse . To cut a long story short – I figured out a rough framework to think through when to quit and when to double down .

Over the last couple of weeks – I had lengthy conversations on this topic with some young men and women that I mentor in India . I figured it’s a good idea to post this in my blog since it is a fairly common theme .

As always – these are strictly my personal thoughts and opinions .

1. Prevention is better than cure

The better we qualify upfront – the less our chance of facing grief later . That means you choose your employer carefully , your projects carefully , your sales pursuit carefully and so on . Easier said than done – because often we don’t have great choice in the matter . For example – you are assigned a sales patch by a manager and you have no say in it . But whenever you can – spend the time qualifying upfront . I will discuss options on what to do if you have no options later in this post .

Part of having choices is a safety net . That means having a little rainy day fund set aside , living under your means , keeping your skills and network active and relevant etc . Without a safety net you will never have good options .

2. Listen to your body and your family

Your body has a way of telling you if the stress level is getting to an extreme . For me – this used to manifest as extreme acid reflux and nausea . I would just take some OTC medicine to get over it – but my family could easily see it was stress that was causing it . Took a long time before I realized my mind was numb to the issue but my body wasn’t . Since then I have spoken with tens of people about it and it seems everyone has some physical manifestation of it – some people cry , others have heart burn or head aches … but at the height of stress everyone seems to have a physical symptom that is a clear tell . And I am yet to see a person whose family couldn’t spot the correlation fast 🙂 .

Unless you recognize you are stressed – you won’t act on it . No one deserves to be miserable for extended periods of time . This doesn’t mean you need to quit to solve it – but that might be one answer .

An easy way to test this is to take an immediate time out . If a week away from work makes you feel a LOT better – it should tell you clearly where the problem is . Irrespective of the decision to quit – it is always a great idea to take vacations whenever you can so that you can mentally and physically reset .

3. Can you make peace where you are ?

We often get miserable about absolute things in isolation – a specific salary raise , a promotion we didn’t get , a difficult manager, a less talented colleague moving up faster than us etc . When we are worked up – it is hard to put these things in context .

A few different things have helped me get through this aspect . One way is to write down on paper . For example – say it is important for me to stay rooted in technology and directly work with clients . If I get a promotion now – I might have a more internally facing role . Should I wait for another role to open up that better fits my criteria or bite the bullet and take it now ? Is the extra money worth the potential lower satisfaction ?

Another question to ask – are you looking for a promotion for more money ? If so – would you be ok with no promotion but a raise alone ? Would you be ok with a raise in variable pay instead of base pay ?

If I can’t make up my own mind – how can I convince my manager of it ?

The second way I get through this is by having an honest conversation with multiple mentors . One such conversation many years ago helped me come to grips with that fact that there will always be some people who will be better ,smarter and luckier than me in any short window of time . Another conversation clearly showed me I lacked some skills and there is no way I will move forward unless I got those skills . I don’t think I would have figured these things on my own .

Also – pls remember you need to have mentors in place to use them in a time of crisis .

4. Know where you want to go – at least roughly

As the Cheshire Cat told Alice , it doesn’t matter which way you go unless you know where you want to get to .

Till you know what is that makes you miserable and what will make you happier for a longer term , it doesn’t make a lot of sense to quit . The one exception to that is extreme stress . If my body tells me that I shouldn’t stay the course – I will quit . I only had to do it once in my career . I left with no backup plan (and left significant money on the table at that time ) and till date I feel I did the right thing .

The best time to plan your next move is when things are stable at work . Then you are in a better frame of mind to decide objectively and have no time pressure to act . Just as experienced drivers scan the horizon and the rear view mirrors even when cruising – it is smart for us to be aware of the evolution in our markets so that we are prepared to act without making it an emergency .

5. Can you change the rules to make it work for you where you are ?

Everything is negotiable at work . If you get a bad manager but the company is one you like – you could try to ask for a transfer . If you get a sales patch which has no immediate sales prospects – you can ask for a different compensation plan to make it work . If you don’t want to be an SAP consultant – ask if you can work on a UX design project .

You have to ask the question and present options before you quit . Just because the first answer is NO or because your friend heard NO when she asked – it doesn’t mean you will get the same answer .

It is also important to ask the right person who is empowered to act on it . In many companies the first line manager is not empowered to act on such matters . You as the employee should feel comfortable to find an up line manager to have this conversation before you leave . As an executive – I have often felt terrible that I could have easily made things work if only I knew what was going on . If your up lines don’t care very much for that conversation – then it’s usually pretty clear that there isn’t much of a point prolonging your departure .

6. Quit in peace

If you have gone through all the above and have had no success in resolving what makes you unhappy , then you can rationally conclude that quitting is probably the next best action .

As I mentioned above – unless your body/mind tells you otherwise strongly , try hard to have a place to go to before you quit . In most cases you can navigate the known devil a lot more than the unknown devil .

When you have made a rational decision to quit – it makes the process of leaving less traumatic . You send a very short resignation letter , give a courtesy notice and burn no bridges . It’s a small world and it pays to leave on good terms .

I personally do not accept counter offers if my employer makes one after I chose to quit . Ideally I would have thought through and negotiated such options before I made the final decision to leave . Once that decision is made thoughtfully – at a minimum , it is very unfair to your new employer to accept a counter .