Friday, June 18, 2010

Sunday Brunch

As a graduate Indian student in the US, my weekend meals are a not a deterministic phenomenon. Cooking turns on weekdays are a regular thing on the schedule, but one meal I always enjoy, and hence look forward to, is the Sunday morning breakfast/brunch (depending on the time of waking up). Moreover, the whole act of cooking together in the morning is an entertaining prospect in itself.

We are big fans of cooking eggs for breakfast. And why not? The number of really good breakfast dishes you can make with eggs, and other commonly available ingredients is just plain delightful. I think half the fun in cooking eggs is sometimes not knowing till the end, how it is going to turn out. I revel in the suspense of whether this is going to turn out to be an omelette or part-scrambled.

The uncertainty at all times is due to the unpredictable nature of some of the frying pans we use.A good quality frying pan always lets you cleanly slide your cooked eggs on to the plate. I just love it when that happens. But if your frying pan is old, then it may be a bit of an effort taking the eggs off the pan, and you may not get everything in one piece.

eggs

Anyway, enough said about the dynamics of eggs and pans. Lets cook breakfast for two.First up, the eggs. You will need six eggs (6 whites and 3 yolks for those who are inclined). Add some salt and black pepper powder and beat them up till they are real nice and fluffy. Add a little milk if you wish.

mushroomsNext, take a couple of button mushrooms. Chop them up into bite size pieces.

Fire up your frying pan now, and add some extra virgin olive oil (any cooking oil in your kitchen will do). Throw in the mushrooms and sauté till they are slightly brown.

mushrooms-and-ginger-garlic-pasteRemember that mushrooms cook really quickly; so you don't want to overcook them. Add a teaspoon of ginger and garlic paste, and continue to sauté.

spinachAdd some chopped spinach to the pan, if you have any, and continue to sauté till the spinach seems to be cooked (this does not take more than a few minutes). She taught me to do the following: use a pair of ordinary kitchen scissors to chop the spinach right over the pan for small quantities. It is quick, easy and clean.

eggsinthepanAfter doing this for a couple of minutes, add the eggs to the pan. Hold the handle of the pan and shake it a little so that the veggies and the eggs are spread evenly and form a uniform coat.

mozzarellaLet it cook for a minute or so, and then add a few pieces of mozzarella cheese into the pan. Any kind of cheese that mixes/melts easily will do. We like trying out different varieties of cheese. The last time it was goat cheese. The mexican three cheese blend that you get in the grocery store is also great for adding to eggs.

cooking-eggsNow reduce the heat to low flame, cover the pan and let it cook for a couple of minutes till the eggs are a lot less runny. You still want to keep them a bit runny in the end - don't overcook.

blenderIn the meantime, lets make some smoothie. Nothing better than something healthy to drink along with your eggs. Take some oatmeal in a bowl, add double the quantity of water, and cook it in the microwave for 3 minutes. Take a blender, add the cooked oatmeal, a bunch of blueberries (any berries of your choice will work),a banana cut into pieces, and a generous quantity of yoghurt.Blend for a couple of seconds.

Then add some milk and some maple syrup to taste (honey works just as well). Continue to blend till you get a smooth consistency. Pour into glasses. Meanwhile, keep checking on the eggs once in a while.

cutting-eggsWe like them when they are still a wee bit runny. Lob off a piece of butter on top of your omelette and let it melt. Use a table knife (or wooden spatula) to cut it into slices while still in the pan.

breakfastFinally, toast a few slices of some really good bread from your local bakery. For those in Baltimore, she highly recommends (and I endorse) the sunflower flaxseed bread from Atwaters. Enjoy your meal!

Friday, June 04, 2010

Can’t connect to MySQL server on ’server’

Its been a long time since I wrote anything here. So, I thought let me resume by sharing a little piece of information I gathered the other day. So, I have been using MySQL to manage some data related to my research. I have installations on multiple machines that I use, and recently I had to install it on another ubuntu machine. I did the following:

<code>sudo apt-get install php5 mysql-server apache2 phpmyadmin</code>

It worked fine, but then, my python script that runs on another machine began to complain that it could not connect to my MySQL server:

 Can't connect to MySQL server on 'server'

Now that was just ridiculous because this has never happened before. So I trolled and trolled till I found what I was looking for:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum10/6141.htm

So, turns out that there is this tiny piece of configuration information in your /etc/mysql/my.cnf file that says:

bind-address = 127.0.0.1

which essentially means that all connections coming in from anywhere other than the local machine will not be entertained. Remove or comment that line and restart your server. Things start working!