India Fashion Week: favorites

Showing posts with label favorites. Show all posts

TRUMILK

Recently Kristen wrote about homemade ice cream and the loveliness that is eCreamery. The post and photos made my mouth water, so we decided to try out some ice cream.

We dug out the ice cream maker, Kushal found some rock salt and then I proceeded to burn the darn thing out. I may NEVER adapt to which sockets various appliances can be plugged into. The Husb surely thinks me a moron for having this horrible learning curve when it comes to voltage!

Soon after the recipe for Buttered Caramel, came a post from Kirsten about Cocoa Bean Chocolate and we had this comment dialogue ::

The point of this post though is not about the ice cream (although we DID eventually and successfully make Cinnamon Ice Cream by using the freezer vs the ice cream maker). We made the ice cream, but no one really wanted to eat it because it tastes like boxed milk.

The point of this post is more about milk and the fact that after two years here in India, we are finally all drinking it again!

So let's chat about milk.

In Delhi, the options for milk in the past have been Mother Dairy, Amul or Nestle.

Mother Dairy is a machine, and according to their website, markets approximately 2.8 million liters of milk daily in the markets of Delhi, Mumbai, Saurashtra and Hyderabad. They sell via 14,000 retail outlets and 845 exclusive outlets of Mother Dairy.

Nestle has seven manufacturing facilities and four branch offices across the country. They have over 6,000 products on the Indian market (crazy!), but I was unable to find information about how many liters of milk they sell per day. To learn more about their system and community service, read HERE.

Amul is a smaller company, with about 50 products on the Indian market, but they still churn out 11.2 million liters of milk per day.

As an aside :: India produces the largest number of liters of milk (and also at the lowest cost) followed by the United States, Germany and then Pakistan. (Source : Wikipedia)

"Urban India consumes over half of domestic milk production. Rising awareness about hygiene standards and preference against loose milk has prompted the urban consumer to switch to pasteurised packaged milk. This has created a demand of 140 million litres per day, which is expected to double in the next five years." (Source : India Today)

First came the fresh milk option ::

(Super cheap. Literally fresh (like still warm!) and scooped into your own container for about Rs. 15/liter. This milk must be boiled before consumption)

Then the bagged milk option ::

(About the same cost. This is your homogenized option and used just like the bags that are common in Canada. This milk does not need to be boiled, but most folks still do)

Then the boxed milk option (currently about Rs 52/box) ::

Down near the bottom, the box says UHT Treated. Toned Milk. Ultra-high temperature processing (UHT) provides a shelf life of 6-9 months (until opened) and causes a "browning" of sorts and a change of taste, due to the high heat.

(Now, just for perspective, all of the websites for UHT milk state that the shelf life is good "at room temperature" which in our kitchen (without air conditioning or a fan) holds between 30˚ and 35˚ depending on the day. Yuck)

UHT typically contains no preservatives. After being heated to approximately 275˚ for 1-2 seconds, the milk is then germ free. The milk is then typically packaged in a six-layer package (Nestle, Mother Dairy and Amul all claim this type of container) and there is no need to boil before consuming.

After two years with an option that I've never really been fond of since what I really wanted for my morning cereal was these,

I was beyond tickled pink to learn about TruMilk (currently about Rs 72 per jug, which is double the content of the Nestle box) ::

What sold me on trying TruMilk was (1) the jug with the screw top lid and (2) this piece of their marketing material :

We understand that you too are concerned about the quality of milk consumed by you and your family.

Like us, you probably worry about:

Unregulated hormone use
Unhygienic conditions in which cows are milked
Nasty diseases in cows or those people who milk them
Unrefrigerated milk lying in open buckets overnight awaiting collection (cows are milked twice daily, but milk only collected once daily...)
Flies and other things in the milk that just should not be anywhere near milk
Whether your milk came from cows that browse garbage dumps for food

Why yes, I do!

I'm starting to get long-winded here and am sounding like a member of the TruMilk marketing team!! (I'm not. They don't even know I'm writing this. I just want to spread the good word!)

To learn about their farms, click here. To learn about the safety of their production, click here. To learn about the cleanliness of their milk, click here. To learn about the freshness, click here.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against the UHT milk because of the process, and I'm not a freak about preservatives, shelf life, etc. To me, it's all about the taste.

When I don't care for cold cereal and milk in the morning, and my ice cream doesn't taste good because the milk has previously been heat blasted, it makes me VERY excited about TruMilk!

We have since made a batch of TruMilk cinnamon ice cream and it is DA BOMB!!!

Want to try it out for yourself? STORE LOCATIONS HERE

NOTE :: this isn't your boxed milk that you're used to! It has a 4-5 day fridge shelf life and you will need to look carefully at the expiration date before purchasing, lest you end up back at home with milk that is only good for another day. FYI - Modern Bazaar gets their delivery from TruMilk on M, W and F.

PARACHUTE PROMISES and SATURDAY SNIPPETS

I love sharing cool and funky things that I hear about in blogland ...

First off ... Kat and her Parachute Promises ...

I'm simply going to copy and paste from Kat's website, because that way I know more of you will read about her amazing product ::

I often get asked what inspired me to create Parachute Promise, and I have really struggled with that answer, because it's such a deeply personal question. If I’d created something along the lines of a better light bulb, or a better way to wash your clothes, I could point to some eureka moment of which the product was the result.

I started out just wanting to tell a few people who were close to me how grateful I was they had helped me to just keep going through a very difficult time. They held my hand and kept reminding me that with some things in this life, the only way out is through. They reminded me that no matter what was happening, we could get through it together. There wasn’t anything I could give them to symbolize how vitally important their support was during that time, and so the first creative seeds of Parachute Promise were born.

At the time, I was working with a gentleman named Dean Baxter. Dean always wore this interestingly shaped piece of metal on a leather cord. It wasn’t anything I had seen before, and it just looked like it was significant. Dean was a skydiver. He said that particular little piece of metal had saved his life a little over 500 times. I was fascinated by it. He explained how the little pin was all about timing, that a failure of its function either too soon or too late would have equally disastrous results. Many members of the skydiving community wear these curved release pins, also called “closing pins,” and this tiny piece of metal quite literally saves their lives.

I am not a skydiver. I would never jump out of a perfectly good airplane on purpose. What I was hearing and seeing as he was telling me this story was how life is its own form of free fall. So much of it is about timing—the wrong or right set of circumstances on either side can have either beautiful or disastrous results. I realized that the friends I had were right on time and were, quite literally, saving my life. They were, in their own way, my parachute. I found a manufacturer of these closing pins and ordered five. Four were intended as gifts, and one was intended for me. After all, I had survived the free fall as well.

I tied a piece of suede to each pin and gave them to my friends while thanking them for providing me with a soft landing. One of those recipients was so touched by it, she called me the next day not only to thank me, but to suggest that I create these for others. That is what you see today, the results of those events and that conversation. My family, friends and I started making these necklaces, with a little parachute release pin and a powerful message of thanks we hoped would find its way into the world.

But this isn’t about a product, this is about ... (NOW ... will you go click over to her website to read about the rest of the "about" story?)

I would seriously encourage you to check out the Parachute Promise keychains and necklaces, and think about who has given YOU a soft place to land ... this is a creative, unique and beautiful gift!

Check out her Facebook page for some inspiring stories about where the Parachute Promises have landed.

Onto the rest of the Saturday Snippets ::

As his mother, this makes me ABSOLUTELY cringe, BUT I suppose it's worth it for the cute little grin at the end. This is Terran with my mom in Kenya. They were on a matatu (public transportation) and it was so crowded (like they usually are) that he stuck his head out of the window.

(hey, will you do me a favor?  Today is my mama's birthday.  If you have a couple of minutes, would you jump over to her blog and leave a 'happy bday' comment for her?  

I WANT TO DO THESE ::

Project Life

Allie's Mini Books

INSPIRATION ::

This is quite possibly one of the BEST artsy websites I've seen in a LONG time. I love El hada de papel ... and visit it DAILY. Such simplicity ... but such love. We are in the middle of THIS PROJECT.

WELL, DUH! ::

Noma shared this with me ... and I thought I'd pass it on ... you know how others make those cool Facebook symbols? Now you too, can make cool Facebook symbols.

WALL ART ::

Has anyone ever used Fracture? The concept is kind of weirding me out ... but I'd love to see it in "real life" ...

Ok - that's it for this Saturday ... I have some photos (not many) but nothing to share particularly ... and the recipes we've used this week are all repeats ... anything wonderfully brilliant that you've seen this week that you want to share?