Food

Recipe: Baked chicken sandwich

16 Nov, 14 Prasad Leave a comment

Continuing with recipes using shredded chicken as the key ingredient, here is another one that I was keen on trying.

Ingredients:

8 slices of Multi-grain/Whole-wheat bread
2 Tomatoes, sliced
1 Onion, chopped
1 Garlic clove
1 Egg, whipped
2 tbsp Milk
4 Cheese slices
Olive Oil (or butter)
Shredded chicken
Barbecue sauce
Mustard sauce
Pepper
Chili flakes
Lemon juice
Thyme (optional)
Red wine (optional)

Procedure:

Add Barbecue sauce, Mustard sauce, Pepper, Chili flakes, Lemon juice, and if available Red wine & Thyme to the shredded chicken. Leave it to marinate for an hour
Heat some butter in a saucepan to saute the onions with garlic. Once cooked, add the chicken and mix well.
Grease the baking tray and lay bread slices.
Layer the chicken, tomato slices, cheese and sprinkle salt/pepper to taste. Cover the top with a slice.
Add some milk, and beat the egg. Pour this over the top slice.
Place the tray in an oven, and bake at 375′ for 30 mins.

Serve hot!

Food

Recipe: Shredded Chicken

25 Oct, 14 Prasad Leave a comment

In an earlier recipe, I mentioned my plans to write a cookbook, exclusive to recipes using shredded chicken as the key ingredient. This post is chapter 1: “Preparing your key ingredient“. As simple as it sounds, boiling chicken is an art. The trick is to cook the chicken without leaving it too dry. And here is how:

Procedure:

Take enough water in a large vessel to fit the chicken pieces and bring it to boil – WITHOUT the chicken
Cut the chicken breasts (or other pieces) into sizable chunks
Once the water is boiling, reduce the flame & drop the chicken pieces into the vessel
While the chicken boils, keep skimming the foamy protein that floats on the top (as shown below)

Continue reading Recipe: Shredded Chicken →

Travel

2 days in the air with Skyteam

08 Oct, 14 Prasad Leave a comment

I usually try flying Star Alliance (*A), especially with Air India (AI) on board. But there are still quite a few sectors where *A lacks good connections – like Portland for example. I’ve been consciously avoiding Air France (AF) after reading about their mistreatment of Indians. We did try booking easterly via Japan, but with just a week’s notice, even that was sold out. I was left with no option but to fly Skyteam all through BOM-CDG-SLC-PDX-AMS-BOM with AF-DL.

The numbers

The to & fro journeys happen to be my longest 2 ever: a whopping 32 hours end-to-end to Portland, and 25 hours on the return. It also has the highest meeting-to-journey (MTJ) ratio of 28.5 hours of travel per hour of business meetings 🙂 The previous record was 15 hours. CDG-SLC also happens to be my longest sector this year – 5072 miles.

BOM-CDG on Air France

Without airline lounge access, I used the Clipper lounge which seems inferior to the new CSIA First Class lounge. We had an on-time departure around 2am. On board the A330, the crew seemed very pleasant. They distributed headphones and a night kit with an eye mask & ear muffs. The light midnight snack was the largest served by any airline that operates flights post midnight. LH, LX, VS, DL all serve a puff roll with drinks. Apart from the hot snack, AF served fruits – really help keep you hydrated on long flights – and a granola bar to munch later in the night. They used an older In-flight entertainment (IFE) system Continue reading 2 days in the air with Skyteam →

Food

Recipe: Oven-toasted Chicken Bruschettas

05 Oct, 14 Prasad 1 Comment

At some point in time, I am going to write a book about cooking: “A Husband’s guide to quick recipes – a.k.a. all you need is shredded chicken”. The possibilities of what you can do with shredded chicken are limitless. I’ve used it with enchiladas, salads, nachos, pizzas and what not. Here is another easy one.

Ingredients:

Garlic bread (6 in)
Tomato (finely-chopped)
Shredded chicken
McCormick Brown Gravy mix (optional)
Black pepper (ground)
Oregano
Tabasco sauce
Amul Cheese spread (pepper)
Mozzarella Cheese
Butter
Tartar sauce (for the dip)

Continue reading Recipe: Oven-toasted Chicken Bruschettas →

Human Capital, Tips & Tricks

A 1-page resume design that speaks to your hiring manager 🏆

24 Sep, 14 Prasad 10 Comments

The last time I redesigned (not updated) my resume was 2009. Since then, my understanding of ease-of-use, information architecture & win-loss has grown several fold. Late last year I realized that my resume looks archaic and needs a revamp.

The need was to create something that was:

information rich yet not cluttered
comprehensible yet not funky
likely to get past through the recruiter’s clutter.

Several opinions & tweaks later, I finally published a release candidate that I wanted to share. Yes, sharing definitely looses the competitive advantage at a PM opening, but what use is creativity that’s kept to yourself. I hope this bit on the design rationale helps all.

📰 The importance of Page 1

It’s a no-brainer how crucial the first page is to recruiters, considering their daily swim in the resume swarm. The key was to summarize everything that mattered to them on Page 1, while deferring details to following pages. More importantly, it also acts as a printable summary to save some paper.

Continue reading →

Travel

A Night in Sønderborg

16 Sep, 14 Prasad 4 Comments

I’ve been to small towns before. Quite a lot of European cities, and Melbourne, can be explored on foot (maybe, some tram). But last week, I visited the smallest of them all – a town named Sønderborg in East Denmark.

Sonderborg, like many other towns in Europe, is the home of a manufacturing giant, for which it is best known. Corporate presence helps create employment opportunities and develop local infrastructure of these smaller towns that would otherwise be neglected. A local airline, Alsie Express, operates a few flights to Copenhagen everyday with their ATR aircraft in jet-black livery.

Shortly after takeoff the hostess came out of the front door to serve coffee, chocolate or nachos. We initially thought it was the pilot making good use of the auto-pilot, but later realized it was the ATRs cargo hold. The aircraft is an all business class configuration with the kind of leg-space that my friend Hriday needs, but hardly gets. Each seat stretching two window panes speaks for itself.

The approach served us a beautiful view of the area – lush green islands in the sea. The airport was a tiny little building – the size of a petrol pump (or smaller actually). The bags were loaded on a cart and then pushed into a gutter in the building. The 4 table cafeteria was empty, and there was free coffee and WiFi in the 8 seat waiting area.

There was a single, large common washroom. In the time that my friend took a smoke, people had moved out in their cars and the airport door was locked. The few taxis that were there had gone and we kept waiting. A lady realized we were new here Continue reading A Night in Sønderborg →

Tips & Tricks

5 benefits of indulging yourself in pet projects

11 Sep, 14 Prasad Leave a comment

You have every right to question my proposal – haven’t projects at work already tamed our lives for the worst? Well, yes definitely. But I’m not talking about work-related projects, or even the side projects that your cool workplace encourages. I’m talking about every other little project that needn’t advance your career or make you money (at least to begin with). The reason I’m distinguishing this from hobbies is because a hobby can keep you amused for an entire life-time – like numismatics for me. Projects on the other hand will usually have an end-result.

Courtesy: drrajivdesaimd.com — Staying the grey zone

The result is what is crucial to creating a sense of achievement & satisfaction. It is only one of the benefits you would you see while engaging yourself in a pet project. Here are some more:

1. Sense passion and purpose

The monotony or stress at work takes a hit on passion. A project with the right amount of challenge can bring you back in the grey zone and you will experience passion. Additionally,
Continue reading 5 benefits of indulging yourself in pet projects →

Food

Crackerjack Popcorn Fail

17 Aug, 14 Prasad Leave a comment

A year I tried this recipe for Homemade Cracker Jack and it turned out great! Crunchy peanuts glued to caramel pop-corn making for a nice sweet-and-salty snack. Just a few days back, I bumped into a question on Quora that asked ‘When do you realise that you are good at something?‘ to which I said: When repeating ‘it’ no longer worries you. Or when You dont need revision or preparation, and when others seek your opinion or value you experience.

In an attempt to get good at Crackerjack (and to satisfy my craving on a slow Sunday evening) I went ahead and tried it again. Only to realize that I still need to improve. The peanuts just didn’t glue with the pop-corn because my caramel sauce should’ve had more butter & water. But I’m glad that I attempted to perfect it, traced the cause of my failure and that I’m still eager to perfect it.

Travel

10 learnings from Japan

14 Aug, 14 Prasad Leave a comment

I’ve learned some fascinating & exemplary stories about discipline & honesty in Japan through Quora. When the time came to visit Tokyo, I felt that I should familiarize myself with some Japanese etiquette. And I must say that a few minutes of reading came in very handy during the trip. Here is what I’ll keep with me forever:

1. Respect everything

Courtesy: Hobotraveler.com — Cash tray besides the register

Handle everything with both hands, especially money. Most counters will have a tray next to the ledger where you are expected to place money & pick your change. I guess the practice of receiving business cards with both hands comes from here.

2. Avoid 4 & 9 in every way

The Japanese word for “four” sounds like the word for “death” whereas ‘nine’ is sometimes pronounced ‘ku’, which can mean suffering. Its a superstitious piss-off; I don’t know how many follow, but I would avoid a 4 piece gift or a sales offer with too many nines.

3. Go with the group

Generally, the Japanese believe in group decision making that is focused on the larger good. This avoid favorism and blocks in-ways in an integral group – possibly why Japan was never colonized. This could slow down the process, but that’s how it is.

4. Genuine customer focus

Here’s my story: I went to the information counter at HND airport around 7:25 asking for a bus to my destination. The lady said the next one is at 10am. I had read about one at 7:45 and asked her to check; when she realized there was one, she apologized at least thrice for the possible misguide. She then realized that there was very little time left and I possibly couldn’t make it to the bus stop after getting my bus & train tickets. She, in her kimono and modified geta, ran to help me with tickets and brought me all the way to the bus stop around 7:38am. That was perhaps one of the happiest moments of her life Continue reading 10 learnings from Japan →

Being a Product Manager

The Top 5 Deterents to Agile

04 Aug, 14 Prasad 6 Comments

The beauty of Agile is the fact that its just about a few principles. – which we also summarized in a few words. Everything else is under your control. And on your way from classic waterfall practices to adopting those principles, you are likely to encounter some serious blockers. I’m attempting to list out the top 5 along with the Agile principles that they block.

1. Large teams

Blocks: Velocity, Working together

It is uncommon to have a cross-functional team of teams with 30-50 folks working on the same product. While the Agile deliverable is a few days of work, large teams working on a single release will generate a huge deliverable that is more coupled, has wider impact and demands extensive testing.

2. Fixed-scope planning

Blocks: Working software, Simplicity, Accepting change

Teams that have a fixed-scope mental block start off by committing a scope for the next release, and then estimate a future release date. Since estimates are often incorrect, the release is delayed to deliver the committed scope – which is just not Agile. Forget about changing requirements, folks won’t even drop a few stories or acceptance criteria at the very end, to meet the committed date (time-box) – at the cost of Continue reading The Top 5 Deterents to Agile →