Tea Recipes

most grateful for Picwick Tea for sharing these great recipes :


Persian Tea

Ingredients:
• Teabags
• 80 grams sugar
• Peach slices
• Orange segments
• Rum
Set fresh water to boil (3-5 minutes). Add boiled water to tea and let stand 5 minutes. Remove teabags. Stir sugar into the tea and let the mixture cool to room temperature.

Prepare tall tea glasses with peach slices, orange segments and a splash of rum. Top off with ice cubes. Add tea.

Russian tea
Ingredients:
• Teabags
• Tablespoonshoney
• Cloves
• 1/3 cinnamon stick
• Juice of one lemon and 2 oranges
In a teapot, add a small amount of hot water a pot, covering the bottom. Add the honey, cloves and cinnamon stick. Heat for 7 minutes. Add the teabags and boiled water. Let the tea stand 5 minutes. While stirring, add the lemon and orange juice. Pour this strong, flavourful drink through a sieve and into a glass. Serve immediately.

Orange Juice Tea
Ingredients:
- 3 oranges
- Half cinnamon stick
- 4 cloves
- 3 tablespoons loose tea or 3 teabags

Place the 4 cloves into a well-cleaned orange. Add the orange and the half cinnamon stick to one litre of water and boil. Let stand for 15 minutes. Sieve the water and add 3 tablespoons (12 grams) of loose tea in a cup-sized tea-strainer, or add three teabags, and let stand 5 minutes. Remove the tea strainer or teabags.

Welcoming drink
Mix with Rooibos, with strawberries (app. 1 litre)
Ingredients:
• 3 Rooibos tea bags
• 1 litre of boiling water
• 250 g fresh (or defrosted) strawberries
• Cane sugar to your taste
• Sparkling wine like, for example, Moscato d’Asti
Boil the water and let it cool for a couple of minutes. Then, mix it with tea, cane sugar and strawberries which are lightly mashed in the jug with a spoon. The tea should draw for at least 30 minutes. Cool down and add sparkling wine to your taste. To be served in a bowl or glass jug.
African Cooler
Spicy drink for cosiness (app. 2 litres)
Ingredients:
• 3 Rooibos tea bags
• 0.5 litre of water
• 1 stick of cinnamon
• A couple of cloves
• A bit of nutmeg
• 1.5 litres of orange juice
Boil the tea together with the spices for ten minutes and let it cool. Add orange juice and serve it with ice cubes in a bowl or a jug.

Eradicating Hunger

Hunger,

That one word is the doom of human being. Being in Hunger meaning you are in the lowest pit possible. Even greater than contagious diseases the number of people died due to hunger.

can we eradicate it ?

in our lifetime?

the answer might be optimistically yes or pessimistically no.

if we chose yes, it means either we put total belief in our so called world leaders to tackle with this problem or we already strating something promising to eradicate -well, at least reduce the possibility of this world fallen to hunger.

if we chose no, then, we're either fatalistic or realistic (depends on the way you see it) .

but truly, realistically, can we eradicate hunger?

not due to lack of effort, i say. Let's see....

there's one very official thing officiate by UN : The Secretary General's Task Force On The global Food Security Crisis.

Chaired by the Secretary-General, the Task Force brings together the Heads of UN specialized agencies, funds and programmes, Bretton Woods institutions and relevant parts of the UN Secretariat. FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf is the Vice-Chairman of the Task Force. The Secretary-General appointed UN Assistant Secretary-General David Nabarro as Task Force Coordinator.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the 2008 Food Summit in Rome

(UN photo/Mark Garten)

• Secretary-General, Chairman
• Jacques Diouf, Vice-Chairman, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
• Kanayo Nwanze, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)
• Juan Somavia, International Labour Organization (ILO)
• Dominique Strauss-Kahn, International Monetary Fund (IMF)
• Cheick Sidi Diarra, UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (OHRLLS)
• Supachai Panitchpakdi, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
• Helen Clark, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
• Achim Steiner, United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)
• António Guterres, Office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
• Ann M. Veneman, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
• Josette Sheeran, World Food Programme (WFP)
• Margaret Chan, World Health Organization (WHO)
• Robert Zoellick, World Bank
• Pascal Lamy, World Trade Organization (WTO)
• Sha Zukang, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)
• B. Lynn Pascoe, Department of Political Affairs (DPA)
• Kiyotaka Akasaka, Department of Public Information (DPI)
• Alain Le Roy, Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO)
• John Holmes, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
• Navanethem Pillay, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
• David Nabarro, Task Force Coordinator
• Angel Gurría, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
• Jeffrey Sachs, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

now, is not that looks convincing ?

then there are these :

USEFUL LINKS

• Global Food Security Crisis
• National basic food prices - data and analysis tool (Food and Agriculture Organization)
• Health Impacts of the Global Food Security Crisis (World Health Organization)
• UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
• Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
• Relief Web
• Right to Food
• IRIN
• Economic and Social Council
• Special Meeting of ECOSOC on Global Food Crisis - New York (20 May 2008)
• UN News Centre
• Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• UN Economic and Social Development
• Food crisis: Scarcity amid plenty (DESA News, vol. 12, No. 5)

this :

the analysis provided by FAO :http://www.fao.org/economic/es-policybriefs/briefs-detail/en/?no_cache=1&uid=48900

and yearly Food World Day, World Economic Meeting, etc, etc

why then, after (eventhough there're) those efforts, world still legshacked by hunger?

why ?

why ?

is it enough to let the people (whomever they are) as one of my friend said to tackle hunger? are we not also responsible ? we are part of this world aren't we ?

we also threatened by hunger aren't we ? should we let "situation" run us down ? let the show run without us ? let our big family suffers? just because we don't feel like it is our job to do ?just because we don't feel it is our place? just like we feel like we are not "big" enough ?

I don't think so.

I believe each and every small efforts are being responsible to the running of this world. If our world leaders and captains of industry just fail to commit all resources for the goodness of all , then maybe we should use every small resources we had for the sake of humanity. and if we try one small step at a time, maybe we can eradicate hunger one day.

My friends, my sisters and brothers in training, let's start the step ?

Love you.

BFF

Some days before, I’m being pinged in my ***, a friend asked me to join a group chat with another friend. Those are two of my best friend in the world. Amazingly they are the ones who are not in similar group age, not in similar profession, not having the similar background. They and I only had one thing in common : our passion on one thing and one thing only : racing car.

Due to my passionate hobby, I found so many like me, ones who would dedicate their every spare time into it. I love racing cars and so are they. We met by chance, and by new amazing this century tool : internet. Funny thing is , when we met, we are so overwhelmed by our passion in racing, but after we get to know each other, we drifted away from that topic. We then discussed everything under the sky and hey ho, we are becoming best of friends.

Friendship which I appreciate more than some because ours are no pretensions. Ours made not due to physical encounters (which sometimes somehow could direct to prejudices). Ours made by the meeting of minds and thus I treasure.

When we chat I realized (with bit of surprise) I love them and they me. It’s amazing to know that people whom you rarely (and in one or two cases never) can really, I mean really understand you. They are the people who shared your dreams and would work hand in hand with you to reach it. They love me. That simple fact still amaze me.

I admit, I gloss some facts about me when we first know,but hey, anyone would not want so share everything on strangers don’t they ? but that doesn’t change the fact that they are ones who understand the driving force behind every decisions I made and I thank God for that.

How Indigenous You Are ?

Indigenous peoples are people, communities, and nations who claim a historical continuity and cultural affinity with societies predating contact with Western culture. These peoples consider their local cultures to be distinctly separate from contemporary Westernized cultures, and many continue to assert their sovereigntyand right to cultural self-determination. That’s the definition I got from Wikipedia. The question is, are the people of Indonesia considered indigenous ? and I am asking the whole majority, the big clusters of major ethnic groups than inhabited Indonesia, not some economically marginalized ethnic groups which automatically fall to indigenous category just because of that reason.

Let’s read the first sentence. And focus on the phrase “predating contact” . It meant that every single person in Indonesia who has a straight to the line Indonesian ancestor are indigenous. Technically.

Now lets see the statistic ;according to 2000 census Javanese 40.6%, Sundanese 15%, Madurese 3.3%, Minangkabau 2.7%, Betawi 2.4%, Bugis 2.4%, Banten 2%, Banjar 1.7%, other or unspecified 29.9% .Pardon for not getting newer census, but I think the demography would not change much.

As I know it, every ethnic groups in Indonesia claim a historical continuity and cultural affinity with societeies predating contact with western culture. Thus explained, each and every ethnic majority in Indonesia considered indigenous.

But again, is that the only considerations for indigenous-ity ? and how important the label indigenous anyway ? is indigenous is another label for discrimination ?

I tried to be fair in assessing this issue. I browse quite a lot of site discussing indigenous-ity (although internet is not the most trustable sources in the world mind you). Most of the sites talking about the indigenous as a state in which people find themselves being marginalized by one way or another, most exceptionally is the financial stances and the lack of acceses.

Then I think about one’s wise word I heard: your perception shapes you. So, if we considered that indeigenousity similar to poverty, is it the way to condemn the so called indigenous people into that fate ?

And if that is so, should we stop this issue altogether ?

Not very long ago, I heard one of the local government officials said that local government had developed a programme to help the indigenous (in our case it’s the people live in very remote area, unable to access education and financially poverty stricken- hey ho, that’s a universal definition of indigenous I guess) people in our local regency.

The indigenous people , he said will be relocated into more accessible location, in which they could access market, education and so on related to so called modern life. Then, the people will learn to interact with “ours” and adopting our way of life and being modernized. For the pilot project, 70 families will be relocated.

That sounds like a good plan – in a way. In another, do we really want to see yet another local wisdom left this earth ? yes, that so called local wisdom don’t help them got tons of money or getting a PHD for free, but it is part of our history, our heritage. Cannot we preserve the heritage and promote modernization all the same ?