Obituary: Sabina Sehgal Saikia

Sabina Sehgal Saikia was a food writer who had been with the Times of India group for over 17 years who at the time of her untimely demise had risen to Consulting Editor at the publication. She died in the Terror attacks in Mumbai where she was staying on the 6th floor. She was in Mumbai for the wedding of Bachi Karkaria's son next week.

Sabina could make or break a Delhi restaurant based on her reviews. She initially wrote an extremely popular column called "Main Course" for the Saturday Times, which later moved to the Delhi Times.

I was first introduced to her, when I picked up the Times of India Restaurant Guide for Delhi, 8 years ago. My next 2 years in Delhi were made tolerable by this handy book. I tried out restaurants based on her recommendations and agreed with her judgment over 80% of the time. She was honest and direct.

The Times of India Restaurant Guides to Hyderabad and Bombay could never match up to the standard that Sabina had set. She had spoiled me against other guides with her perfection and accuracy.

I subscribed to the Times of India in Delhi, just to read her column, although the Hindustan Times gave much better news coverage in Delhi.

An excellent cook herself, she soon visited me in my living room on NDTV cooks demonstrating an especially fiery looking Green Chilli Pickle.

I never met her face-to-face, but I felt like I knew a part of her. The part of her that loved good food and in Saif Ali Khan's words "acha khaana khane ke liye, hum kahin pe bhi chalenge" (to eat good food, we will travel anywhere) and in a wierd way, I identified with this part of her.

Sabina will be sorely missed in the food writers world. Our sympathies go out to her husband Shantanu and her two young children who will feel her absence much more than her millions of devoted readers.

Sabina you brought joy into the lives of food lovers: May your Soul, Rest in Peace.

Locavore : Oxford Word Of The Year

This information was forwarded to me by a friend - Antoine.

Oxford Word Of The Year: Locavore
It's that time of the year again. It is finally starting to get cold (if you are worried about the global warming maybe you should become
carbon-neutral) and the New Oxford American Dictionary is preparing for the holidays by making its biggest announcement of the year. The 2007 Word of the Year is (drum-roll please) locavore.

The past year saw the popularization of a trend in using locally grown ingredients, taking advantage of seasonally available foodstuffs that can be bought and prepared without the need for extra preservatives.

The "locavore" movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers' markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation.

"The word `locavore' shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment," said Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. "It's significant in that it brings together eating and ecology in a new way."

"Locavore" was coined two years ago by a group of four women in San Francisco who proposed that local residents should try to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius. Other regional movements have emerged since then, though some groups refer to themselves as "localvores" rather than "locavores." However it's spelled, it's a word to watch.

India using "ghost chili" to repel killer elephants

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/20/content_7114878.htm

www.chinaview.cn 2007-11-20 16:54:12

BEIJING, Nov. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Indian wildlife experts are using ghost chili -- the world's hottest -- to ward off marauding elephants that have been killing people in villages, and destroying homes and crops in a remote northeast region of the country. Conservationists working on the experimental project in Assam state said they have put up jute fences smeared with automobile grease and bhut jolokia -- certified as the world's hottest chili by the Guinness Book of World Records -- and were using smoke bombs made from the spicy fruit to keep elephants out. "We fill straw nests with pungent dry chili and attach them to sticks before burning it. The fire ball emits a strong pungent smell that succeeds in driving away elephants," Nandita Hazarika of the Assam Haathi (Elephant) Project told The Associated Press on Monday. The animals are not expected to eat the chili -- Hazarika said the smell would be enough to repel them and emphasized the measures would not harm the elephants. Northeast India accounts for the world's largest concentration of wild Asiatic elephants; 5,000 are estimated living in Assam alone. Conservationists say wild elephants increasingly attack human settlements that encroach on their natural habitat. Satellite imagery by India's National Remote Sensing Agency shows that up to 691,880 acres (280,000 hectares) of Assam's forests were cleared from 1996 to 2000. More than 600 people have been killed by wild elephants in Assam in the past 16 years and villagers have reacted with an anger that has shocked conservationists. In 2001, in Sonitpur district, 180 kilometers (112 miles) north of the state capital of Gauhati, villagers poisoned 19 wild elephants to death after they feasted on crops and trampled houses. At 1,000,000 Scoville units -- the scientific measurement of a chili's spiciness -- the bhut jolokia topped the Red Savina habanero, whose spiciness measured around 580,000 Scoville units. (Agencies)