About a year ago, I installed Skype but had no one to talk to. Today, I use it to talk with Michael Geesmann in Berlin, Germany, and Caroline uses Skype Out to talk with her mom in Frankfurt, Germany. Michael is an old friend from Frankfurt who now makes a living working out of his apartment selling various small gift items on eBay. Since last September Michael and I have talked for free for a total of many hours. Another old friend, Olaf Finkbeiner, is also using Skype but he is rarely available. Using Skype Out Caroline has talked with her mom for about a dozen hours with a cost of only .02 cents per minute. Voice over I.P. or VOIP is a dream on broadband, but using Skype Out to call our friend Jay Patel in Bombay, India, on his cell phone hasn’t worked out yet; the connection is far too noisy and impossible even to establish anything resembling a conversation. Having a chat window open while at the same time talking is the best of both worlds – telecom and the internet; as we talk, we send links back and forth, introducing each other to various websites.

The past months have seen us take a curbing to go out for dinner. The restaurants within a 15-mile radius have become progressively more boring. Cooking at home, on the other hand, has become more and more enjoyable the more comfortable I get in the kitchen. As I eat more vegetarian meals, I also become more aware of shortcomings that might be part of the diet and am learning how to compensate and ensure we are eating balanced meals. Just yesterday, the USDA released its new dietary recommendations, and there is a heavy emphasis on more fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds and less meat, sugar, fat, and salt.

Finding the balance of how a healthy diet works is not all that easy, though. At the moment I try to balance in my mind’s eye what we are eating over the course of the day and try to approximate what we need and where we fall short. This is a failing proposition; while we are probably getting a healthier meal, I’m not at all comfortable that the food is giving us everything we need. So I refer back to maybe trying to realize my idea for software that would help guide us to finding that perfect mix of food items.

This evening we had a dinner of Sambar, a south Indian soup which is supposed to be served with Idli’s – that I don’t make as of yet. Instead, I altered the recipe from a soupier to a more stew-like meal. My version contains the following: urad dahl (split urad or urd bean), channa dahl (split chickpea), toor dahl (yellow lentils), Kabuli channa (garbanzos or chickpea – larger than channa dahl), mustard seed, curry leaf, cumin, coriander, turmeric, green chilies, ginger, garlic, red onion, peas, corn, Mexican squash, crookneck squash, bottle gourd (doodhi), tomatoes, carrot, celery, cilantro, tamarind paste, and sambar seasoning.