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Sometime ago Taj Vivanta Yeshwantpur invited some of us bloggers for an evening with cocktails and Mediterranean food at Shimmer and Azure, I was so looking forward to the evening with company like Swaps, Swati, Natasha, Neha, Suma and some more friends that came along and food from Azure it was a promising evening.? We started the evening at Shimmer which true to its name was well shimmery

Such a lovely sight isn?t it?

The making of Oliveto

We were given a demo of three cocktails and encouraged to go behind the bar counter and try our hands at it and yes I did try my hand at making one of them.

and the drink itself

The first drink we started with was Oliveto a combination of Olive oil , lemon and egg whites along with Gin before it started getting made we were fearing it will be mayo like after we had that drink I thought may be mayo would have been better. Seriously if the balance of the flavors would have been anywhere close to any balance at all it may have tasted like a good cocktail alas what we got tastedjust like mausambi juice in a weird way

The next drink up for the demo was Watermelon and Basil Bramble which I was hoping will redeem some of the disappointment we had from Oliveto but unfortunately we weren?t so lucky, this drink too was way off the balance mark and it was so strange that two glasses were being passed between several people with no one wanting to finish the drink at all and yes that was another thing I found a little strange, when you invite people for a review you don?t hand over a glass and ask the guests to share. I would have been fine with less of the drink, may be they should have served in shot glasses if they had a constraint on the number of drinks they want to serve the guests but somehow the idea of handing over the glasses to us and asking us to taste from the same didn?t go down too well with me.

The last drink Rosemary delight unfortunately couldn?t change my mind about Shimmer either inspite of the fact that it looked oh so pretty

With a heavy heart and great expectations from Azure (since I have eaten there once before and quite enjoyed the food and in general I love Mediterranean food) we moved to the first floor hoping the food will make us forget the experience at the bar but I guess we had all left our lucky stars back home that day since the usually good Azure fair was below average in most accounts. I think the only two dishes that stood out for me that day were the sea food broth, where the flavours were fabulous and the shrimps and the clams in it perfectly cooked. The other dish which I have a strong and good memory from that day is the?Plum tomato confit, artichoke and cured buffalo mozzarella with french dressing. I have to say this was the dish of the day for me, one of the best confits I have had and the tomatoes were so nicely cooked that there was a discussion on the table on just how they managed it and what have they done to it, unfortunately it wasn?t my dish but I did steal a few bites from Swaps who was sitting right next to me

The beef carpaccio with onion jam and truffle oil was a beautifully plated dish with a good onion jam apart from this in the starters I liked the Falafel

the dips

which was crispy and crunchy, Maqaali which I found severely lacking in flavors infact I don?t think I understood the dish at all , the Shawarma came inside the pitas and was a bit too dry for my liking, chicken liver on buttered brioche had a good sauce but the liver was chewy, the panko crusted chicken was a dish that didn?t make any impression on me, according to me it?s a dish that has been placed there to please kids which is perfectly fine. I can actually imagine my? 5 yr old son eating it with great relish.

There were also the quintessential Mediterranean dips namely tahini, hummus and?baba ganoush, my heart actually pains to say that none of the dips were really outstanding. Yes they weren?t bad but a place which calls itself a Mediterranean joint you certainly expect better.

By the time the journey to main course had started I was very disheartened and was so hoping for the dish that will blow me away a dish that will change my mind into writing a stellar review (I hate writing bad reviews), I ordered Baked Prawns and its a sad day when you leave one of the three jumbo prawns that you have been served because they are overcooked and rubbery and I really struggled to finish the two and did because I was really hungry and didn?t want to go back home and cook again. Sadly the fate of others on the table was similar, I saw people leaving lamb chops and tenderloins because either the meat was over cooked or raw. Another dish I was really looking forward to was the?Tajine but as soon as I got to know that it was only served in the tajine vessel I actually felt cheated, I am wondering how the person who ordered it felt.

And with this we moved to the last course of the day, the course I am so so critical about yes I am talking about the dessert. By this time I had no hopes what so ever and the fact that Swaps told that their baklava was not so stellar last time she came just killed whatever little hopes I had and I have to give it to her because she called that baklava not so stellar according to my view it was BAD. The beauty of baklava for me is the gorgeous layers of phyllo pastry with the crunch of nuts and a fair amount of ghee/butter. Its the explosion of textures and flavors in every bite that makes baklava what it is.? Sadly this had none of it, to be fair to them it had a lot of nuts may be a little more than what usually is there in a baklava but if I had to eat nuts I would fry them in ghee and eat. The warm chocolate fallen cake with organic vanilla ice cream was certainly a little bit of save face for them. It was a decent chocolate cake but it was the ice cream both which came with the cake and which was served as gelato which fell on its face. First I don?t think they were different ice creams atleast there wasn?t any taste of flavor difference between them which is strange since one was the vanilla and other was red wine gelato and two they had big ice crystals in them. So disappointing

In the end with a very heavy heart I have to say that the day had more misses than hits and there were only a couple of items that left mark in my mind such a pity that they had a bad day on the day they had invited bloggers for an evening there. I sincerely hope this was just one off day and they get their act together fast

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Source: http://sinamontales.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/bloggers-table-shimmer-and-azure-taj-vivanta-yeshwantpur/

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NEW YORK (AP) ? The man who police say hurled homophobic slurs at a gay man on a Manhattan street before firing a single fatal shot to his head appeared in court Sunday to face a charge of murder as a hate crime.

Elliot Morales, who appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court, is also charged with criminal possession of a weapon and menacing, according to the complaint filed Sunday by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

Authorities said the Greenwich Village resident used a silver revolver to kill 32-year-old Mark Carson early Saturday as he walked with a companion in Morales’ neighborhood.

Morales was ordered held without bail pending another court appearance on Thursday. His attorney, Reginald Sharpe, could not be reached for comment.

On Saturday, seconds before opening fire in the lively Village streets just after midnight, police say Morales followed Carson and a companion through the Village, asking if they “want to die here,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Police said Morales then yelled anti-gay slurs before shooting Carson point-blank in the face in a neighborhood long known as a bedrock of the gay rights movement.

Morales was soon arrested a few blocks away.

He has a previous arrest for attempted murder in 1998, police said. Details of that arrest weren’t immediately clear.

Saturday’s shooting scene is a few blocks from the Stonewall Inn, the site of 1969 riots that helped give rise to gay rights when patrons reacted to police harassment.

Saturday’s violence follows a spate of recent bias attacks on gay men in New York, but this was the first deadly one. Kelly said police were looking into possible links between the incidents.

The shooting stunned a city where, in many neighborhoods, same-sex couples now walk freely holding hands. It also comes at a time when the gay marriage movement is gaining momentum in many parts of the United States. Twelve states have legalized same-sex marriage, including New York in 2011.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/suspect-ny-bias-shooting-charged-murder-201020368.html

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is delivering the commencement address at Morehouse College, the historically black, all-male institution that counts Martin Luther King Jr. among its alumni.

The Atlanta-based private school says about 500 students will receive undergraduate degrees Sunday, becoming what are known as “Morehouse Men.”

It is Obama‘s second graduation speech of the year. Last Sunday, he urged graduates of Ohio State University in Columbus to become vigorous participants in their democracy.

After the speech, Obama is scheduled to attend a Democratic Senate fundraiser in Atlanta.

Obama’s third and final commencement address of the season comes Friday at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-address-morehouse-college-commencement-083541960.html

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United Airlines is getting its 787s back in the air.

The planes are returning after being grounded for four months by the federal government because of smoldering batteries on 787s owned by other airlines. The incidents included an emergency landing of one plane, and a fire on another.

The incidents never caused any serious injuries. But the January grounding embarrassed Boeing, which makes the 787, and disrupted schedules at the eight airlines that were flying the planes. The company had delivered 50 of the planes worldwide.

The grounding forced United to delay planned international flights and hurt its first-quarter earnings by $11 million. Others, including Japan Airlines and South America’s LATAM Airlines Group, also said profits were reduced. LATAM said it still had to make payments on the plane and pay for crews and maintenance. It expects to resume flying soon.

United’s first 787 flight was scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday from Houston to Chicago.

Passengers didn’t appear to be too worried. “We saw strong demand for the flight from the first weekend it opened for sale,” said United spokeswoman Christen David.

United is planning to use 787s on shorter domestic flights before resuming international flights on June 10 with new Denver-to-Tokyo service as well as temporary Houston-to-London flights. It’s adding flights to Tokyo, Shanghai, and Lagos, Nigeria, in August.

Those long international flights are the main reason the 787 exists. Its medium size and fuel efficiency are a good fit for long routes. Starting with shorter domestic flights “will give us a period to ramp up full 787 operations,” David said.

United Continental Holdings Inc. was the first U.S. airline to get the 787 and now has six. United has said it expects to have four fixed by Monday, with the other two getting their batteries modified in coming days.

The 787 uses more electricity than any other jet. And it makes more use of lithium-ion batteries than any other jet, because it needs to be able to provide power for things like flight controls and a backup generator when its engines are shut down. Each 787 has two of the batteries.

Boeing Co. never did figure out the root cause of the battery incidents. Instead, it redesigned the battery and its charger. The idea was to eliminate all of the possible causes, 787 chief engineer Mike Sinnett said in an online chat on Thursday where he and a Boeing test pilot took questions about the plane.

The changes include more heat insulation between each cell and charging the battery to a lower maximum voltage.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/united-restart-787-flights-monday-054145733.html

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BOSTON (AP) ? This year’s commencement at Boston College looks to be notable for who will be there, as well as who won’t.

Two graduate business students who were injured in the Boston Marathon bombings have recovered enough to receive their diplomas in Monday’s ceremonies.

Brittany Loring and Liza Cherney are both set to receive degrees from the Carroll School of Management. Loring needed three operations after her left leg was struck by shrapnel from the first of the twin blasts on April 15. Cherney was standing next to her close friend and classmate Loring and was also badly hurt.

Earlier Monday, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny will address students receiving undergraduate degrees from the Jesuit-run college. He’ll also receive an honorary degree.

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley won’t be there for Kenny’s speech because of Kenny’s support for legislation in his country that would permit abortion.

The leader of the Boston Archdiocese traditionally gives the benediction at Boston College’s graduation, but the U.S. Catholic bishops have urged Catholic institutions not to honor government officials who promote it.

Kenny says the bill simply clarifies when a doctor can perform an abortion to save a woman’s life. But Catholic bishops say it would greatly expand abortion, particularly by permitting it in certain cases when a woman threatens suicide.

O’Malley called abortion a “crime against humanity” and said he decided not to attend the ceremony because Boston College didn’t withdraw its invitation, and Kenny didn’t decline it.

Boston College spokesman Jack Dunn said the school respects O’Malley and regrets he won’t attend graduation.

“However, we look forward to our commencement and to Prime Minister Kenny‘s remarks,” he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bc-ceremony-notable-attend-wont-063046915.html

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By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda placed a bounty on her husband’s head, Mary Feierstein learned of it from a friend who called and said, “You must be a mess!”

U.S. Ambassador Gerald Feierstein was thousands of miles (km) away at the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, without his wife and family on what is called an “unaccompanied” posting.

He is one of more than a thousand U.S. diplomats on such tours of duty in danger spots around the world, part of a trend that is changing the definition of being a diplomat.

Over time, his wife has learned to stay calm when the phone rings unexpectedly at her home outside Washington. For nearly five years, she has not lived in the same country as her husband, a career diplomat who specializes in the Middle East and South Asia.

After militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Yemen last September, breaking through to the inner building and ripping plaques and lettering from the walls, Feierstein called his wife to tell her he was OK.

He had also called her a few years earlier when he was based in Islamabad, Pakistan, and a bomb went off near his residence. He was unhurt in that attack.

But when Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – considered by U.S. officials to be al Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate – offered 3 kg of gold last December for the killing of Feierstein, it was Mary’s turn to call her husband. He played down the danger.

“He said it was old news. They are constantly under threat, you know,” Mary Feierstein said in her first media interview since the threat.

After a police officer came to her home to give her his card and tell her to call him if she needed any help, “that’s when I got scared,” Feierstein said.

The new perils for foreign service officers were spotlighted last September 11, when militants overran the temporary U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing four Americans, including Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. Two other U.S. diplomats were killed in Afghanistan in the past year.

President Barack Obama, still grappling with controversy over the Benghazi attack, called on Congress on Friday to fully fund his $4 billion embassy security budget request.

In a memorial ceremony earlier this month at the State Department, Vice President Joe Biden said that diplomats “take risks that sometimes exceed those of the women and men in uniform.”

Honored along with Stevens were Sean Patrick Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who died in Benghazi; and foreign service officers Anne Smedinghoff and Ragaei Said Abdelfattah, killed in Afghanistan in 2013 and 2012.

FIVE-FOLD INCREASE IN UNACCOMPANIED DIPLOMATS

The State Department says there are about 1,100 U.S. foreign service officers now at posts abroad where they are unaccompanied or there are limits on who can accompany them – usually meaning no children.

That is a five-fold increase in unaccompanied American diplomats over the past decade, and represents about 14 percent of U.S. foreign service officers serving overseas.

The change began with “civilian surges” into the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan to help with stabilization and reconstruction. Over 400 unaccompanied diplomats are in those countries.

Then, the Arab Spring uprisings starting in 2011 added many unstable countries to the list where the State Department did not want to send families.

The fluctuating list now includes Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Tunisia, as well as the new African state of South Sudan, the State Department said.

The U.S. embassies in Algeria, Sudan and Lebanon are in the “limited accompanied” category as is the U.S. Consulate in Mexico’s third-largest city, Monterrey, a focal point for drug-related violence.

The risks to diplomats are not all external. A 2007 State Department survey said 17 percent of employees who had served in dangerous posts indicated some symptoms similar to those of post-traumatic stress disorder. The department, following the military’s lead, has set up a program to help diagnose and treat PTSD in its employees.

Mary Feierstein realized she was one of an expanding group of left-behind relatives when she started attending the year-end holiday parties the State Department throws for them, and noticed the crowd getting bigger every year.

She also noticed a lot of small children at those parties, and admitted to thinking, “At least my kids are grown.” Her children, two daughters and a son, are all in their 20s. Her son has served two tours of duty with the Marines in Iraq.

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attended the holiday parties, at which some of the unaccompanied diplomats were Skyped in from abroad. Feierstein said she thought Obama should attend too.

The president did call Gerald Feierstein to thank him for his service after the Yemen embassy was attacked last September 13, two days after the Benghazi assaults.

‘NEW NORM’

The United States used to be quicker to evacuate its embassies and consulates when dangers arose, said Susan Johnson, president of the American Foreign Service Association, the official union representing the Foreign Service.

These days, Washington tries to manage risks by building up the physical security of posts and increasing diplomatic security personnel, she said.

“In the process, we seem to have built a new level of tolerance for the amount of risk our diplomats face,” Johnson said, adding that unaccompanied tours were increasingly becoming “a new norm.”

There is pressure on diplomats to do the dangerous tours in order to advance. It is perceived to be “almost mandatory” to serve at an unaccompanied post and “punch that ticket” during a Foreign Service career, she said.

The State Department said 20 percent of its current employees had served in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan.

The department offers incentives such as danger pay and shorter tours. Unaccompanied posts can be just 12 months, with several breaks, and families can often be left behind at a previous post to minimize disruption.

The State Department has made considerable progress in supporting employees in unaccompanied posts, its inspector general said in a 2010 report. Still, it said, “many returnees experience problems adjusting to their follow-on assignments,” and more counseling services may be needed.

Mary Feierstein was born in Pakistan and met her husband on his first tour there in the 1970s. She said he was one of some “really tough people” that the State Department keeps cycling through stressful, dangerous posts.

Gerald Feierstein served in Lebanon unaccompanied in 2003 and 2004, then returned to Washington for a few years and was a senior official in the State Department’s counterterrorism office.

He was sent to Pakistan for the third time in his career in 2008, as deputy chief of mission in Islamabad. His family stayed in the United States. In September 2010, Feierstein went to Yemen, again without his family.

“We were planning to go later. … After the Arab Spring, we haven’t been able to go there at all,” Mary Feierstein said.

At home, she volunteers for the local Democratic Party and supports causes like gun control. She last saw her husband in March.

While tired of the separation, she said she felt sorrier for her children, even though they are grown. “They miss him so much. They are so happy when he comes home.”

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/danger-separation-families-changing-job-u-diplomats-052021750.html

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