A boat. 500 dead. Yawn!

One of the harsh realities that I have been struggling with from my early teenage years is this--the world treats some lives to be more important than others.

I suppose if we are mere animals deep down, then we would indeed not care about some.  But, if we believe that we are better than a brutal animal behavior, then we will have to resolve within ourselves why some lives matter more than others.

I am not breaking any new ground in this blog with this post.  From the supremacy of the brahmins and whites, to ALS v. Ebola, there are posts in plenty.  I continue to think about them because, well, every day there is something happening to remind me about this lifelong struggle.

Today, it was this:

As many as 500 migrants seeking a better future in Europe may have drowned last week in the Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy, U.N. refugee officials said Wednesday.
If true, the toll would make the incident one of the worst tragedies involving refugees and migrants over the last year.

Five hundred died.  We will read about it, or watch it, feel bad for a few minutes, and then we will shrug our shoulders and move on.  If this flashes in our news radars, that is!

The survivors in Kalamata included 37 men, three women and a 3-year-old child. They were from Somalia, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan.

Every once in a rare while, we do manage to do the right thing.  Like this story about "one of the girls who was abducted from the Chibok school by Boko Haram in 2014 and managed to escape."  Remember the Boko Haram kidnapping young girls?  At least there are some who cared enough.  Thanks to the efforts of Chris Smith, a representative to Congress from New Jersey, this girl and her friend came to the US.  She is now a college student--she started college in January.

If only we could focus on such profound issues that will educate us on what it means to be human!

Coriander (cilantro) is not Indian?

Coriander is, of course, an important ingredient in Indian cooking.  The Asian "Indian", that is.  Vegetable vendors in the parts of India where I grew up would typically toss in a few stems of coriander leaves if we purchased vegetables.  To put the finishing touches in a "rasam" or a "kitchadi" with a little bit of chopped up coriander is usually the norm.

And, yes, the coriander seed and its powder are key components of the various curries made.  So, I had always assumed that this was a plant that was native to India.

Well, surprise, surprise .... it is not!

This NY Times piece notes that:

The coriander plant is native to the eastern Mediterranean, and European cooks used both seeds and leaves well into medieval times.

What?

The reporter further writes:

I’ve found cilantro pestos to be lotion-free and surprisingly mild. They actually have deeper roots in the Mediterranean than the basil version, and can be delicious on pasta and breads and meats. If you’re looking to work on your cilantro patterns, pesto might be the place to start.

Sounds great to me.  Next time I make pasta, cilantro will take the place of basil :)