Cakes!

I like to celebrate occassions with cakes and I like checking out bakeries in Lex to figure out which one would work for what I have in mind :) So far, I have tried Brown's bakery, Maggie's bakery, Spalding's bakery, Graeter's and this time I am going to try Mondelli's bakery for k's birthday cake.

Finally managed to organize my highly disorganized photos on my laptop (which will be going away soon, since I quit. Can't stop grinning when I say that :) k helped me do it after I spent half an hour looking for the Avvaiyar paati photo (below)! Anyway, here is a trip down cake-memorylane:

k got this for me from Caramanda's

My favorite cake from Spalding's bakery for r's 2nd birthday (Avvaiyar paati)!

From Graeter's -- icecream cake

Mackenzie's bakery Chennai -- also for r's 2nd birthday!

Old Taj Mahal hotel -- you guessed it -- also for r's 2nd birthday

Home made by me for k's birthday!

Another special cake for r's first birthday!

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India trip - Days 20 - 22

Jotting down random notes before r wakes up or I have to run:

* I met an 85 year old lady who lives next door to k's parents. Her small 1 BR apartment has a showcase lined with neatly wrapped books. I asked her if I could take a look and saw that the books were not only wrapped in brown paper (remember the brown wrapping paper we used to cover our school notebooks?) but were also labeled with numbers. She then produced a ruled notebook that had an index of all the numbers matching them to the titles and authors of the books. I thought that was pretty neat. She said a girl who had just passed 12th standard had helped organize her books and offered to introduce me to the girl :)

* I bought Eat, Pray, Love from a dude selling a huge stack of books car to car while stuck in a traffic jam. Apparently, that's quite common in Bombay. But we usually don't get much time to negotiate. I bought this book for Rs.100!

* The other day while on our way back from Sab Kuch which is a cool restaurant that serves as it's name suggests, pretty much everything, and c was pointing out the sights of the city when I saw some 30 people sleeping right in front of a closed store -- Bombay is a mixed bag like that, you sort of never know what to expect. Back to Sab kuch...if you order pani puri here, a guy rolls a pani puri cart towards you and serves sanitized pani puri gloves and all! I ate falooda with kulfi here and decided I didn't care much for it.

* We went to p & c's house and the highlights there were the oonjal (swing) for r and seethaphal basundhi for us! Oh! I forgot the stick kulfi which r insisted on eating on her own!

* If I had to give one big fat reason why we wouldn't move to Bombay, that would be commute. If you don't have an AC car at your disposal, you are stuck. Yes, you can call from a cool cab but that takes between 30-45 mins to come and it's point to point. If you own an AC car and you drive, that's cool but parking is a pain. Day before yesterday, we decided wisely to go to InOrbit mall in Malad. Air conditioned, nice games, eats and I thought I'd spend an evening relaxing in the mall. But apparently, Bombay goes to InOrbit or one of it's sister malls on Saturdays and Sundays. Since the whole of Bombay was there, it was pretty much like being in an un-airconditioned place with loads of people creating loads of conversation noise and add to that the noise produced by all the gaming consoles. I had fun playing on the dancing game thingie -- what do you call it? But a half hour later, we were all set to leave the mall. The visit to the mall was anything but relaxing.

* Today went to Shopper's stop which is pretty much like any other shopping mall in the US except for the startling variety of colors and designs that you can never find in American clothes. Took an auto today and sweated my way through the afternoon heat and traffic fumes. Yup, traveling no fun here.

* The disparity between rich and poor is stark here. Even the kids learn that they can order some people to do their commands like the maid servant or the cook. If you are a rich kid in India living in a nuclear family, there is a high possibility of getting "spoilt" because you can get away with not cleaning your room, picking up your clothes ever or even setting foot in the kitchen. A maid serves you hot rotis or cold milk shakes and you get used to service 24/7. If there isn't a grand parent around to caution and if the parents are busy with work and life, then it's an easy easy life for the kids. Today I saw a teenage kid lying in bed watching TV at full volume while a maid swept and cleaned his room...to be fair to him, he probably did do his share of work but maybe he didn't and all he had to do is ask the maid to clean up after him...hmm.

Checkmarks and eats: Sab kuch restaurant, seethaphal basundhi, western express highway, corn kachori and stick kulfi, Temptations ice cream, InOrbit mall

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India - Days 13 - 19

We celebrated r's birthday at New Woodlands Hotel in Chennai. My dad had hired a magician, Mr.Raja aka Kingzz for the day which was fun. His show was entertaining to the kids and adults alike. This was followed by a short video clip of r that I had put together -- sort of catching up on her life for my friends and relatives in Chennai. On 26th evening, we went to Parthasarathy temple again and from there to Ratna cafe. k took a second dose of the coffee there and I must admit, that was the best filter coffee I had during my Madras trip! That night we went to the beach to say bye bye before leaving Madras. r~ did her regular running-running in the beach and then we headed home.

The next morning passed in a blur. Before I knew it I was at the airport and although I had resolved to not cry this time, predictably I burst into tears just before waving good bye :( On the short flight to Bombay, I intensely disliked k for not wanting to move to India. Anyway we landed in Bombay and it didn't seem to have changed much since the last time I was here. The traffic and crowd here is a bit more than in Madras. New Bombay roads are cool, pretty much like US highway roads. I spent a couple of hours shopping with p~. The store, Sajani had a good collection of materials for salwaar kameez and the dude there was extremely agreeable:

p: "This dress doesn't need lining, does it?"
Him: "Yes, yes, you can wear it without lining, no problem"

p: "Hmm but will it look better with lining?"

Him: "That it will (वो तो हे)"


Then, when p is busy looking at a material, he tells me, "Buy your sister-in-law one more dress no?" and when he thinks I am not looking, he tells p, "You should ask her to buy more dresses, she is going to US no?"

Then, p took me to a tailor shop and like most places in Bombay, there was an infinity fit into a finite space. The small room had another smaller (3 feet by 3 feet?) room where I saw one tailor working on a tailoring machine and then I peeked some more and found two other tailors also sitting and stitching there in that impossibly small space. There were cloths and dresses lying everywhere in that tiny room. Finally, I asked him how he managed to keep his orders straight and he showed me how he stapled small bits of each dress material to the bill and another small matching bit to the customer bill. He also said something about writing the customer order number on the dress although I didn't see him doing that. He rolled up my salwaar and kameez material in a bundle and tossed it carelessly next to several other bundles. So, I asked him what happened if the salwaar and kameez material got misplaced and he said he can tell with a glance which salwaar material goes with which kameez material. And then there were the complicated patterns to select from -- how do you want the front next? V? U? Boat shape? Back neck? Hand -- puff sleeves? Sleeveless? Transparent sleeves? Short sleeves? We let him pick most of it since it was too confusing to decide!

We headed to Lonavala for a few days and stayed in a co-op housing bungalow there. It took me a while to get used to the concept. Basically, rich  man x wants a vacation home where he will stay probably a month a year. The rest of the year since the house needs someone to stay in it for it to be in good shape, rich man rents the bungalow to other folks. There is a cook who lives in the premises and you can ask him to cook what you want (and that is paid) and you have the house to yourself. We managed to co-exist with several life forms in that bungalow (humongous cockroaches -- now I sort of see why he wants people to actually live in the bungalow else it will be overtaken by cockroaches and their cousins and relatives!) and then headed out to Ambi valley (a nice scenic drive), had masala chai on the peak and headed back home. The drive back was tiring and we got stuck in traffic. Poor c (p's husband) drove all the way home and we collapsed on the bed (except for r who managed to take a nap in the car). Lonavala and the drive to the peak reminded me of Smokey mountains and Gatlinburg. Of course, you don't get the "world's best vada pav" in the Gatlingburg shopping strip!

Exhausted after a long day, so rest in pictures...

Best vada pav ever, recommended by c -- k had like 50 of them!

Cute pizza ad at a shopping mall in Lonavala

Malai Kulfi Rabdi at Kailash Parbat, Lonavala -- too rich for words!

Road side vegetables -- seeing this scene after ages!

The creator of the vada pavs!

Eats and Treats check marks :) -- Shir sagar (paav bhaji), Kailash Parbat (Dahi papdi chat), Raam Krishna @ Lonavala (regular punjabi fare and kulfi), Mega mall food court (Vada paav, "rose"), street vada paav and bhajia @ Lonavala, masala chai & corn bhajia @ Lonavala peak.

Chennai: filter coffee @ Ratna Cafe, samosa and gulab jamoon from Gangotri, South Indian parotha and mosambi juice @ Saravanas, Kashmiri pulaav and triple sundae @ Brindavan, Woodlands

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Blue winter crib-fest, oh! and about being rich.

We are experiencing miserable weather. The kind that makes you want to break the damned alarm clock, pound it into a mush and go deeper into the comforter. I lead a pretty normal life, so I did none of those things, got up on the wrong side of the bed, got ready and came to work. So, I sat staring at my monitor, having finished checking my gmail, my blog comments, the daily dilbert cartoon, my horoscope for the day, witty saying by unknown famous person of the day, the first few links in reddit, headlines of the most read articles in the New York Times and then I wondered about right and wrong, good and bad and such thoughts that only a gloomy, wintery day like this could inspire.

I reached a few conclusions in life.

1. Oatmeal sucks. I know I claimed it was a super food to my mom, made her switch to oatmeal for breakfast and proudly declare that I eat oatmeal for breakfast to people who enquired about my breakfast - well, there are not really that many that enquire but I tell them all the same. But the dirty little secret that I am privy to is the fact that I completely, honestly HATE oatmeal. It tastes like nothing. And if you add a bunch of stuff to it to make it better, it only comes off tasting even more awful. And that is the truth.
   
   
2. Tiffin time sucks next. You know, around 5 - 5.30 PM after you have driven home from work, that time. That time is what I miss most about India. No jasmine-like idlis with molagai podi, no hot crispy bread upma, no rava kesari, no hot chola with bread, no nothing. It's the same - toast and jam or on other days even chips and salsa and thank God, a cup of coffee or tea. I really wish I had better tiffin options. Yeah, you can stop giving me that look "Cook!", I just don't have the energy to cook anything remotely edible at the end of a long day! No, I don't want cold fruits and ready-made processed crap. I want hot food! Is that too much to ask? Apparently it is...

Ok, that concludes the crib-fest for today. Stupid weather. I am switching to one of those fancy companies on the West coast that has like 4 different canteens on campus serving HOT food, not cold salad but real, hot food. Plus, the weather has got to be better than this. Or better still, I'll go back to Madras. I guess I can't do that either, k promised we could shift to Madras only if I (not him) became super rich.

Any ideas? Let's see...(since I am in the mood for bulleted lists)

1. I could write a novel like Rowling did, sitting in a cafe or was it a train and imagining super-fantastic characters,
   
   
2. Or maybe I'll write one of those natural-living-green books but then I'd have to eat oatmeal everyday and not yummy crispy-creme donuts...


3. I could work real hard and become rich, does that still work?


4. I got it! I need a life event! I keep reading about life-changing events that umm...changed people's lives forever, again. I mean, Lisa Jewell, my new favorite author, got kicked off her job, that was a life event. And then her friend challenged her to write the first three chapters of her novel, she did, sent it to ten publishers and forgot about it. And one of them called back! And she became a famous author. Like that. But, I really would not like to be fired. I like my job (All the people I know say that, I guess it's a sorta ego thing, maybe you don't want the other person thinking "Poor old so and so, look at her stuck with her job", or maybe they really like their jobs, I mean, I can't complain about my job - I fought with my dad to switch from Bio to CompSci. Except some days I think, "What am I doing stuck in a little cubicle with my hands freezing in spite of the wristies when the sun is shining golden bright outside and so on...you get my point?).
   

So, that's that. I'll probably be doing the same thing ten years down the lane and asking you for ideas even then. You'll stick by, won't you?

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The Art of Entertaining.

I miss the simple world. Where people said what they meant and meant what they said. Where words stood true to their meaning. Where things were black or white...

I was watching Shree 420 with my family (Finally I have enough people at home to count as a solid family, somehow 2 just didn't cut it) and the simple scenes and clean humor brought back a kind of old world charm to life. Where people could laugh at Charlie-Chaplin style routines and dialogues were simple yet powerful and could evoke merriment without double-entendres and...loudness. I enjoyed seeing the "Do aane ka theen-theen aane ka do" dialogue for the umpteenth time.

Anyway what I miss are not just surreal moments on screen; I miss the life our parents describe. Where people would sit on the thinnai and talk, when people had the time to do it. The time to not be so self-absorbed. My mom says my thatha often said, "Oorar kozhandaiya ooti valatha, thann kozhanda thaana valarum", I wonder if people still believe in that adage? It seems to me, we have a dull and defined formula we have imprisoned ourselves with - Study, get a job, car, then the American dream house and then kids-daycare-job-India-trips... later, we will probably find ourselves right where we left...wondering if there should have been more to "life"?

My parents often used to talk of times when my patti used to cook for the whole town. My thatha had this habit of bringing home unexpected guests for dinner and while my thatha and his friends talked into the night, my patti would somehow manage to make dinner for the household (which was big to begin with - my thatha's sister and her kids stayed with my thatha, patti and their three kids) and the additional guests. Sometimes they didn't have enough to cook that night, but they somehow managed to cook and feed good food to the family and guests. And this was daily routine. This art of entertaining.

It seems to me, we are losing this art. While adding levels of convenience to our own routines (Can you please call before you come? How about a potluck? Can we get together weekend instead of weekday? I doubt I'll have time to cook on Monday!), we have lost the spontaneity and I guess...simple happiness that comes from sharing, from putting in a heart-felt effort to please someone expecting nothing in return.

After all, what is defined as happiness I guess is just the ability to lose oneself in a process...to be so involved that our senses are engrossed in that one thought and rhythm, like cooking. What better than the colors, texture, little measurements and aroma of our kitchens to create the zen that we read about in magazines?!

What if the whole point of the meeting is to entertain, to attempt to bring a little bit of joy to someone else, to kick back and settle down to the comfortable sounds of laughter and good humour. Not with an agenda - not for a baby-shower, reception or a "planned" event in a "planned" life. Just a get together to meet.

What if we meet just once and forget to look at the time? If it's late, it is and maybe we just don't care? Maybe we don't have an agenda planned for the next day, maybe we just eat ice cream and settle down for another movie? And maybe we just relax in good company...

To talk. Of simple things. To eat. To laugh. To entertain. That's it. Nothing more. Nothing less.

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Sunday routine!

One good thing about watching this on Sundays is this.

Most of the recent articles I read seem to claim multi-tasking is bad, this worked out ok for me, though :)

Oh, also, I like Anbudan (marks the end of the weekend to me) although the lucky people who get to watch other desi channels claim Anu Hassan's talk show is much better...

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What's cooking?!

To make up for my lack of meaningful, interesting posts here and @ whimsical-raconteur (which a~ helpfully pointed out to me on phone - "Say, what's up with your blog? You hardly blogged about anything interesting nowadays!" :p Notice he didn't say, "You haven't blogged in a while", that would have been face-saving :)), I present today's menu!

Trying to replace colorful words with a colorful assortment of foods!

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Are you really a vegetarian?!

So, this gets more interesting. That's why aunty *insert familiar name here* always used to say, while also waggling a warning finger, "Don't keep reading all that nonsense on the computer" - it was always "computer", not internet, the poor machine got the blame each time :)

So what did I read on the computer? Among many other websites, I have recently started reading the Mahanadi food blog and am hooked! She has a variety of healthy recipes that always surprise me with their flavors - I tried 4-5 recipes (notice how subtly I linked to my food blog here - so cool :p) so far and almost all of them have received a nod from k.

So, that's the background. Today, I was reading through her recipes for pasta and noticed her comment on how American foods that look vegetarian aren't really so. She lists table salt, sugar, cheese among other things. And I faithfully googled about animal products in day-to-day foods that I eat and shocked myself.

So, That's a whole bunch of paragraphs beginning with so, so to not lose the trend... :)

So, if you are among the few fighting a losing war (eating vegetarian food) and are interested in alternatives, here's what I found:

Sugar - try looking for labels that say that animal-cruelty-free or just look for organic evaporated cane sugar/juice and you should be safe. Regular refined sugar might use charcoal made from animal bones in the process of refining sugar. Brown sugar makes the cut though plus it is yummy!

Salt - haven't been able to figure out what animal product goes into making salt? But, for now, I have decided to switch to sea salt instead of regular salt. Heard many good things about sea salt, remember to look for sea salt with iodine though.

Honey - Reading about the procedure involved makes me want to puke, maybe I'll just switch to good ole' maple syrup or sugar and water instead of honey.

Cheese - Look for cheese products that say "no animal ingredients", rennin means the cheese is not vegetarian. You might want to just buy "Horizon Organic Cheese" - they declare - 'No animal products'and I trust them - hey! you gotta trust someone!

Milk, Yoghurt, milk products, pastries, cereal, jelly - Look for products/bottles that do not contain "gelatin". K or Kosher does not necessarily mean the product is vegetarian.

Fur, leather, silk, down - we already know the story here. So, I'll skip the lecture here.

Shampoo, conditioner, soap, pills - this is a tough one. Organic stuff in this category that say "not tested on animals" are usually pretty expensive and some pills might not have a vegetarian alternative. So, can't do much here. And don't trust those shiny red apples you see in the grocery store, who knows what was sacrificed for the sake of "shine"?

So before you throw a mildly-shocked look at me and declare, "Oh, I don't eat mushrooms or garlic. I am a pure vegetarian!", do take a look at these links.

Hmm...on second thoughts, you are better off not reading all this and feeling bad about it, ignorance is bliss. Indeed.

References:
http://www.boutell.com/vegetarian/sugar-honey.html
http://www.vegetarian-restaurants.net/OtherInfo/FoodContainMeat.htm
Organic Food Stores @ Lex (expensive! but hey you can buy yourself some peace of mind and that's definitely worth it!) - Good Foods Coop and Wild Oats.

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Pizza competition @ home!

k's fancy pizza versus anm's artistic pizza?

I say my Kanu plate wins the prize :)

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Lex, KY to Lawrence, KS

I spent an interesting week in Lawrence, Kansas. Am going to be a lazy blogger and just upload a few photos and let them do the talking (I'll add my 2 cents inbetween of course!)
We rented a PT-Cruiser at Kansas City and drove to Lawrence. Man! People meant it when they said, "Kansas? The drive to Kansas is one long, flat, boring drive!" The PT-Cruiser was a different story though. Interesting attributes - a vivid purple body color and a funny shape (reminded me of Mater from "Cars" :p) The picture here should give you a better idea!



I didn't quite catch all the "Hawk" stores and "Hawk" street names (JayHawk boulevard) until I began to notice the slightly serious-funny looking bird everywhere on campus. I've asked p~ to get me a souvenir next time she comes to Lex. p~ (k's sister, Payal) gets to study @ the University of Kansas for the next two years. I wish I could go to school there, a nice literature degree or something, hmm...



For someone who has spent 6 years in a mid-sized (oh, alright...small) town like Lexington, the buildings at the University of Kansas seemed pretty grand to me. They have several libraries, some of them much bigger than our famous Youngs library (Sigh! And I thought we had one of the best libraries in the country).



k and I absolutely loved the cafeteria on campus - there was this "make-your-own-pasta" center where you get to pick the pasta, the vegetables to go with it, herbs and sauce of your choice. I tried a few, let's say, "interesting" combinations and it all tasted great. k had to be dragged out of that place. He wanted to have breakfast, lunch and dinner there and insisted that I click a picture of the best garlic bread he ever tasted!



While p~ had a lot of work to do, orientation and all that, we pretty much chilled and stuffed ourselves with as much food as we could. There was this one neat Thai place called "Zen Zero", if you don't mind oily but very-very tasty food, this is one great place to try. Err...you can't see much of "Zen Zero" in this picture, but you can catch our satisfied smiles :)




The temple at Kansas City was not empty, considering it was a cold weekday morning. Except for the slightly loud bhajan on the stereo, I enjoyed the visit.







We made a short trip to the Nelson-Atkins museum. We enjoyed the museum from the err...outside. It was freezing and the museum had closed :p The parking attendant returned our money back...talk about mid-western niceness! Inscribed on the walls of the museum were these words: "Art deals with things forever incapable of definition that belong to love, beauty, joy, and worship. The shapes, powers and glory of which are forever building, unbuilding, and rebuilding in each man's soul and in the soul of the whole world."

How does that saying go? That you are never too old to fall in love?

Amen.

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