One Fleeting Moment

On Monday evening I made a cool 30 bucks because New York did not blow up, thanks to the Petrelli brothers. The Boy still thinks I might have watched a sneak peek on the Internet.

Every summer, the Boy and I try to make do without the ac for as long as we can. Given that our ac was prone to frequent breakdowns in the middle of a heat storm till it was replaced last year, it has never been too difficult for us. We just stayed out for as long as we could during the day. Unfortunately, we live on the top floor. So the roof soaks in all the heat it can during the day and faithfully passes it along to us till late in the evening. The glass windows don't really help either. So sometime last week, I came home to a baking apartment in the middle of the day and in a terribly weak moment I switched on the ac. And we have not switched it off and continue to enjoy the guilty pleasures of a cool apartment.

However one of the other, totally guiltfree pleasures of summer are the long evenings that can be spent on the balcony -with friends, a nice glass of wine and some pleasant conversation about nothing in particular. Even dinners become something to look forward to with the sudden arrival of all kinds of summer vegetables and herbs. Summer 2007, in our household, is currently dominated by the rather potent combo of chopped guava paste, crumbly cheese* and roasted walnuts . Its added to whatever else the refridgerator reguritates - some mesclun greens, half a can of mandarin oranges, some strawberries, a sad looking shallot and dished up in a pretty bowl. Totally la-di-dah. That red thing in the stylised picture is incidentally what guava paste looks like...kind of like membrilo, but much cheaper and more satisfying.

*Gorgonzola is the flavor of the month.

Labels: Food

I hate motivational speakers. I absolutely abhor the whole shebang...the restless pacing, the I-am-your-bestest-friend grin, specially that frothing-at-the-mouth voice which will not let you sleep in a quite corner of the auditorium. Besides when did any of them have anything sensible and useful to share that is not already a few clicks away minus the crazy tone and gesticulation.
Unfortunately one must sit through some of these loony presentations with loonier powerpoint figures every now and then to keep the bread and butter coming along nicely...even one on diversity with a pretty, will-pass-for white second generation Latino speaker eager to throw his lot with minorities with half his education and pay!!

THE BEAVERS ARE BACK!!

If you happen to be in the area, stop by the Buddy Attick Lake Park and say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. They have set up home as usual in the secluded northeast corner where the lake forks out into outstretched fingers of water.

This warm sald came about by accident...a rather propitious one at that. I wanted to make a Morrocan roasted beet salad from the May, 2007 issue of Gourmet. The same page also had the recipe for a braised carrot dish. I prepped all the ingredients for the beet salad and then realised that I had actually bought carrots instead of beets. But since I really wanted to make the Morrocan salad I just continued with the carrots. Come to think of it, carrots and beets are both sweetish root vegetables. I also substituted the plain vinegar for rice vinegar because I hate the harsh taste of plain vinegar and also because I am genetically programmed not to follow instructions. The end result, needless to say was quite blog worthy...hence this post.

So here's what I made:

Ingredients:
Carrots - 5 to 6 large, sliced at an angle
Cumin - 1 tbsps, dry roasted
Olive Oil - 2 tbsps
Rice Vinegar - 3-4 tbsps
Brown Sugar - 1 tbsp
Salt - to taste
Black Pepper - 1 tbsp
Fresh Mint - a handful, finely chopped

Method:
1. Blanch your carrots to reduce the cooking time if your carrots are slightly tough. Powder the dry roasted cumin seeds in a mortar and pestle.
2. Heat oil in a skillet. Add the carrots and let them cook for 4-5 minutes. Sprinkle with brown sugar and wait for it to caramelize.
3. Add the rice vinegar and roasted cumin powder. Season with salt and pepper and let the carrots cook through. Finally add the mint and take it off from the heat.

Labels: Food

If Newsweek and a survey done by Salary.com are to be believed, the cost of raising a child to 18, costs $191, 000. Factoring in lost wages for a stay-at-home parent and college tuition raises the cost to a whopping 1.6 million USD. Thanks Newsweek. Now everytime I see someone's bundle of joy, deep within my brain lobes a bulb will light up and I will probably see dollar symbols flashing around. I could also day dream about all that money and what it could buy etc. etc.

Two other numbers from this report have branded themselves into my brain matter in a similar fashion. The kids centric industry is valued at 7.3 billion USD annually and lost wages for a stay-at-home mom are estimated at 138,095 USD annually. Good for the stay-at-home parent and really, really bad for the at-work parent who has to provide enough for both while also making significant contributions to the 7.3 billion dollar baby products industry.

Jokes aside, this raising a baby business must be one of the riskiest investments we humans make. There is practically no assured ROI and to top it all it might even cost you some more if your baby decides to grow up, stay at home and pursue a PhD instead of leaving home at 18 as the study so wisely assumed.

I have been going through two of books on Mexican cuisine by Rick Bayless. Mexican Everyday takes authentic Mexican dishes and gives it a little tweak here and there to make a quick, wholesome meal. Mexico One Plate at a Time is the companion book to his award winning series on PBS by the same name. The second book is little more detailed, with an emphasis on technique and ingredients. I had earmarked some recipes but had not found the time or the occasion to tackle even one till Cinco De Mayo came along this weekend. Instead of the tradional tequilla soaked revelry (on second thoughts that would have been fabulous too) we indulged in a quick, Mexican meal of Yucatean Garlic Spice Chicken skewers, fire roasted salsa, grilled peppers and garlic bread. We did not have any tortillas so we had to make do with garlic bread....which I have to admit was a rather nice substitute. Here's a really ugly picture of the spread.

Labels: Food, Update

The National Textile Musuem is housed in an historic building in the Kalorama neighbourhood of DC just a few blocks north from the hustle bustle of Dupont Cirle. Unlike the other DC musuems there is a five dollar suggested donation. The current exhibition on the tent bands of Central Asia is a little detailed for amateurs. So if like us you have a rather limited knowledge of weaving, you will have to limit yourself to admiring the beauty of these intricately woven tent bands, which for all intents and purposes look like very long runners.
I personally liked the other exhibition about all kinds of red textiles and their historic significance. The most interesting of them all was a fragment of Indian silk with a terrifying half man-half corcodile creature, a bunch of vulture like birds and some other vile creatures painted on it. No one really knows what it means but it is really old. The oldest piece on display is a 6th century Coptic fragment which does not really look that old.
The musuem also has a lovely garden and since not many people come this way (the adjacent buildings are embassies) it seemed perfect for spending a weekend afternoon on the grass with a good book. We might go back and do just that.


This door with its etched lions caught my eye
on the way to the musuem

Two weeks ago , I joined my colleagues on a boat tour of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project which is currently one the major highway projects in the State of Maryland. The original bridge over the Potomac river, completed in 1961 was supposed to reach its design capacity of 75, 000 vehicles per day over the next twenty years. However it surpassed its design capacity in just eight years and now carries 195, 000 vehicles per day and is expected to carry about 295, 000 vehicles per day by 2020. Part of the problem is the fact that the southbound section of I-95 merges into this part of the Capital Beltway, adding way more traffic than originally envisioned. So, you regular commuters in the Washington Metropolitan Area, the next time you hear "the Inner Loop of the Beltway is slow from St. Barnabas Road to the Telegraph Road Interchange" over the airwaves, remember these numbers.

The Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project is supposed to alleviate some of this congestion by:

• Widening the bridge - more lanes
• Increasing the height of the bridge - decreasing the number of bridge openings (for high masted boats/ships) from 250 to 65 a year.
• Reconstruction of the interchanges at US Route 1, I-295, MD 210 and Telegraph Road

In addition to the congestion relief, this project will also provide a pedestrian and bicycle facility to connect to parks on both sides of the Potomac River. Now, we all know that the daily commuter is not going to get out his/her car and traipse down the pedestrian walkway into DC, but it is a good start. Given the amount of development in the National Harbour region one can only hope that the pedestrian and bicycle path gets as much, if not more, use than the vehicle travelway.
You can find a lot of this information here, if like me, you are interested in the facts, figures and general construction type trivia. However the best part of this trip was not about the numbers, it was in seeing the George - the resident bald eagle, soar above the construction site. That little dark patch in the "crotch of the tree"* is his nest. You can read more about George and his family here. It just goes to prove that all development need not be ecologically destructive and that we can forge relationships with others in our ecosystem and create new balances.

Here's another little tit bit of information. The Potomac River, you see is rather shallow, infact during our one hour trip, our tour boat struck sandbars on three separate occassions. So in order to get the floating construction equipment to safely access locations where the bridge foundations were to be built, a significant amount of dredging was required. Now, what do you do with this muck (an estimated 600,000 cubic yards of it) that you have dredged? Well, remember your history class and all that stuff about the Nile River Delta being so fertile and becoming the cradle of civilization...so, there's your answer. You dump close to 345, 000 cubic yards of fertile river muck onto the grounds of the historic Shirley Plantation at Weanack in Charles City, VA. With this new uber fertile top soil, the site is reclaimed for its historic use - agriculture and the site produces bumper corn and bean crops. As Michael Scott would say, its a win-win-win.

*the tour guide's choice of words, not mine.

Labels: Wilson Bridge

"You guys are closet Hindus."
- a friend on spotting our little shrine with a picture of Ganesha, a tea light and incense holder inside the pantry closet.

Boy 1 - "Its not really a relationship."
The Boy - "Are you hugging and kissing?"
Boy1 - "Ummm..yes"
The Boy- "Then you are IN a relationship."
- The how-to-tell-if-you-are-in-a-relationship advice the Boy was doling out to his friend, Boy 1 over the phone

"She liked what he could do but not him...it was like she liked him part time but not full time."
- a friend explaining why X and Y had to get divorced and why X still manages to date attractive women.

Swiss Chard is one of our favourite greens. And cooked with pumpkin cubes and dry red chillies, it makes a really pretty dish....with all the greens and oranges and reds in it.

Ingredients:
Pumpin/Calabaza - 3 cups, cubed
Swiss Chard - 2 bunches*
Onion - 1/2 cup, diced
Ginger - 1/2 inch knob, minced
Panch Phoron - 1 tsp
Dry Red Chillies - 2, broken
Coriander Seed/Dhaniya Powder - 1 tsp
Olive Oil - 1 tbsp
Salt - to taste

Method:
1. Wash Swiss Chard thoroughly. Remove tough stems and shred roughly. You could use a salad spinner to get rid of the excess water at this stage.**
2. Heat oil in pan. Add panch phoron and dry red chillies. Wait for the seasoning to sputter.
3. Now add the onions, saute till translucent and then add ginger and dhaniya powder. Cook till the raw smell dissipates.
4. Now add the diced pumpkin and salt. Cover the pan and let the pumpkin cook for 4-5 minutes until half way tender.
5. Finally add the Swiss Chard and cook until the pumpkin is tender and the chard well cooked. This should take another 4- 5 minutes. Check seasoning one last time.
6. Serve with piping hot massor dal, rice and lemon wedges.

* this gave me about 5 handfuls of chopped greens.
** I usually wash and chop up my greens as soon as I get them from the store. I give them a couple of spins in my salad spinner and then use the salad spinner itself for storing them in the refridgerator.

Labels: Food

from the design hell of blog templates, garish colors, broken html and missing links. This blog needs a makeover and we need to find an opportune moment to do the deed. Until then sunflowers it shall be.