One Fleeting Moment

2012-01-26T22:40:00.000-05:00

A few years back I ran over a squirrel on the way to work. And it was my birthday. I am yet to get over the the soft crunching noise of my wheels crushing the poor thing. I was miserable for weeks and at some point in the middle of moping I had the most illuminating thought - I could never be a mass murderer. If the death of a random squirrel upset me so much then think what.....so went the runaway train of my logic.

Fast forward to 2012. In our inept attempts to hide chocolate from the Gherkin we landed up forgetting a box in the closet under the staircase. Our lost chocolate was found by a rat and you know what they say about finders being keepers and all that. When we finally found our chocolate or rather the leftovers, we cleaned up
(after the rat) and then argued. The Boy advocated a policy of peaceful coexistence (with said rat) while I insisted on squashing the living daylights out of the invading pest. Finally good sense prevailed and we laid out some rat traps. The Boy even baited the baits with some awesome Parrano cheese and we waited with bated breath. Never mind that last bit, in reality we forgot about the bait till we heard a loud snap late one evening. The Boy went in and discovered a small, grey rat dead in the bait. He was actually sort of cute looking, even though he ate all our chocolate. And now he was dead.

And then, after disposing off his remains in the trash the Boy declared that the rat looked like the one from the movie Ratatouille. It had the same blue grey eyes. Now, I was no ordinary rat killer, I was responsible for murdering Remy . I was miserable and just about to embark on a week of official moping when I realized that now there were the two of us. So what if we killed Remy, at least we are no danger to humanity at large and that my friends, is a wonderfully uplifting thought.

A Perfect Day with the Gherkin

2012-01-15T19:13:00.000-05:00

An early morning show of Mouse on the Move at the Imagination Stage, followed by a long drive through rural Montgomery County (the Gherkin went to sleep in the car and when the Gherkin sleeps, she sleeps...kapisch!) and then lunch at Mandalay in Silver Spring. And it's not over yet...there was another walk around downtown in the freezing cold with an excited Gherkin afterwards.

Through all this, the Gherkin behaved impeccably. It would have been great if she ate something other than white rice at the restaurant, but once you have locked horns with an eighteen month old you know better than to complain. You count your blessings and hope for another wonderful day.

Incidentally, the Gherkin is watching Curious George with her dad downstairs while I write this...that bit of good luck is continuing!

2011

2011-12-22T16:34:00.000-05:00

The semester is done with and my mother has gone to visit the younger sister. In between taking care of a snotty nosed, cantankerous Gherkin, I find myself obsessing about grades like I have never done before. And now that the year is drawing to an end, I might as well shift focus and ruminate on the year that went by.

The year began on a cold and dreary note with record amounts of snowfall (once again) and Pepco stood us up (once again) and people in this area forgot to drive and get off the roads on time (yes, once again!). As soon as we shoveled our way out of the snow and slush, the Gherkin and I set out to make new friends. We joined a mommy-baby yoga class and did we make friends or what? 2011 will be the year that we met all the other Silver Spring yoga moms and their babies and bonded over play dates. Hopefully in 2012 we will see more of that.

The summer was spent doing summer like things- a trip to North Carolina followed by a visit to Niagara Falls. At some point we decided to be responsible home owners and get our windows fixed and the front yard spruced up. We are yet to invest in a drill though. A drill is what stands between us and that great deluge of tools that scream suburban homeowner. If we buy the drill today what is next... a lawnmower? a tile cutter? or may be even a chain saw? Luckily for us, we managed to get through another year without any of the above. (Pssst!..I have issues, in case you had not heard).

This was an year of momentous growth - from sitting up, to crawling, to cruising and finally taking the first few unassisted steps. We sat back and watched awestruck as our little Gherkin accomplished all her milestones, while we coo-ed and encouraged from the stands. She is now discovering the amazing world of words (both spoken and written). Thanks to her, I can now recite the contents of these two books, backwards if need be.

I started grad school in September and my mother came to visit. Sometime in between, the Gherkin, Grandma and I took a quick trip up to Boston to meet my uncle. The rest of the months just dissolved in a haze of classes, mid terms and term projects. And now I am writing about 2011 as the year that was. It was a good year, a healthy year and a happy one too. As I contemplate the passage of time (of late, the years seem to pass by in a blink of an eye), my life and the people in my life...I feel extremely lucky and fervently hope that this streak of good luck continues into the new year.

An Autumn Afternoon

2011-11-12T11:11:00.001-05:00

I zip up my jacket and pull up the Gherkin's jacket hood over her ears. Usually she protests (way too much!) but the nip in the air makes her decide otherwise. Once we are bundled up and warm, the two of us set off, me on foot and she in her bright green stroller- the one with brown leaves. It is the season of brown leaves, and gold ones and rust colored ones. The late afternoon sun filters through the few remaining leaves that still cling to the trees and washes the neighborhood in golden light.

The Gherkin babbles and gurgles about the Bo-Bo's (read dogs that go bow-bow) and Me-Me's (read cats that go meow-meow) that she thinks she will meet. This time of the afternoon is particularly quite. The driveways are empty, the children are in the school and the family pets are sound asleep in some cozy corner. Once in a while, the sound of a chainsaw ripples through the air, erasing out the gentle swish-swishing of a garden rake as it traces out a leafless path somewhere. The chainsaw manages to arouse a sleepy dog who lets out a series of barks in retort. The Gherkin is pleased and squeals in delight. And then it is all quiet again.

We stop to say hello to Samantha, the grey cat with the bell. She recognizes the Gherkin and shows off some of her tricks. She stands on her hind legs, then circles the stroller and nuzzles the Gherkin's shoes and finally settles down for a belly rub. A few belly rubs and gentle purrs later, we are on our way again. Samantha follows us for a while, but gives up when she realizes we are going a little too far, way outside her comfort zone, her quiet street.

Our next stop is the house that caught on fire, we always stop for a while here. The men renovating the house pause for a minute to smile and wave at the Gherkin. We wave back. And then it is back to the roof, the noisy drill, the insistent hammer and that jarring chainsaw. By now the sun has warmed us up and we ignore the nip in the air and keep walking. Today we will go beyond our usual route.

Today we will meet some new people, all of whom are busy cleaning their houses and yards in preparation for the holiday season. Today we will see the last of the Halloween pumpkins, their carved features slowing decomposing into morbid shapes on doorsteps. Today we will wonder what the impending winter will bring - snow, cups of peppermint hot chocolate, crackly fireplaces, walks through slushy snow in warm, fuzzy boots, woolen caps and woolen mittens. Now, where are those woolen mittens?

We hasten our pace. "We are going home now", I declare with purpose. Yes, we have a new purpose. Fall is pretty but it will soon be gone. And I have to find those woolen mittens and that favorite pair of socks before winter comes knocking on our door.

2011-11-02T11:33:00.004-04:00

And just like that, my resolution for the year (the one where I solemnly resolved to cook a vat of soup every week) died a solemn death. No one noticed, no one cried. It was all very discreet.

Life goes on, with or without a weekly tureen of soup. I am back in graduate school,this time it is a for a PhD. I love the course work, but am hating the term projects. I am yet to start on any research work but I am sure I will find a lot to complain on that front too.

And one more thing, our front yard isn't the most dreadful on the block. Thanks largely, to the efforts of our neighbor Barbara who is starting her own landscaping business and decided to take on a few yards in the neighborhood as her first clients. She has done a great job working with all the existing features and foliage. There are daffodil bulbs in the little trenches by our walkway and now I cannot wait for Spring to see them pop up.

2011-09-23T12:09:00.002-04:00

It has been a crazy couple of weeks at this end. Will post about the reason later. In the meanwhile, I never even noticed the pile of asparagus sitting by itself in the fridge. By the time I noticed, it was a mere step away from becoming a pile of twigs. Since I don't like throwing things away (even piles of twigs) and seeing that my soup-a-week resolution had been quietly forgotten, I turned my woody pile of asparagus into soup. The mother and the Boy approved and for once they both agreed on something.

We are off to Boston tomorrow to meet the Gherkin's grand uncles and uncles. We will be back on Monday. And before we forget, the Gherkin is now capable of biped locomotion, though all her current attempts remind us of drunk zombies.

Quick Soup Update

2011-09-04T22:36:00.003-04:00

We made this soup, with dried rosemary instead of fresh. The Mother said, it tasted like musur daal and insisted on adding cilantro and sliced green chilly to her bowl. Unfortunately, she was right and the additional garnishes did brighten what would have otherwise been a bowl of lowly gruel. I have a sneaky feeling that I have the wrong kind of bean. The last white bean soup was also a dud. No pictures this week.

Preparing for Impending Disaster

2011-08-27T17:27:00.006-04:00

His Way:

1. Walk around muttering, "What do we need?" to no one in particular.

2. Get all the deck furniture inside. Just inside. As in, on the other side of the glass door inside. As in, arrayed artistically around the living room inside.

3. When the first of the rain drops arrive, walk out with determination while declaring, "I think I will get go some gas". Come back home with a packet of potato chips, a LED light thingie and some bread. And also a tankful of gas.

4. At some point, fill up a bath tub, for the want of anything better to do and also because somebody on Facebook said they are doing it. Not sure what we will do with a bath tub full of water.

5. Field phone calls from worried friends from anywhere-but-the-east-coast. Tune into the 24/7 storm coverage and then tune out.

Her Way:

1. Plan out the important chores. Get laundry out of the way. Must have enough underwear to last out the storm and accompanying power outage.

2. Move out the deck furniture from the living room. And pack away the other little items still on the deck.

3. Cook up a storm. Must have enough food. Also worry about mother who will be landing in the middle of the storm. Feed and bathe the Gherkin, who is not really sure what all the hubbub is about.

4. At some point, boil a whole lot of potatoes for the want of anything better to do and also because somebody on Facebook might be doing it. Not sure what we will do a some many boiled potatoes.

4. Field phone calls from worried friends from anywhere-but-the-east-coast. Tune into the 24/7 storm coverage and then tune out.

Status So Far:

1. Have enough food and water to hopefully last out the storm. We still ~~have power~~*. But then we have a few more hours to go.

2. Mother has landed and is home and so has Irene. The Gherkin has made friends with the former and remains blissfully unaware of the latter.

* We lost power at around 12:30 pm on Saturday night. Luckily for us, PEPCO was on top its game this year, so we got power by 5:00 pm, Sunday. Only sixteen hours without power, phew!

Cold Cucumber Soup

2011-08-25T15:20:00.003-04:00

A bunch of things happened, which led to this week's soup:

1. My garden was a dud. Our friends, Ayush and Theron, on the other hand had a rather fecund garden overflowing with cucumbers and were happy to lend us some.

2. Ever since we embarked on this soup-a-week craziness we have been wondering about this class of soups called cold soups and fruit soups. It would not be right, if we did not give them a try.

3. There was nothing else in the refrigerator, at least nothing worth turning into a soup.

So a cold cucumber soup it was. Two cucumbers, some ginger, a cup of buttermilk whizzed together in the blender, served cold garnished with diced red pepper - it tasted like it sounds. Totally blah. I think I will stick to my hot soups.

The Dish on Let's Dish

2011-08-20T12:23:00.004-04:00

A few days back I went to Let's Dish with some of the mother's from my mommy and baby yoga class, one of whom is a regular at the Columbia store. We wanted to have a moms sans babies outing for the group and dishing at Let's Dish seemed like a fun yet guilt free way of doing it. There was also the added incentive of a free chocolate cake for each member of a five party group.

I signed up online and choose the dish I wanted to make. I would have chosen to make some more dishes but the only available online options were 1, 4, 8 and 12 meals, which was sort of silly. Since I did not have a lot of freezer space to spare, I chose to make only one dish. Besides I was doing this more for reasons of solidarity than for the express purpose of stocking my freezer with ready made dinners. More on that later. Once we had finalized our orders online, all we had to do on the set date was show up at the store with our coolers at the appointed time, all ready to dish. There are a bunch of different workstations and a wall of coolers. Each station is set up for a different dish. The utensils are color coded for measurements. Aprons and bandanas are provided. Gloves are also provided but not essential. You go to the station that is set up for your dish. Since I chose to make pork chops with black bean salsa, I went to the station set up for this recipe. Each recipe is for a family of six; you have the option of splitting the recipe into two. I decided to go that way and in less than 10 minutes, I had assembled two freezer bags of marinated pork chops and two freezer bags of black bean salsa. Then, I took one of each and packaged it into a meal and stuck a label on them (helpfully provided at the labelling station). It does not get more idiot proof than this. After sticking my dishes into freezer, I hung around enjoying samples and chatting with others in my group.

They had a promotional offer of buy one get one free on all the ready made sides. So I picked up two whole grain salads for six dollars, there are usually six dollars each. I also picked up that chocolate cake and was pleasantly surprised. I got a package of six individual lava cakes. To be honest, I was expecting only one. I paid a grand total of thirty three dollars for this expedition, each dish costs about twenty seven dollars.

Now comes the dishing about the Lets Dish experience part. First, the taste. We just ate the pork chops, salsa and the grain salad for dinner. The food tasted fresh and healthy. The spicing was just right. I had my reservations about the salsa, but it thawed beautifully. At this point, I need to declare that I did chop up some fresh cilantro and garnished the salsa, just to freshen it up. It was not really needed, the salsa was great as is. I had dinner on the table in 25 minutes, that does not include the time needed to thaw the packages.

Will I go again? Probably not, unless it is another show of group solidarity. People new to cooking or those with harried schedules might find a service like Let's Dish helpful. They do the prep work, the taste testing (all their recipes freeze well) and the post prep cleaning for you. In an hour or so, you go home with about 12 generously portioned meals all neatly packed in your cooler. And they have deals and promotions to sweeten the deal too.

On the other hand, if you love cooking then you might find the menu choices restrictive. All the menu items do hew to the same template of a marinated meat with a salsa/relish. We do groceries over the weekend. After finishing our grocery run, I usually take the meat out, clean and put them into little baggies with simple marinades etc. That way during the week, all I have to do is let it thaw during the day in the fridge and throw it into the oven at night. I steam a few veggies and cook boil two kinds of lentils and store in the fridge. So come dinner time, all I have to is a little stir frying and maybe chopping up a salad. Going to Let's Dish and marinading a few pork chops seems sort of silly to me. Also they only let you halve a recipe. So I came home with two bags of three chops each and had to repackage them into three bags of two chops each. The Gherkin is still not into pork chops and thawing three would leave us with an extra, unwanted porkie bit. I know I am being picky, but however minor, it is still an irritation. Another little nit that I could pick was the use of bottled diced garlic and lime cordial instead of fresh garlic and lime juice. But that is just me.

And finally, comes the cost. For thirty three dollars I could have bought a week's worth of vegetables and maybe some chicken. That would translate to fourteen full meals for two people. Instead I got three meals for two people with dessert, granted that those three meals will be restaurant quality, as compared to my home cooked goodness. But still, I like my home cooked goodness on a daily basis.

The Verdict: Does not work for me. However if it does work for you, here is a piece of advice. Go earlier in the day. By the time our group made it to Columbia after battling the evening rush hour, a lot of the chopped vegetables were starting to look a little sad and wilty.

Mushroom soup with Roasted Tomatillos

2011-08-19T10:53:00.003-04:00

I rarely cook more than one recipe from the same book. This week's soup is an exception, a mushroom soup with roasted tomatillos, the original recipe for which comes from Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen. I had previously made this other soup, from the same book.

The original called for cactus pears in addition to the mushrooms. Since I did not have cactus pears, I just doubled the amount of mushrooms. This soup begins with broiling all the vegetables (tomatoes, tomatillos, onions, garlic and jalapenos) till they get lightly charred. After the vegetables cool down, you peel the tomatoes and then puree the vegetables with a cup or two of chicken broth, a few sprigs of cilantro and a generous amount of anise seeds. Next you heat a tablespoon of oil, add the seasoned vegetable puree and salt and stir till it thickens a little. Finally add mushrooms and simmer for thirty minutes. Adjust seasoning and serve.

The verdict: This is a funny soup. Infact this is the first soup I have come across that does not improve with time. It tasted fine when I tasted it from the simmering soup pot. When we finally sat down for dinner (after four or five hours) it tasted like "diluted salsa" - those were the Boy's word. And today, after a day or two in the fridge, it tastes insipid. In all honesty, I made a few substitutions but all of them were recommended in the recipe. I also left out the toasted pasilla chilly garnish the book called for, but I can't imagine that making much of a difference. Since, I have never had a problem with any of Rick Bayless's recipes I will probably make this one again. All that roasted, charred goodness must make for a good soup.

Off Vathakuzhambu and Veshtis and a Good Soup Story

2011-08-09T15:40:00.007-04:00

I love a good story and I love people who are full of good stories. You know them, the friend who makes every little encounter into an anecdote worthy of retelling or an elderly relative with a life's worth of tales filed away for gradual disbursement every now and then. Srinivas Uncle was one of them - an excellent cook of all things Tamil and a great teller of stories. He was a family friend of B's - my friend, roommate and co-conspirator during our six month Mumbai sojourn. Uncle and his wife, Aunty were supposed to be our "local guardians" - thoughtfully appointed by our worried parents in a stroke of sheer brilliance. You see, as a pilot for the Indian flag bearing airline, Uncle was rarely in town. And when Uncle was busy zipping in and out of foreign capitals, Aunty was usually out of town too - visiting her son. Much to our relief no one was around to do any local guardianing and leaving us free free to get in and out of shenanigans as we very well pleased.

Anyways, enough about my wayward ways and back to Uncle. So as I was saying, Uncle was rarely in town. But on the rare occasions when he was in town, did he throw the welcome rug out or what. It would begin with a phone call summoning us to Andheri. In those days, we lived in the far away land of Vashi and a trip to Andheri meant an hour long ordeal in the ladies compartment of the local train, hanging on for dear life with your nose lodged firmly in someone’s smelly armpit! On the other hand, after an hour or so of this torture, we knew we would walk into a cloud of sambhar vapors as soon as we entered Uncle's place in and be treated to a meal fit for a queen. Okay, make that a vegetarian queen. And then were the stories.

On this particular day, we entered to find Uncle in the kitchen, stirring a pot of vathakuzhambu in his veshti. Two bottles of his favorite, cold beer sat on dinner table, warming themselves. There was a certain constancy to this ritual. After getting the sweat and grime of our faces we would settle down around the dinner table and tell Uncle about our escapades in the City and he in turn would regale us with stories of "first class celebrity travelers” and their idiosyncrasies while sipping his beer. No beer for us, we just got some of his beer nuts.

After Uncle had finished his second beer and had just about finished with his description of the glorious vattakhuzambu and how one was supposed to mix it with rice and eat tiny little bits at a time, savoring each morsel, he proceeded to the kitchen. Usually we would stay put and nosh one some more nuts or set the table. But this time B followed him in, to help - apparently. I don't know what happened next, but it had something to do with that blasted pot of vathakuzhambu and Uncle's veshti. I heard a crash followed by intense giggling from B and then a chuckle from Uncle. The vathakuzhambu that was supposed to be the highlight of our dinner, that precious ambrosial mix of lentils and whatever else was now flooding the kitchen floor and Uncle and B were having a jolly good laugh about it. For lack of a better idea, I joined in.

In due time, we picked ourselves and the vattakuzhambu off the floor, Uncle tied his errant veshti a little more tightly and then we rummaged in the fridge for leftovers. That night we had some reheated rasam and rice and Uncle told us how malaga tanni (pepper water) became Mulligatawny - a bland rasam by way of Great Britain. And the world and I were richer by one more story.

Which now brings us to this week’s soup – Mulligatawny, the one which apparently has as many definitive recipes as there are cooks and with ingredients that teeter between optional and essential depending on who is in the kitchen. After a fair bit of online research and a good rummage through the pantry, we started ours off with the awesome foursome of onions, peppers, celery and carrots sweated in oil. To this we added a cup of soaked moong beans, a dash of curry and garam masala powder and a smidgen of chopped ginger. The whole concoction was then pressure cooked and mashed up with an immersion blender. In went a small can of coconut milk, some lemon zest and a cup or so of shredded chicken. By the time this was heated through and adjusted for taste, the table was set with soups plates and spoons. And no, there was no malfunctioning veshti in sight.

PS: Uncle did make us vattakhuzambu on another occasion and it turned out to be the only dish in Uncle's repertoire that left me cold. B loved it, so I understand it was a rather good rendition of the real thing but I just did not get what the whole fuss was about.

Crumpled, Crinkled and Chewed Up

2011-08-08T09:18:00.006-04:00

One of my guilty pleasures in life, and yes, there are quite few in this vice-filled life of mine, is watching BBC period dramas. The latest of which happens to be this upstairs-downstairs piece called Downton Abbey. There is the usual cast of wealthy people, who go around fretting about stuff rich people fret about like inheritances, balls and teas. Then there are the poor people, who work for the rich folk and they go about fretting about the sordid stuff poor people fret about like sick babies, even sick-er moms and consumption. And once in a while, the director throws a love affair or a murder out there for the viewer to ponder about, just in case you got tired of the panoramic shots of the fancy house or were worn out by the wretched life of the scullery maid. So, in of the episodes, the servants scurry around in their early morning rituals, cleaning the fireplace, setting the bath, ironing the newspaper. It was this last activity that made me literally fall out of my cozy spot on the couch. I can understand the need to dust, in the absence of both vacuum cleaners and central air conditioning and heating. I also get the fact that a life without electricity means some one has to do the dirty job of building fires. But ironing the newspaper. Good grief! that is just plain pompous. Or so I thought, until this Sunday morning.

Picture this: The Gherkin has had a go at the morning newspaper, which now lies in pieces all over the kitchen floor. I pick up all the pages and set it aside. Later in the day, when there is a moment of piece and quite, I once again pick up that hurriedly assembled newspaper and try to read, try being the operative word here. The travel section has two pages missing which on closer inspection turn up inside the business section. The cartoons have been ripped diagonally and the ripped piece was then chewed, for added effect. And my favorite - the Outlook section is crumpled beyond repair. Suddenly, I wish I were Lord Grantham, with a minion for ironing out the crinkles in my newspaper, at my disposal. Since we live in enlightened times and more importantly since I can ill afford a newspaper ironing boy, I decide to do the next best thing available - ensure that the Gherkin does not get her paws into the newspaper before I have had a chance to read the darn thing.

A Tale of Too Much Corn or The Corny Tale

2011-08-04T13:24:00.005-04:00

It started last week with a bag of frozen corn kernels and this soup. A few friends were going to drop by for dinner and when such an event looms in the not so distant future, we head to the fridge and stare at its contents while scratching our head. And then we stare some more and ponder a while. So, while we stood staring, scratching and pondering in front of our open refrigerator, we noticed an half used carton of buttermilk, spied a forlorn bag of corn sitting in the freezer and found a shrivel-ly poblano pepper that was getting more dessicated by the minute.

After grabbing these sad, lonely specimens we went to the nearest computer and googled "corn poblano buttermilk soup" and out popped this recipe. The rest as they say was history. The soup was made. Ours turned green, thanks to the leeks that went into it instead of the onions. Never mind the color, the soup was consumed with gusto and much lip smacking and we felt very smug and satisfied as we loaded the empty soup tureen into the dishwasher, only to realise that we had not clicked a picture of our green corn soup.

But that was last week and we do not dwell on life's little disappointments. Around here we move on to other things, rather quickly . In this case, to the bowl of liquid yellow corny-ness that you see above. This was truly a product of having too much corn at hand, and really bad, pasty corn at that. The guilty corn came from an organic CSA box of a friend, who bought it over to our place for a barbecue party. The corn was grilled and served but they were hardly any takers. The few brave souls who had tried must have warned the others. Anyways at the end of the day, we were left with six or seven ears of grilled corn. So, once again we asked our friend Google.

"Grilled Corn Soup?"

"Oh! yes", said Google. "Try this".

We did and the results were fabulous, in fact better than the corn soup from the week before. We also learned that all corn is not created equal. This corn tasted horrid when grilled but when made into soup, it was utterly delicious. Since this time we did not have friends to feed, it helped that this soup improved in flavor as it sat around in the refrigerator.

Roasted Tomato Soup with Poblanos

2011-07-22T11:48:00.000-04:00

There is always space under the sun for one more tomato soup. So to honor the spirit of my tomato plants here is a roasted tomato soup loosely based on the Roasted Tomato Soup with Poblanos, Oregano and Fresh Cheese from Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen.

I grilled eight medium sized plum tomatoes and two poblano peppers and then peeled the charred skin of the peppers and diced them. The tomatoes I pureed as is, with charred skin and all. If you want a smooth mouth feel feel free to peel the tomatoes. I am lazy and do not mind the extra fiber in my soup. While the veggies were grilling, I cooked down some onions and garlic with oregano and thyme in a pot. Into this pot I added the pureed tomatoes and water (I ran out of stock) and let it cook for 30 minutes. At the last minute, before serving I added the diced peppers and a handful of fresh cilantro.

Since we did not have any fresh cheese, we did the next best thing and slurped our soup with cheese sandwiches.

The Deck Garden

2011-07-21T12:21:00.002-04:00

Every year, around this time of the year, the loyal readers of my blog (all three and a half of you out there) would expect me to do a quick post about my container garden and the bountiful harvest it produces. So here it is, the post about my little summer garden, the post about the garden that almost did not happen.

I had great plans for my garden this year and procured some really good seeds. But it went downhill rather quickly from there. You see, for seeds to sprout and become strong, happy saplings you need a lot of quality sunshine or an elaborate heat lamp setup. I prefer the former and so I set out my seeds in the living room by the deck door where they get a lot of sunshine and thrive. This year, that space has become the Gherkin's stomping grounds and since she insists on tasting any new thing she comes across, I prudently moved the seedlings to the spare bedroom upstairs. There they sat by the window and sat and sat and sat. I forgot about them and the few brave little souls that had managed to sprout also gave up and withered. After this entire episode happened not once but twice, I just gave up and decided to pot a few standard issue petunias and call it a day. Besides the chives, mint and strawberry plants from the previous year had made a healthy comeback.

But the ghost of my old tomato plants would not let me be. A few weeks back I noticed tomato plants poking out of the petunia pots*. And rather healthy looking plants these were some even had fruits on them. So I did what any gardener would do. I re-potted them in bigger pots and just like that I now have three pots with tomato plants in addition to the pots of mint, chives and strawberries.

*Instead of throwing out the potting soil at the end of the season I usually recycle it by mixing it up with some fresh soil. Seeds from last years plants might have thus found their way into my flower pots, where they proceeded to thrive and grow.

Tom Yum With a Kick

2011-07-15T15:56:00.001-04:00

In grad school, I shared an apartment with a couple of strict vegetarians and cooking anything non vegetarian other than eggs was a strict no-no. At that time, I did not know how to cook anything other than eggs, so it suited me fine. However, as the months wore on I started feeling a little stifled by this rule and even started craving some chicken now and then. A few of my friends decided to help out by inviting me to dinner at their place whenever chicken was on the menu. One of these sympathetic blokes would do something rather peculiar.

Whenever I was invited to their house, I was told that X chicken would be on the menu, with X being malai, methi, saffron, saag (you get the idea). I would land up at their place with high hopes and come dinner time I would be presented with a bowl of yellowish chicken curry with no traces of X. After a few evenings of this, I had to confront my friend. The chicken curry, however generic it might have been always tasted good but the dashed hopes were getting bloody impossible to hide. His explanation went something like this. He had all the intentions of making X chicken, the recipe for which was faithfully downloaded and printed out. But when he reached home and started on the cooking, he would realise he did not have the key ingredient. So if it was methi chicken and he did not have methi, he would skip the methi part and keep going. Ditto with any other recipe. The end result of this rampant substitution was the generic chicken I had been eating. He did throw in something about how it was the thought that counts and not the recipe etc. etc.

The tom yum soup I made this week, was kind of like that X chicken. I searched the internets, compared a bunch of recipes all of which called for some combination of galangal, shallots, lime leaves and a few other ingredients. Since I did not have galangal and lime leaves I left them out. I spiced my home made chicken broth with lemon rind, lemon grass, ginger, garlic, onions and a healthy spoon of chilli garlic paste. I also did not have any shrimp at hand. So this turned out to be a button and enoki mushroom (which look like rice noodles) tom yum...if you can even call it that at this point. And finally since I thought it was still not coming together I gave the whole thing a nice dousing of coconut milk and fish sauce.

It tasted like a distant cousin of the original and looked like a positively ugly one. But this concoction did pack in a whole lot of flavor and one wallop of a kick. Note to self: dial down the chilli paste next time.

Niagara Falls and Pittsburgh

2011-07-10T19:24:00.000-04:00

Our third road trip of the season with the Gherkin started off on the Fourth of July. The destination - Niagara Falls.

Day One: Four hour drive to Pittsburgh. The Gherkin sleeps for the first two hours. We stop for lunch in Everett, PA just beyond the Maryland border. We decide to try out a Bob Evans and realise that we have not missed much all these years. The pancakes are a soggy mess and my scrambled eggs look like the cook had a change of heart at the last minute and decided that scrambling the eggs would be too cruel - so he just let them be.

Our next stop- Pittsburgh. The friends we are staying with are not at home, so we head to a Startbucks and then a nearby park and relax till they came home. By the way, this would be all we saw of Pittsburgh - or rather its suburbs.

Spend the evening catching up with my high school friend and her family. Since we did not get to watch the fireworks this year, here is a picture from last year along with one from this year with the gherkin in a red, blue and white outfit.

Day Two: It is three and a half hours from Pittsburgh, PA to Buffalo, NY. Our first stop was for lunch at a Cracker Barrel. Our next stop, was somewhere near Lake Erie. This was one of those when-the-baby-yell-head-for-first-available-exit type stops. We stopped at Alba's Ice Cream and Snack Shack. Unfortunately they were closed - no ice cream for us. We enjoyed the nice breeze while the Gherkin enjoyed her bottle of milk.

After checking into our hotel, we caught up with yet another friend for dinner. As I am writing this, I realise that I have had a lot of mediocre and down right awful Chinese food in the US but have never had really bad Thai food. Even in a place like Buffalo (yes, I said that with that tone of voice and more on that later) our Thai dinner was remarkably decent. Infact we enjoyed our meal at the Jasmine Thai restaurant and the leftovers even more.

Post dinner, we went over to the SUNY Buffalo campus, where our friend is a faculty member and walked around and chatted and reminisced over coffee.

Day Three: Headed to Niagara Falls after a breakfast of eggs, toast and coffee in the room. Thank heavens for suites with kitchenettes - they take the guess work out of getting breakfast in a strange town. Stock up the fridge with groceries and voila! you can have breakfast in your room in your pajamas without stepping out.

We parked in Goat Island and walked around a little before taking the trolley to the Maid of the Mist.

After the boat ride we did a couple of things:

Got ourselves some lunch and ice cream and fudge
Discovered the fact that I had lost my watch
Walked back to Goat Island and walked to the Three Sisters Islands

while the Gherkin caught a quick snooze. Soon after the weather started turning nasty and we decided to head back to the hotel. Once the weather cleared up a little, we headed out to the nearest strip mall for the lack of anything better to do. This would explain that snide comment about Buffalo.

Day Four: Within an hour of starting, the Gherkin is in a bad mood and we see signs for the Lake Erie State Park and so we stop. We take in the views, walk along the pebble-y beach and then resume our journey. Three (Michigan, Erie, Superior) done, two more to go as far as the Great Lakes are concerned.

The next stop is for lunch - at the Cracker Barrel in Erie, PA. Yes, there is a theme here. Ever since we discovered Cracker Barrel on our trip to North Carolina, we usually stop at one- if there is one on our way that is. The food is decent and the service is friendly. We can usually find something in the menu for the gherkin (mac n' cheese, green beans) and the wait staff is very accommodating of little ones. In an earlier life, we would have sought out the quaint, one of a kind place to eat at , but now we seek comfort in corporate consistency.

Day Five: After the obligatory pictures are clicked, we head home. The rains follow us all the way home, but we are surprised at the good time (four and a half hours) we make - in spite of the thunderstorms and mountain roads. To celebrate, we stop by Tysons Buffet in Rockville, for a late lunch and then battle flash floods on the 8 mile drive home.

And since we were busy travelling, there was no soup this week. The tom yum soup at the Thai place in Buffalo was good but we have nothing else to say about it. So, no soup this week - it is.

Midnight in Paris

2011-07-02T18:38:00.001-04:00

It was our first real movie (the kind you go to a big theatre, buy a ticket and some popcorn and then settle down in a cushy seat in a dimly lit theatre to watch) in more than a years time. Had to be special, no summer kiddie blockbuster in 3D would work for this momentous event. So Midnight in Paris it was and Woody Allen did not dissapoint. Loved it. Period.

The gherkin on the other hand enjoyed her play date with her best friend and his dog.

Soup from Singapore

2011-06-29T22:49:00.000-04:00

This week's soup (a curried carrot one) comes to us from the book Modern Spice by Monica Bhide by way of Singapore. Our good friends, Ishani and Niranjan moved there a couple of years back and have been enjoying the lovely island in all its squeaky clean glory ever since. And in between all the tropical fun and adventure, Ishani tried out the carrot soup recipe from Monica Bhide's book. She liked what she cooked and being a great friend she mailed us the recipe along with a picture.

Like all good soups this one begins with a dollop of butter and a mess of leeks in a hot pot. Once it gets a bit steamy, you add the carrots, some red bell pepper and ginger. A few more minutes of cook-cook and stir-stir later you add a dash or two of curry powder (the original recipe called for coriander powder which I was out of) and salt and pepper. Then you douse the whole thing with some good home made stock and let it all simmer. Once the carrots are cooked, puree the soup, add some milk (the original recipe called for cream) to adjust consistency, garnish with some cilantro and enjoy.

The Fish

2011-06-24T10:36:00.000-04:00

In the process of updating my blog, I have been turning the drafts into posts (if they are worth the trouble) or just deleting them. I have no idea why this poem was in the drafts, I must have really liked it back in 2008 and was probably planning to write something profound to go with it. Or maybe I had just had met a fish on a dinner plate and this poem spoke to me. Never mind, I am posting this today because it speaks of Pittsburg, and we are headed that way next week. So there, now we have a context.

The Fish
As soon as the elderly waiter
placed before me the fish I had ordered,
it began to stare up at me
with its one flat, iridescent eye.

I feel sorry for you, it seemed to say,
eating alone in this awful restaurant
bathed in such unkindly light
and surrounded by these dreadful murals of Sicily.

And I feel sorry for you, too —
yanked from the sea and now lying dead
next to some boiled potatoes in Pittsburgh —
I said back to the fish as I raised my fork.

And thus my dinner in an unfamiliar city
with its rivers and lighted bridges
was graced not only with chilled wine
and lemon slices but with compassion and sorrow

even after the waiter removed my plate
with the head of the fish still staring
and the barrel vault of its delicate bones
terribly exposed, save for a shroud of parsley.

~Billy Collins

Chicken Stock for the Soup

2011-06-22T18:32:00.001-04:00

A couple of days ago, while reading this post on the web, it dawned on me that I had never made my own chicken stock. It had always seemed like such a chore with all the planning, simmering and straining involved when you can decent quality chicken stock, prepackaged at most stores. And here is a dirty little secret, I am not really sure whether stock really adds any "oomph" to a dish as compared to plain, old water. But that as they say is another controversy for another day. Today I am going to talk about stock and how I made my own along with two baggies worth of shredded chicken. It was the promise of shredded chicken at the end of it all that finally made me get off my sorry behind and put the soup pot on.

So I took four bone-in chicken thighs, a couple of carrots, some onion, some aromatics (spices, ginger, garlic, bay leaf, pepper corns...whatever) and covered it all with water and let it simmer. Once the chicken was cooked, I strained the liquid - that would be chicken stock, for you. Then I let the chicken cool down and then shredded it for adding to stir fries later. I gave the carrots to the baby who was happy to eat them and the rest of the stuff- well you just throw it.

Egg Drop Soup

2011-06-15T15:54:00.005-04:00

So the resolution has officially started becoming a chore and seems boring to the point of uselessness. In moments of such gross tedium, when we are most inclined to throw the ladle into the soup pot and call it quits, there is always a box of Trader Joe's Organic Low Sodium Chicken Broth in the pantry that beckons.

Now, with a box (or can) of good chicken broth, the possibilities are endless. In our case we made egg drop soup following the instructions mentioned here. This is not your standard Chinese take out egg drop soup. For starters it is not bright yellow in color. The soy sauce and ginger in the broth turn it a mild shade of brown. Also, in our case this was more scrambled egg than egg drop. Maybe our eggs were larger or are technique was not quite right. But it was mighty fine for a first attempt. We do intend to try it again but with half the quantity of eggs. And the next time around we might fry up a batch of the yellow crisps that come with the egg drop soup at Chinese restaurants.

On Traditions and Why We Do What We Do

2011-06-15T11:13:00.006-04:00

When you are young, you take a lot for granted. The small little idiosyncracies of your family are easily explained by a that-is-how-we-do-it-at-our-home. The Sunday morning bajaar - that is what Baba does. The weekly cake baking session - my mother likes to bake. The once in a while Chinese - we cannot afford to eat out everyday can we? The list is endless, new clothes for Poila Baisakh, visiting the Ramakrishna Mission on the first day of Durga Puja, the family evening at the book fair.

You grow up, you move away and those little rituals of family life - well, you miss them sometimes (when the food in the canteen is really bad) but slowly and steadily you adjust. You adjust to a new life, new people and a new way of living. You form your own little rituals - the Sunday morning pancake breakfast with room mates or a Friday evening Happy Hour. Somewhere along the way, you get married and start afresh. You discuss your family rituals like that weekly cake with the better half and describe an elo-jhelo with great relish. And when that pang of nostalgia hits, you promise to bake yourself a cake every week and you do. At least for the first few weeks, till life takes over. A few more years down the line when you have a baby and and a lot of sleepless nights to mull things over, you come to see these traditions for what they are - little rituals that remind you of home. Through the mindless repetition of these mundane activities over years, you form associations. Associations strong enough to survive through the years and across geographical boundaries. Jasmine blossoms remind you of hot, muggy evenings which in turn brings up memories of cool glasses of orange squash. To this day, the smell of incense and the sound of the shaank never fails to remind you to start working on that homework for school.

And that is why, you procure a shaank and set up a little shrine. That is why you light that incense and blow the shaank in the evenings. That is why you try to cook up a big breakfast on weekends and a cake every now and then. That is why you try to make her eat rice and dal when she would rather have pasta. Not because you are afraid that she may grow up loving mac n'cheese*, but because when you are long gone and she is in a place far, far away, you hope the smell of ghee melting into a bowl of hot rice reminds her of you, of home, of childhood.

A Very Happy Birthday To

2011-06-07T16:35:00.000-04:00

our litle gherkin, who is an year old. No more a gherkin, she is almost a cucumber. a little cuke with personality.

a little cuke that likes her apples and pears poached in butter and would rather have nothing to do with bananas. a little cuke who wrinkles her nose like her mommy and pouts like her papa but is very much her own little person.

Moong and Paneer Soup

2011-06-06T11:45:00.002-04:00

A gingery lentil soup garnished with paneer hollers for a winter evening but winter has been long gone in these parts. And with the last couple of 100+ days we are now officially in the middle of sweltering Maryland summer. Time for a cool cucumber soup or perhaps a gazpacho.

Nah, never mind. I decided to try out the lentil soup after all. Something about the flavor combinations was screaming delicious and I just could not wait for winter to come by.

Thank goodness for my wayward thinking. This recipe turned out to be a keeper. I have made quite a few soups since the beginning of this year and a fair number of them turned out tepid and boring. Not this one. For recipe click here.

Roasted Tomato Soup

2011-06-03T11:44:00.002-04:00

It is hard to mess up a tomato soup when you have decent tomatoes at hand. I did not, so I did the next best thing. I roasted some grape tomatoes under the broiler along with some garlic and made soup out of the resulting mess.

Was it good?

Nah!

I have had better tomato soups and I will wait for good summer tomatoes before trying again.

Summer's First Long Weekend

2011-05-29T22:42:00.007-04:00

The drill is now a familiar one in our household. As a three day weekend approaches we panic. Three whole days of fun and frolic - but where do we actually frolic? By the time we make plans all the nearby places are booked and we are left panicking some more at the prospect of spending three whole days at home doing nothing. While we vacillate some more, one of two things usually happens. Friends call up to say they might drop by or we remember some long lost friends who live within a 200 mile radius and then call them up to say we might drop by. Or if we find ourselves staring at the looming weekend and none of the above has happened, then we call up a few random folks and have ourselves a barbecue.

This year, we called up our friend Y and invited ourselves over to his place in Newark. The plan was as glorious a plan that has ever been hatched by a pair of lazy dimwits. We would wake up on Saturday, feed the Gherkin and ourselves. Then pack the car and head for Delaware. We would take a break at Have De Grace to take a looksie and grab lunch before heading on.

But like all grand plans this one had mighty flaw - we forgot to get the Gherkin's input. So she let us have it, by bawling at the top of her lungs as we barrelled down I-95. And the rules of the road say that when the Gherkin wails, you stop. So we stopped. At a Dunkin Donuts on the outskirts of Baltimore City, where the Gherkin proceeded to holler some more, while we sat around and sipped iced coffee like responsible parents. After all involved parties had cooled down sufficiently we piled into the car once more to begin our journey. The Gherkin promptly went to sleep. We decided not to stop at Havre De Grace as we were running late and it would be rather unwise to wake a sleeping Gherkin mid slumber.

We reached Delaware at around 4 pm. We had dinner with Y and his family at Ali Baba in downtown Newark. The food was great, the service lovely. We shared a botlee of Lebanese wine which went very well with our kebabs - lamb for the boy and a kafta for me. For dessert there was mint tea and banana bread, back at Y's place .

On Sunday, after a leisurely breakfast of endless cups of coffee and pastries on the porch, we headed to Longwood Gardens. We managed to pick what seemed like the hottest day to visit. A stroll along the fountains helped some.

We walked through the topiary garden and had fun trying to figure out some of the topiaries- a duck here, a dog there and a shaggy little rebel in the corner.

As it was unbearably hot outside we headed to the conservatory for respite, but not before figuring out the details of the sun dial.

A quick lunch at the cafe, a stroll through another section of the garden and a quick snooze for the Gherkin later we were all set to start our epic journey back. And yes, the Gherkin yelled and hollered her disapproval all the way home.

A Very Bright Backdrop

2011-05-27T22:20:00.001-04:00

helps when you have a drab looking bowl of soup. Or so we hope. Presenting, another by product of a fervent fridge cleaning episode. In went half a pack of frozen spinach, some cooked macaroni the baby refused to eat, the nearly dried contents of a can of tomato paste, some onion and garlic. Even the water for the broth was what was leftover from my morning tea in the kettle. This here is the ultimate in going green- the recycled soup.

Happiness

2011-05-27T15:29:00.002-04:00

is a hot cup of Darjeeling

a nearly finished crossword

the content sighs of a sleeping baby

and the steady thrum of the dishwasher

The Pho Post

2011-05-18T07:03:00.005-04:00

I have wanted to do a post on pho (you can read all about it here) for quite sometime now. Pho is our go to option when dining out. The choices at a pho restaurant are limited which means there is hardly any time to look at your thumbs, leave alone have thoughts about twiddling them before the bowls of steamy soup arrive. The soup in all it brothy goodness begs to be slurped quickly before the noodles at the bottom get soggy from sitting around, which means one can easily dine out without the junior most crew member throwing a tantrum.

Pho lovers all have their own idiosyncrasies - ours is steamed bean sprouts. We also like to measure out small little dollops of hoisin sauce and Sriracha (for dipping our meats) onto the little plates these places supply. So here is the list of the pho places we have tried so far. And before we begin, remember with pho it is all about the beef. Chicken pho or pho ga is an after thought, a supposed crowd pleaser and certainly not the real deal.

Pho 88 in Beltsville is located in a strip mall just past the Ikea. I had my first bowl of pho here and so I am little partial to the soup here. Some folks prefer the pho place down the street (more on that in a minute) because apparently it is cleaner. But I have never found this place lacking in hygiene. The formica tables and the plastic hanging plants don't do much for the decor, but the soup here is hard to beat. The soup is spicy, unctuous and has that deep beefy flavor which comes from hours of cooking. The garden rolls are okay but the peanut sauce that comes with it - now, I could slurp that.

Pho Vn One, is the cleaner, prettier place further north along Route 1, in Beltsville. The deep red walls and upholstered booths elevate it to a beyond-the-hole-in-the-wall status. The soup here is lighter andmilder cousin to the one down south. This is a good place to take friends who have never tried Pho before. .

Pho Real at the intersection of Briggs Chaney Road and Old Columbia Pike is the least patronised (by us) of the lot. We have slurped pho here once and on that occassion the soup was a little insipid. We should probably go back and check them out some more. But this place is squeaky clean and has a strange McDonald's like vibe.

Pho An in the White Oak Center in Silver Spring is our current favorite. Again not much of a looker and the service is not the most friendly (being regulars we sometimes do get half a smile tossed at us by the wait staff ). Apart from pho they also offer a noodle salad with the grilled meat of your choice. The Boy likes the chicken pho (which unlike other places is available in white meat, dark meat and a combination versions) while I am partial to the grilled pork which is served with thin rice noodles (like a salad) or with a side of rice. The garden rolls here are particularly pretty.

2011-05-11T23:45:00.000-04:00

We are still recovering from the smell of rotten fish and the thought of something new is quite traumatizing. So we stuck to an old favorite- cream of mushroom this week. Only instead of cream we use milk because we don't always have cream at hand.

Thank God for Mother's

2011-05-07T09:00:00.001-04:00

I take grocery shopping very seriously. While the Boy and the Gherkin mill around aimlessly, I sniff, I prod, I poke and finally choose my produce with care. So imagine my horror, when at the near end of one such trip I turn around and find my cart missing. I look for it in the adjacent aisles because I am convinced some other shopper moved it when he/she found it in their way. Nah! nowhere to be found.

As I am in no mood to go through the whole process again I decide to go looking for the idiot who has walked off with my cart. I am convinced the idiot is a man and I am not wrong when I find him in the fish section. I turn on all my charm and inform him that he has my cart.

"No, my cart'", he says.

Change of tactic required. Now this idiot does not look like he would buy tofu (yes, we stereotype - its faster!)-, so I quickly point to the presence of said item in the cart. The idiot has the gall to tell me that I was the one making the mistake and I have been dumping things in his cart.

"My tomatoes", he says rather belligerently and points to the tomatoes I had lovingly picked out fifteen minutes ago. And to ensure that I really understand, he pulls the cart a little closer to himself.

Fatal mistake that one. At this point, in this non conversation, the old lady next to the idiot pipes in and gives him that universal look of utter dissapointment in their spawn that only mothers are capable of. The idiot shrinks back as his mom points at the tomatoes and goes, "not mine".

His mom then let him have it - a slow guttural tirade in a foreign language complete with shaking of the head and wringing of the hands. My job done, my point proven, I grab my cart but not before the idiot gets the cilantro out claiming he bought it. I let him have it, he had had enough humilitation for the day. Besides once the cilantro was discovered, his mother would take care of him. Mothers - they are one tough lot.

So a Happy Mothers Day to all ye mom's. May you continue to wither your spawn with a glance every now and then and may your spawn quake in the wake of such glances.

How Do I Count The Ways

2011-05-04T12:15:00.003-04:00

in which a baby has changed our lives?

This question gets thrown our way quite often and usually finds us shrugging our shoulders and saying something banal along the lines of "we don't go out to the movies anymore". This usually brings about a join-the-club-and-tell-us-about-it commiseration from parents or an oh-you-sad-sorry-bunch sigh from the single ones.

The real answer like everything else in life is complicated. It is not called a life changing event for nothing. Even the tax collector takes note of it and allows you a little something back. On a more serious note, how does one even start quantifying the mundane little changes that creep into your life? An uninterrupted nights sleep, the lazy weekends, the spur of the moment getaways - we don't miss them anymore, we have adapted and moved on. The little changes are the ones that are more insidious. They change you forever and you never even realize it.

An avid collector and wearer of dangly ear rings I came back from a party last week to discover that I had lost one of ear ring. The pre baby me would have immediately gone into a the-world-is-ending mode, hollered and run around looking for it. And if all the running around did not result in much, the pre baby me would then add the surviving member of the pair to my little box of lone ear rings and moped around for a few more weeks. The post baby me, just made a mental note to check the vicinity of the car and filed away the said note in some deep recess of the brain. And the next day, when I drove off with the Gherkin, did I check for the missing jewel? Did I find it? No, I just forgot. The mental note was safe in its filing cabinet and as for the surviving member of the pair - it is still in my purse.

Want more proof?

A packet of seafood mix in the freezer and a recipe in the binder had both been ear marked - together they would make a vat of cio ppino. The day arrived without much fanfare as it usually does these days and a vat of soup was cooked up as per instruction. The only problem, the whole vat had the most foul odor- a gut wrenching, stomach turning fishiness threatened to engulf the entire neighborhood. Apparently the seafood mix was way past its due date. The pre baby me would have gone into yet another the-apocalypse-is-upon-us mode at the thought of such colossal waste. Besides the pre baby me would not have something expire on her like this. What did the post baby me do? Well, she put out a few choice morsels for the raccoon (yes, he eats anything) and then threw the whole unholy mess out.

And in case you did not get it yet. This was one long way of me letting everyone know that there was no soup this week!

Road Tripping with Baby

2011-04-25T15:15:00.000-04:00

Our first road trip with the baby. A test drive, a rehearsal for all future road trips. A six hour drive to Fayette-what-ville, North Carolina which given the relative obscurity of the place is slated to be all about the journey from the very beginning. And with that I will turn off the snarky Anthony Bourdain like voice in my head.

Day One: A filling breakfast and a reasonably early start. We stop for lunch in a Virginia town which I later find out is called Chester where we chance upon a Mexican joint called Jalapenos. It was a choice between this place and the Chinese place next door. We pick this as it seems to have more foot traffic and we are not disappointed.

Well fed and content we head out. But very soon it becomes apparent that the terms and conditions needed to be negotiated and re-negotiated outside a laundromat in Lawrenceville, Virginia.

"I scream, you stop".

"I bawl, you stop".

"If it looks like I might erupt into a paroxym of howling, you change plans and head to Durham...".

....where we walk through the campus of Duke University, have an early dinner with a nice uncle before resuming our momentous journey once again.
We will finally make it to our hotel in ten hours and find the place overrun by families whose homes have been destroyed by a spate of tornadoes. Our next door neighbor is a celebrity of sorts - his destroyed home made it to the front page of some big newspaper, we forget which one.

Day Two: Breakfast at the hotel is a rambunctious affair with a lot of kids running around. Later, while the Boy lectures and gets lectured, we wander the halls of the Airborne and Special Operations Museum. At this point, we are a little heartbroken. Where did all the men in uniform go? Everyone we meet is nice and balding, except Iron Mike here, who gladly agreed to pose with us.

Day Three: A repeat of Day One, more or less. Lunch at Cracker Barrel. Could not ignore those billboards along I-95 touting the goodness of Southern hospitality right along the edge of the highway, any more. The food is decent, my fried fish is perfectly crispy. We even order the pineapple upside down cake. A second break at the Woodbridge Ikea, thanks to the rush hour traffic and we are back at home, sweet home in just about eight hours.

Home, where the baby roams and the fridge stares back at us silently...all empty. Thanks to this fridge cleaning soup we made before we left. Half a sad head of lettuce, a few frozen beans, a wilted carrot and some chopped onions sauteed with ginger, garlic and soy sauce and then simmered. And to add that special Indian Chinese taste - a dab of the green chili sauce (not Sriracha) at the end.

When a Passing Grade is not Good Enough

2011-04-18T11:42:00.004-04:00

Some ideas are great on paper and some food combinations sound better than they taste. Squash soup falls in the latter category for me. I have never been very impressed by the restaurant version. So I tried to make it from scratch by roasting an acorn squash and then cooking its mushy innards with onions, garlic, a tablespoon of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. The Boy liked the results as is. I thought it was okay with a swirl of sour cream...just okay.

Oh! How the Mighty Have Fallen

2011-04-11T18:02:00.006-04:00

I had never imagined myself as a mommies club mama or a mama who goes to lunch, in fact I was adamant that I would never join the former. And here I am doing both. If we (the Gherkin and I) are not rushing out for an impromptu walk in the park with other mommas and their wee ones, then we are sitting around with a bunch of moms and their babies, discussing baby sleep patterns over meatballs in Ikea - which by the way is the most baby friendly place on the planet. Okay, make that the second most baby friendly place after home on the planet. Need proof?

Stroller friendly parking spots and covered parking - check.

Well lit cafeteria with plenty of open space - check.

Nursing room - check.

Diaper changing station with disposable liners - check.

Bottle warmers, free bibs and high chairs that babies cannot climb out of -check, check,check.

Q.E.D.

Now all this hanging out with other mommies business does not leave us with much time to rustle up dinner. So when I found this recipe in the from the newspaper (yes, how quaint!), I cut it out and filed it. And this week when a nice head of cauliflower was sitting all alone in the crisper I decided to dispatch it to a soupy end. However instead of making fresh pesto, I just added a dollop of store bought pesto at the end.

The verdict - the vegans can have their cauliflower soup and keep it. We would rather dip our soup spoons into a thick, creamy, cheesy, non- vegan chowder any day. And by the way, we also tried the leftovers (it was a rather large head of cauliflower) with a dollop of cilantro chutney - it tasted just fine.

PS: Picture courtesy, The Washington Post and the title courtesy, our friend Mr. Rai who keeps repeating it every time we meet.

A Weekend Visit

2011-04-05T17:42:00.001-04:00

Our friends, Vrishali and Pravin dropped by for a visit last weekend. We were meeting after more than a year and much had happened in between. Their boys had grown up and we had managed to sprout a Gherkin.

The Gherkin was not sure what to make of the visitors. The adults were deemed okay but the two little boys (who insisted on being friends and doting on her) were most puzzling.

All that doting and cuddling just did not impress the Gherkin, whose wee friends sometimes barely move. The mere lifting of one's head is considered too much of an exercise by some in her circle.

In spite of the minor setbacks, relationships on the whole were rather cordial. We managed to watch India win the World Cup and check out the cherry blossoms in D.C. Though, the Gherkin and her parents got waylaid by the dogwood blooms and landed up in a museum cafeteria, where the Gherkin had a hearty meal of veggie mush while her adult handlers shared a table with some folks from Indiana who are attempting to cultivate black truffles on hazelnut trees. Needless to say, much interesting conversation ensued.
And since this was such a hectic week, we made an old favorite - Cream of Leek and Mushroom soup, which was whipped up for a lunch event.

Cure for the Sniffles

2011-03-28T17:32:00.001-04:00

Our home these days is a hot house of cold germs, thanks to a growing Gherkin and all her wee friends. We cannot remember a time when we at least one of us did not have the sniffles. Ah! the many joys of parenting.

This concotion of carrots, ginger, curry powder and coconut milk was cooked up to provide some respite from the constant barrage of colds, runny noses, itchy throats that we seem to be battling these days.

Kadhi Soup?

2011-03-21T14:17:00.000-04:00

Early this year, when I mentioned my soupy intentions to a friend, he rolled his eyes and asked, " Are you going to make dal every week and call it lentil soup?"

I shook my head vigorously, rolled my eyes and convinced him that such a thought had never even occurred to me.

And then last week I forgot about my resolution. I made dal, I made kadhi but no soup. A kadhi is soupy enough to qualify as a soup and can definitely be slurped like one and what is more - it is definitely not a lentil stew. So I guess, I still made a soup last week.

What's for Dinner?

2011-03-14T11:39:00.000-04:00

On a regular day a gazillion things go through my head, sometimes one at a time and sometimes a dozen and a half all at once. But most alarmingly, I spend a lot of time and energy thinking about what I will eat. Yes, the what's for dinner question takes up a lot of my brains processing power. On the other hand, since I am an omnivore, Michael Pollan tells me that it is my lot in life and I am actually better of that way. No McNuggets for us.

Though I have to admit that in the last few weeks, as I was driving around with the Gherkin (who was sound asleep in her carseat) the what to eat question drove me nuts. I desperately wanted to eat something other than the contents of my refrigerator. Yet going into any of our usual haunts meant that the associated activity of unloading the Gherkin would wake her up, thereby sending my plans of enjoying a nice lunch belly up. The only way I could order a meal without waking her up was at a drive through. And just like that, I saw the Golden Arches beckoning in my rear view mirror.

The call was strong and clear and I answered it dutifully by driving up to a board and asking a the static-y voice for a quarter pounder with cheese, fries and soda. Then I drove up to a second window and paid for my order and waited for a long time until the friendly cashier told me that I had to drive up to yet another window for my order. Which I did and was promptly rewarded with a paper bag containing my burger and fries. As I drove away, the car filled up nicely with that familiar fast food smell. I ate a few fries while driving and then finished the meal at home. I have to admit I enjoyed my tinny fries and the picture perfect burger. Apart from the fact that I had succeeded in my mission (as stated above) there is always something illicit about a Big Mac meal which makes it all the more fun to indulge in occasionally. Ooh! the thrill of biting into a French Fry that will outlive me if I let it be or slurping a keg of soda whose sugary goodness might make me comatose.

So coming back to the what's for dinner question, two weeks back the answer was tomato soup. Or to be more precise my Mom's tomato soup.

Another Week, Another Soup

2011-03-09T10:54:00.003-05:00

I am seriously looking forward to Spring. Every passing day, the dormant buds on the trees grow a bit more. The hint of green all around in the woods is tantalizing as is the promise of warm, long days in the wind. I have started planning my summer garden. Unlike last year, where I cobbled together a last minute garden with a few store bought plants this year I intend to start with seeds. Apart from the usual suspects of tomatoes, chillis and herbs, I plan to experiment with some spinach this year. Lets see how that goes.

On the soup front, I made this navy bean and kale soup which underwhelmed me with its green earth goodness. Even the sausage chunks tasted vegetal in the final product. This one has gone straight to the bin of never again.

2011-02-28T10:22:00.000-05:00

The Boy has been away for nearly a week and I am really proud of myself. No, not for driving the Boy away. I have been eating proper meals, unlike a time long, long ago. Cooking for one still remains a hopelessly boring chore (as a proof - I offer no soup this week) but with a wee bit of planning I managed to avoid the dreaded thrice a day cereal routine.

2011-02-21T21:01:00.003-05:00

The Boy is in Lima. The Gherkin had her dinner and is asleep in her crib. The cat had her dinner and ran away. The house is quiet and peaceful and I am taking it all in. The cocktail I just made up (one part Bacardi Limon+one part vermouth+ dash of Flädersaft) is definitely contributing to this zen like state. I am actually quite thrilled with myself. The Bacardi Limon was a disaster of a purchase and we have been trying to use it up as fast as we can. But since it is practically undrinkable, the only way to use it up so far has been to cook with it. Not anymore.

And here is last week's soup - Matar Shorba. It tasted as blah as it looks, definitely not a keeper.

2011-02-14T13:49:00.004-05:00

Going out with the Gherkin is still a production. But as slightly more experienced parents who take a few things in their stride now we can easily step out of the house for a couple of hours, enjoy lunch with friends and adda afterwards. Infact, we attended our first birthday party as parents this week..yeah!

And in the middle of all this, the soup of the week turned out to be a disaster. The hot and sour shrimp soup from the Cooks Illustrated, Best Soups and Stews book was a tom yum soup with the looks of pho....not very good. I am not sure if it was something I did or the basic recipe that resulted in such dismal soupiness that I could not even bring myself to take a picture.

Wegmans, Lamb and Soup

2011-02-04T13:13:00.003-05:00

Here is a bit of really old news - there is a new Wegmans in the neighborhood. Everybody and I mean everybody had been hyperventilating about it for months. Much was made about the fact that the store had decided to plonk its royal big boxness in Prince George's county and not in Montgomery county. After a few months of receiving coupons and come hither glances from the store in the mail, we decided to go check it out.

So does it live up to its hype? Well, yes and no. Wegmans is like the spawn of Whole Foods, Trader Joes and your average grocery store, if that were ever possible - though a very handsome, well groomed spawn. The interior is well lit and organised. The hot food section looked enticing but we kept walking. In the past, but the coffee from the in-store cafe was average.

We entered through the fresh produce section of the store and made our way to the cheese and meat departments which are very reminiscent of Central Market. Next up, the mid section of the store which is sort of like a Whole Foods with all the herbal supplements and homeopathy remedies. And then suddenly the lighting and color scheme changes and boom! you are in the Doritos and Cheez Wiz section. Prices were reasonable for some items and downright atrocious for others.

So the long and short of this entire ramble is that no, I would not go out of the way to shop at Wegmans. However, (there is always a however) there is one item that might just persuade me to make the cross county trip-lamb. Unless you shop at a high end butcher, good lamb is a little to difficult to procure and Wegmans has a variety of cuts in reasonable sized portions. We bought a pound of Butterflied lamb leg. And that brings us to the soup part of this exercise.

The lamb was marinated and cooked with lentils into a vat of harira. I used this recipe because it uses my favorite kitchen appliance - the pressure cooker. It was cinch to put together and the results were good and if I may brag a little, it was almost Lebanese Taverna good.

Powerless

2011-01-28T11:11:00.006-05:00

We survived the snowmageddon of 2010. The lights were on, the heat was on and so was the kettle.

Eleven months later with just six inches of snow on the ground, things turned out very differently. We lost power on Wednesday evening, within the first few hours of the onset of the storm. The gas fireplace was roped in to keep the house toasty while we sat around in candle light eating cold pasta. The storm raged on outside to the background score of falling trees and electric lines snapping.

Thrusday morning, we woke up in a house that was quite bit colder than usual. Still no power. We cranked up the fireplace once again, but not before the Boy rigged it up so that we could cook in it. The kettle was put on, eggs and toast made. I had almost forgotten the smoky taste of bread toasted on an open flame. Note to self: should do it again some other time.

With the caffeine kicking in the Boy went out (where a tree limb had crashed onto our neighbor's car) to shovel, while the Gherkin and I stayed in to monitor the progress. Somethings never change. At some point, the Gherkin was stuffed into her pepto bismol pink snow suit and made to pose in the snow and the event noted for posterity in the little book of baby firsts.

Back indoors after all the shoveling and picture taking it was time for lunch. Some good old fashioned pioneer spirit was channeled (that is if the early pioneers had access to instant noodles) and ramen was stired into a pot of hot water. Instant noodles, what would life be without their high sodium goodness, especially ones with soy peptides?

So in the spirit of the season, here is this week's soup - Hwa Ramyun, available most probably at your local Asian grocery. Follow directions on the package for a steamy bowl of noodle soup. Add tofu, mushrooms and boiled eggs to appease the inner gourmet.

As soon as the last of the soup was slurped the pioneering spirit quickly dissipated at the thought of spending an entire afternoon at home without electricity. The thought was so dismal that we stuffed the Gherkin (yet again) into her winter finery and headed for the nearest mall to indulge in some much needed retail therapy, before heading over to Ikea - that baby friendly mecca of the best swedish meatballs around. We eventually came back to a dark, dark home.

Late last night, we finally got back on the grid after being powerless for thirty hours.

When Life Gives You

2011-01-21T11:46:00.004-05:00

mushrooms by way of a bumper sale at your local grocery store, you make mushroom soup and not just any mushroom soup, but one with copious amounts of vermouth in it.

Some time back, during a misguided trip to the liquor store I acquired a bottle of vermouth. I might have harbored some misbegotten notion of enjoying a cocktail every now and then, with warm music in the background. Back home, the visions of evening cocktails vanished rather quickly once we found out that babies and cocktails aren't a good match. The bottle of vermouth was banished to the back of the shelf to hang around with the other forgotten denizens of the liquor cabinet.It hug around there and collected dust until a few weeks back when I rescued it. The chances of us enjoying evening cocktails seem rather dim right now, so I have been putting the vermouth to other use. So far we have had almond vermouth cup cakes, vermouth infused pasta sauce and now this soup, certainly not what I had planned to do with the vermouth but delicious nonetheless.

Rediscovering Rasam

2011-01-13T12:08:00.008-05:00

College cafeteria food is never much to write home about. On the contrary, it is everything to whine about when calling home. It was the same when the Boy and I went to college. There was a roster of menu items that was rotated through the week - each a spectacularly dull version of the real thing. A liberal dousing with ketchup, huge bottles of which were always available, would make the food on the plate somewhat palatable and keep the eater reasonably sane. If the daal was bland you added a squirt of Contadina. If the vegetables were dry you dipped them in Contadina. Everything tasted better with Contadina.

Yet, in this insipid, tasteless world one dish stood out because it was so stupendously bad; one dish that outshone every other stunning failure on that roster – rasam. And to exacerbate its stupendous badness, someone, somewhere had decided that rasam would be on the menu every single day. Now rasam is a wonderful soupy dish in the real world. But when this quintessentially south Indian dish comes to you via north Indian cooks who would rather make kaali dal, it has a tendency to turn into tepid, fermented tap water.

A bunch of years flew by and the watery rasam of our college nightmares was forgotten. So much so, that when I was handed a packet of rasam powder by a friend who was leaving town, it did not dredge up the dreadful rasam memories from my college years.Instead I was taken back to an much earlier time and place - the time when I was eight years old and lived next door to the K family. Since Mr. and Mrs. K’s children were all grown up my sister and I were doted upon whenever we went over - something we did quite often. We spent many an afternoon with Mrs. K, nibbling on murrukus and listening to her recount her childhood while the massive stone grinder rhythmically crushed soaked rice and lentils into idli/dosa batter in the background. And since we frequently overstayed our visit, we never went home without being fed a full meal. Whether it was idlis with crab curry or idiyapam with grated coconut and sugar, a meal at the K’s always started with rasam. Now Mrs. K was a great cook and I am sure she made all sorts of different rasams but after all these intervening years I realized that all of them had coalesced into one overwhelmingly sinus unclogging, tear inducing, spicy, steamy taste memory.So there I was with a packet of commercial rasam powder in my kitchen, remembering Mrs. K’s kitchen and all its myriad sounds and smells. I am sure she would have scoffed at using a premade spice mix but if I had to have rasam right away, grinding my own rasam powder would have to wait for another day. Into the pressure cooker went a handful of toor dal, some sad, winter tomatoes and one onion with a generous amount of the rasam powder. What came out looked like this.

It was soupy, not too bad for a first attempt. It cleared the sinuses and was way better than the college cafeteria version, but certainly no match for Mrs. K's. Oh! well I have a whole year of soups ahead of me so I am pretty sure I will revisit rasam at another time.

The Laundry List of Wishes

2011-01-10T17:07:00.005-05:00

If I had a few more minutes in each hour of every day, I would first get through the stacks. The stacks of magazine back issues, laundry (both washed and unwashed), stacks of collected recipes and stacks of bills (paid and unpaid). I would then deal with the organizing. Organize the closets, the out of season clothes, the basement and the sundry little drawers that are full of sundry little things.

Once I am done with the stacks and the organizing, I would sit down with a cup of tea and blog, read, pick a hobby, listen to some new music, watch a movie, tend to the plants. I would plan - plan my summer garden, future road trips, future dinners, future party menus.

But in reality, if I had a few more minutes in each hour of every day, I would just sleep. Tucked under the comforter, with the curtains drawn for a few hours of bliss, of undisturbed sleep.

Of Soups and Stews

2011-01-07T13:07:00.002-05:00

I never make New Year resolutions because I am an utter failure at sticking to them. However, this year I made one. I will make a soup or stew every week.

Given the new family dynamic, food preparation has been relegated to a four hour session over the weekend when I cook a bunch of different dishes for the week. And for the past month or so a soup of some sort has made its appearence on the dinner table. There are a gazillion reasons for that, the primary one being we love soup. I would gladly exchange a functioning body part for a bowl of pho. Then there is the weather bit, it is freezing oustide and nothing warms like a bowl of steaming broth. Soups are relatively easy to make - I throw a bit of this and a a smidgen of that into a pot and let it simmer away while I run the weekend cooking marathon. It also helps clean out the fridge. How else does one use up one leek, half a carrot and a small piece of cheese?

So there I was, chugging away at my weekly pot of hot soup, when a friend posted his success at sticking to his last year's resolution of making a pie every month on the Facebook. Slurpity, slurp, slurp...what if I did something of the sort with my soup fixation? I could crow about it here, thereby reviving this space in the process. And the fact that I had to crow about it would also motivate me to stick with the whole a-year-in -soup thing.

I thought about it a little more and came up with a few pointers for myself.

The weekly soup post will not be a recipe post. Just a picture and some such. Recipes are only a Google search away.
Stews will be included.
It is not about making 208 unique recipes. I am allowed repeats as well as soup mixes.
I am allowed an occasional week of soup-less-ness and a run down to my favorite pho place.

Now that the legalities are in place, here is my first soup of the year- Zucchini, Leek and Potato. It is a variation of Jacques Pépin's Leek and Mushroom Soup with mushroom replaced by zucchini.

It's a Brand New Year

2011-01-03T17:08:00.003-05:00

We started this year in a quiet house with just the two of us, a sleepy baby and a three course dinner (leek and potato soup, tilapia grenobloise and pear bread pudding).

If that is an indicator of things to come, 2011 may just turn out to be the year of eating well...at home.

Happiness

2010-12-13T15:38:00.002-05:00

is a rocking chair

in a puddle of afternoon sunshine

shared with a sleeping six month old

while reading a book

15 Favorite Authors

2010-12-01T10:28:00.000-05:00

Listed in response to Amlan's similar post, in no particular order are some of my favorite authors. In fact this a stream of consciousness type of list where I made the additional effort of picking those that I have a) read on multiple occasions and b) will not hesitate to read yet again. And yes, this list also includes my favorite poets.

1. Vikram Seth
2. Amitava Ghosh
3. O.Henry
4. Ruskin Bond
5. Jeffrey Sachs
6. W. Somerset Maugham
7. Annie Proulx
8. Nadine Gordimer
9. Alice McDermott
10. Edna St. Vincent Millay
11. Ian McEwan
12. Munshi Premchand
13. e.e. cummings
14. Jane Austen
15. R.K.Narayan

Life with the Gherkin

2010-10-27T16:11:00.004-04:00

has been a blur of feeding schedules, diaper changes and endless fretting about the contents of said diapers or lack of content thereof!

However, we would still like to be considered cool. Hence in the middle of this madness, one of the first things we did (within a week of coming back from the hospital with gherkin in tow) was watch Zombieland in between feeding sessions!

With our coolness mantle restored, here is a quick, bullet-ed update on life with the Gherkin so far:

Movies, if they are to be watched are now watched in parts conveniently arranged around feeding, diapering and sleeping schedules.
Schedules are important, very, very important. Babies like schedules and are sticklers for it.
The Great Outside is a thing to be feared -it is either too germy, too hot, too cold, or full of people with germs, say the grandma's. So we stay indoors and stare out of windows!
Strange are the ways of the young mind. The Gherkin can communicate with the ceiling or the fan up there for hours. We will be wishing for these days when she gets into the I-am-bored phase later on in life.
Any word can become cute, just add poo, noo or tiddly widdly at the end. And never, ever underestimate your talent for coming up with new words that you think will amuse the diapered one.
Everyone around gets into a tizzy when the diapered one wails, except you. You, the cool parent (remember Zombieland) pick up the wailing child, sniff diaper, coo, try to feed etc. etc, while around you everyone is losing their head. Parents must be automatically endowed with a button which shuts down the panic reflex the moment a earth piercing wail is let out by the diapered one. But beware, this endowment takes a few weeks to go into effect.

Wisdom Indeed

2010-09-05T14:39:00.000-04:00

Wisdom

When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I have looked Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in exchange -- my youth.

-- Sara Teasdale

Very touching...specially loved the bit about compromises waiting behind hardly opened gates. Its probably this that makes the road not taken so alluring and the memories of unfulfilled love so enduring - the expectation of not having to make compromises, the hope of simplicity at the end of the trail. Its probably this that makes romantics of the unwise, lovers of the naive.

Summer on the Deck

2010-07-09T21:14:00.007-04:00

The wonderful thing about Summer is the riot of colors it brings along. The flowers are in full bloom. The yellow swallowtail butterflies are here, hovering over our out of control butterfly bush.

The fruits and vegetable plants seem to be coping well, in spite of the infrequent waterings that they seem to be getting this year. The cherry tomato plant is trying its level best to reach for the sky...it was supposed to grow into a bush!

The strawberry plant is a little sad thanks to the steady onslaught of bugs and the neighborhood squirrels who have been helping themselves to all our strawberries.

Luckily, they don't seem to like the tomatoes and the peppers very much, leaving us with a modest harvest every now and then.

2010 so far was

2010-06-13T16:53:00.007-04:00

the year of the mega snow storm.

the year the lilac by the front stoop decided to finally wake up and set out sprays of fragrant blossoms.

the year in which Buttons, the neighborhood stray decided to adopt us.

the year a little gherkin came into our lives and changed everything.

Momma, Look How We've Grown

2010-02-22T17:31:00.005-05:00

We slog over the stove and make malai koftas for our guests. There is more food than alcohol now. And look, the guests show up in ones (mostly twos) with offerings of even more delectable adult goodness. We sit around and eat cheese and crackers and nod our heads approvingly when the cheese is good. When it is bad, we have learnt not to say ewww or gross or something similarly sordid. We eat like grown ups and everyone likes everything on the table. We take extra care not to spill wine on the carpet. We own the carpet and the floor beneath, you see.

The silly drunk is not there nor is the drama queen. He has settled down says someone and the drama queen? Oh! she moved on.

The gifts are all crushingly sensible now - a tray for the kitchen and a plant for the window sill perhaps. We sit around and discuss our new jobs, the last snow, the economy or the housing sector. Guess what? Babies and puppies are interesting too. After dinner we linger politely for a while, then thank our hosts and head home to our warm beds. We are rather satisfied with how the evening turned out.

Momma, we might be finally growing up.

Snowpocalypse

2010-02-10T18:07:00.003-05:00

Day four (with one day in between spent at work exchanging snow stories) at home, the pseudo blizzard of 2010 has finally given way to a full blown blizzard..of the sort which howls like a woman possessed. The silver filigree of snow does not seem so pretty anymore.

But then we are not complaining. The power gods have been rather nice to our neighborhood and we have enjoyed this unexpected vacation. We have spent our time:

shoveling snow- only when absolutely necessary

playing in the snow - does any one else think that my hanging pots have snow hats like these gentlemen?

preparing and eating some good meals- plenty of time to think and plan meals.

reorganizing the kitchen- cheaper than re-modelling.

watching a lot of stuff on Netflix- Anthony Bourdain rocks.

getting to know our neighbors-sharing warm, gooey brownies help.

reading the newspaper completely - many thanks to our newspaper delivery man.

and feeding the flock of little birds that have taken refuge under our deck.

So there...phoeey to cabin fever and all that.

Just a Dinner

2010-02-05T17:56:00.006-05:00

Last week when we had a little something to celebrate, we headed out to Rockville to our favorite Indian restaurant. The standard underwhelming fare of green, white and orange gloop slathered curries usually means that Indian never really counts as a dining out option for us. However, Bomby Bistro is different. It is the original flagship restaurant of the owners of Indique and Indique Heights. If parking in Cleveland Park were not such a nuisance we would be headed more often to Indique. Indique Heights on the other hand has good parking but tends to be a hit or miss sort of place.

But Bombay Bistro is just perfect. The chicken dosa (with a dry, highly spiced ground chicken filling) alone is worth the trip to this small restuarant tucked away next to a organic dry cleaning shop in the middle of a residential zone in Rockville. The place is packed with regulars even on a weekday evening (usually a good sign) and they don't take reservations, so plan on waiting for a while.

Puritans might turn up there noses at the slighlty unorthodox version of kathi roll served here. It tends to fall apart but it tastes great so I am not complaining. The goat nuggets in the goat curry were a little tough during one visit but the lamb has always been impeccable. The condiments that usually come out with your order have a certain home cooked feel to it. The sambar that came with my chicken dosa tasted was soupy mess of onions, carrots and squash with just the right amount of sambar masala.

During our last visit, we had some tummy real estate left over so we shared the gulab jamun with ice cream. A very common combination but for the dollop of a fig/apricot/orange? (not sure) sauce on the side. It is these little touches and the great service that make this place such a delight. So if you have Indian on your mind and would not mind a trek to the burbs, head to Bombay Bistro.

Cheap Thrills

2010-02-05T17:37:00.004-05:00

Thanks to all the hoopla about the impending snow storm, my Washington Post magazine turned up at my door step a day early. Now, reading the Date Lab section of the said magazine on a Saturday morning, bleary eyed, in my pyajamas, with a cup of coffee, way before the Boy wakes up is one of life's many pleasures.

But, sadly, the same ritual repeated on a Friday morning (even one which holds out the promise of a snow holiday) does not provide the requisite amount of satisfaction. Gah!

And now my Saturday morning is ruined too.

Auto Show and a Dinner

2010-02-01T19:47:00.005-05:00

Half a hall full of all things four wheeled and green - check.
Shiny concept cars - check.
Cooler versions of your five year old Corolla -check.

Washington DC Auto Show done-check.

On to the dinner-Ethiopian at Etete. The location was chosen primarily for its proximity to the convention center and the fact that it has been getting consistent rave reviews for quite sometime now. And then, Ethiopian food encourages a primal food orgy, best enjoyed with a group of friends who don't think twice about dunking into a communal plate and sopping up fiery sauces with bits of spongy injera.

We arrived a little after 9:30 pm and were promptly seated. Beware! By suburban standards this is a tiny place and they don't take reservations. So being late probably helped us get seating quickly. The Boy and I started off with some Ethiopian tea to warm ourselves up. I would highly recommend the tea to anyone who loves the idea of masala chai but finds most restaurant versions either too milky or cloyingly sweet.

The Boy settled for his standard-Doro Wat (the combination of a chicken leg with an boiled egg brings on the warm fuzzies for him) while I chose the vegetarian combination with fish. The others at the table ordered the spicy lamb stew and more of the Doro Wat and vegetarian combination. Since the food here comes out on one large plate, sharing and dipping into someone else's entree is okay. Infact, if you have problems with that you should probably stay clear of most Ethiopian food places. The Doro Wat and the lamb stew were better than most versions but it was the fried croaker with a squeeze of lemon that had all of us reaching out for more. And I am not even particularly fond of deep fried whole fish. The vegetables that came with the vegetarian combination were all uniquely seasoned...a big plus in my book. By the time we left at around 10:30 pm, we were stuffed to our gills and warm-a big help that one as outside the temperature was hovering in the teens.

A Movie and a Dinner

2010-01-27T13:28:00.005-05:00

2009 will always be the year when yours truly forgot her blog, the year of half hearted posts and equally half hearted drafts, the year of could haves and should haves. Someday we will come back and update 2009 but for now we are all about 2010.

2010, at least the first half of it, will be all about "a dinner and a movie". Not our usual shovel-an-Italian-sandwich-and-polish-off-half-a-ginger-beer-at-Potbelly's-before-making-a-mad-dash-to-the-theatre thingie that the Boy and I are usually known for. And which was exactly how we watched "Avatar". No, 2010 will be about growing up and eating like adults...slowly, with a side of pleasant conversation while savoring every bite. Then gracefully walking into the theatre (without breaking into a sweat) and elegantly settling in for the evening's performance.

The first dinner and a movie night was rather casual. Dinner was Peruvian chicken at Sabroso Grill. If you have not heard of Peruvian chicken it's probably because you do not live within driving distance of D.C. or worse still...you live under a mossy rock somewhere deep in the jungles of Pandora. Sabroso Grill is where we go for our Peruvian chicken fix. The guys at the counter are pleasant, the chicken is always well spiced and they have yucca fries and plantains on the side.

The movie on the other hand was a mild disaster. AFI, Silver Spring was playing A Serious Man.

You know the movie with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.
Never heard of it, I see.
Doesn't ring a bell?
The Colin Firth movie is called A Single Man... really!

Unfortunately we figured out that we were in the wrong movie after the opening credits rolled by. The dark and broody Yiddish prologue did seem a little out of place and weshould have left right after that prologue instead of struggling through this plodding, gut wrenching, despair laden tale of a physics professor set in a bleak 70's landscape. Though the movie had its lighter moments there was no escaping from the crushing self awareness of having made a boo-boo. On the other hand, I now have a shiny, new word in my vocabulary-dybbuk.

The Last Party of the Year

2010-01-01T18:38:00.001-05:00

Our little group of friends expanded with the arrival of Pihu in June. Singh and Sunayana's little munckin was the center of attraction at our get together.

Though the proffesors bright yellow pot came a close second in vying for attention.

And as usual, there were the usual suspects - good friends, food, wine, movies and adda - in no particular order. Since this blog serves as a record keeper of sorts, let it be noted that the movie we watched was Little Zizou.

The Essential Thanksgiving Post

2009-12-20T18:42:00.000-05:00

Since this has been the year of confronting one's fears, we decided to finally have turkey for Thanksgiving this year. Besides with a guest list of fifteen adults and four children it seemed the more sensible thing to do. So here's our kosher bird from Trader Joe's slathered with homemade Italian dressing on its way to the refrigerator on Wednesday.

And here's the same bird on Thursday evening after spending a few toasty hours in the oven. A Youtube tutorial made carving a cinch. The verdict-the turkey was good as far as turkeys go but I still prefer chicken.

And here's the rest of the spread. Brussel sprouts, spicy cornbread, black bean and quinoa salad, a southwestern slaw and sweet potato mush. Yes, I completely forgot the cranberry sauce and yes, nearly a year later our dining room still looks sort of bare.

Missing in action- the desserts. We forgot to take pictures of the apple cake and banana walnut bread as we were too engrossed in our game of dumb charades. The apple cake recipe came from this book while the banana bread is my version of this recipe where I get to swap out the chocolate chips with walnuts.

My Mom's Penicillin

2009-11-09T10:25:00.005-05:00

I have been feeling slightly under the weather off late and craving the hot, brothy soup that was once a childhood comfort food. One phone call and a few minutes at the stove later, I now have a vat of my mom's tomato soup to chug my way through.

So if you are feeling the chill, take half a dozen medium sized tomatoes, a small onion, a knob of fresh ginger, a large clove of garlic (optional) and give the veggies a few nice hacks with your trusty knife. Add four to five cloves, a bay leaf or two and two cups of water to the veggies and pressure cook the heck out of them. Run the resulting pulpy mess through a sieve, season with salt and pepper, add a dollop of butter and enjoy. For a thicker consistency, gently reheat the soup with some cornstarch slurry.

The Cannot Do List

2009-11-02T09:59:00.005-05:00

There are somethings in life that just elude me. I have come to accept the fact that large water bodies and I do not get along. If I accidentally find myself in one, I will sink. Never mind what the laws of phsyics and the swimming instructor have to say on the matter. I will not float, I do not float. I will sunk to the bottom of the pool like a sack of potatoes and horrible, salty, hyper chlorinated water will enter my orifices and make me rather unhappy. I do understand that this inability to prosper and propel forward in all masses aquatic might become a question of life or death someday, but for now its just means that I am not too enthusiastic about heading to the beach. I can live with that.

Then there is the matter of card games. I don't get it. I simply cannot remember how a deck of cards is organised. I was the kid who could never figure out the solution to all those pesky probability problems involving cards. Luckily, Probability 101 is long gone and the way I look at it...what are the chances that my survival might depend on my ability to know a queen of something from a jack of something else? Not much, right. Unless I suddenly head off to Reno for a life of reckless gambling. And the probability of that happening is infinitesimal compared to the probability of me unexpectedly taking off for Ocean City. So there...peace.

But my absolute lack of understanding of timesheets does bung a spanner into my life every other week. I am the bane of all office managers and HR people. I am the person who has at least one mistake in her timecard, everytime-without fail. And if I am really, really good then it will be months before the bean counters in a distant office figure out that I have used the wrong billing codes for months!! Audits will be done and long letters will have to be written and signed before every wrongfully assigned penny is sent to its proper electronic ledger. However, unlike the previous can't dos which I have made peace with, I still have hope for my timecards.

Rain, Rain Go Away

2009-10-06T09:44:00.002-04:00

A nagging cough and persistent showers has meant that I have had to stay indoors, consume steaming cups of cha and catch up with my reading. Three down and one more to go before the vacation officially ends.

Indian television sucks - there is no other way of putting it. Every news channel seems like an Indian language reincarnation of Fox News.

No more pictures to post, the camera has taken a vacation too.

And I now have an accent- none of the customer service reps seem to get what I am blathering about. Five excuse mes, three repetitions and some garbled Hindi has usually done the trick so far. Apparently, my Hindi proficiency has also gone down the drain.

At Home

2009-09-28T01:27:00.005-04:00

where smoke belching chimneys are nestled within green hills and roads names are strangely musical. Where childhood games revolved around matching industrial products with the local factory names...Timken, Tayo, Agrico.

where the early morning wake up caller has a tufted head and goes "tooey-too". Apparently the little one harbors an intense hatred for curtains. If not for them darned curtains, I would get a more personal wake up call...apparently!

where the festivities are for everyone - the people in town and for those across the river. Where the pujo bonus brings about an unheard of frenzy in the marketplace. It might not be the biggest or the flashiest, but there is still the prize winning jute work, the dhaanker saaj, the lights, the natoon sari, the dhunichi naach and para-r program...

the "aloo chaap from bangaal" at Ambagan and the fair at Sabuj Sangha.

What's The Use of Going Someplace

2009-09-06T20:57:00.017-04:00

if one cannot blog about it afterwards..Right?

So, without much further ado, here is an account of our weekend in the mountains of West Virginia. More specifically in the Seneca State Forest. Please note that the lack of internets in the said mountains prevented us from providing minute by minute updates on our whereabouts on Facebook.

Since we are on the subject of lacks, our little cabin in the woods, by the river, did not have running water or electricity- yet another reason why those by the minute updates would not have been possible. Also the State Forest where this cabin is located happens to be within the boundaries of the only National Radio Quiet Zone, so there was no cell phone reception or for that matter any radio reception. The only radio station we found was a country station on the AM band. All this courtesy, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory(NRAO) in nearby Green Bank which many folks might recognize from the movie, Contact.

But one thing our cabin did not lack was oodles of old fashioned charm - think hand pumped water and wood burning stoves, the wood for which was thoughtfully provided in a shed nearby. For a day or two, I had my own personal wood shed - woo hoo! The interior was lit with propane lamps and we even had a propane powered refrigerator. The not so charming part - the pit toilet. Feel the need for a bath - take a dip in the stream behind the cabin. Not so adventurous - go down a steep hill to the ranger station, pay a few quarters for the modern convenience of a hot shower.

Without electricity and television, night literally falls. You can play Scrabble for only so long. Thankfully, without all the extraneous hum of city living, falling asleep is easy.

An early coffee enjoyed on the sun dappled stairs of the cabin and a hearty breakfast later we set out for a long trek through the wilderness. Don't expect any great views here. And the one spot that held the promise of a view - an abandoned fire tower was partially dismantled to discourage climbing. Ugh!

On the way back, we stopped by the NRAO and got our geek on. Initially, this was planned as group trip but all the others bailed out on us at the very end. In retrospect, I was quite glad they did- we managed to enjoy a peaceful and quite weekend in the mountains just by ourselves.

The Great Dough Debacle

2009-08-31T16:32:00.001-04:00

A bowl of dosa dough (with instructions) happened to come by our way...thanks to N's mom. The batter like dough was transferred to a bigger bowl, covered with cling wrap and placed inside the draft less confines of the oven. We hovered around the oven impatiently, waiting for the dough to grow all nice and puffy. In our mother hen of a state, we might have even cooed at it. While the domestic diva within was delighted at the prospect of turning out crispy-on-the-oustide-but-soft-on-the-inside dosai's, we were even more delighted when the dough made us proud by puffing up to fill the bowl. We were ecstatic and in that fit of euphoria we...

turned on the oven to make a batch of cornbread*. And before we knew it, our dough had turned into this:

Yep...a ginormous, baked idli. Baked all the way through.

Tch! tch! an idli is still perfectly delightful, you say. When life gives you lemons make lemonade, you say.

Not so, dear people, remember that cling wrap that we covered the bowl with. Let's just say that nothing much remained of it after being subjected to 375 F for 30 minutes and melty cling wrap does not feature on our top ten list of favourite foods. And even though our giant baked idli tasted awesome (we did try a little bit), good sense prevailed and into the trash it went. On the positive side (we do believe in the whole lemons turning to lemonade thingy) the cornbread was delicious. Yay! Trader Joe's cornbread mix doctored with chipotle pepper and grated cheese.

Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

2009-08-15T18:57:00.004-04:00

A warm and muggy August morning is probably not the best time to visit the 700 acres of marshland that constitute the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. We reached the park at around 9:30 am and walked around the ponds by ourselves before joining an interpretive tour at around 11:00 am. The blooming season for nuphars was over, but the lotus was going bonkers

One of the many surprises was the lack of mosquitoes throughout the park given that August is peak mosquito season in DC and this was a marsh. Apparently dragonflies prey on mosquito larvae and help eliminate them. During the interpretive tour we smelled the lotus (hints of spice and fennel), learnt a little more about cattails and wild rice and finally saw the "other" lily ponds. Since the lily has many natural pods, it is first bred in separate ponds behind the Visitors Center and then introduced into the main ponds. The lilies were clearly our favourites with their fascinating colors and even more fascinating names.

And amongst them all, this one, called Blue Smoke was the one that got my vote.

(500) Days of Summer

2009-08-10T11:44:00.004-04:00

Is the kind of movie you watch with a goofy grin pasted on your face for the entire 95 minutes of its running time. That it is a love story gone wrong does not make any difference.

From Russia with Love

2009-07-31T17:59:00.000-04:00

The Boy came back from Moscow bearing gifts. The Boy got us an obligatory Matryoshka doll and rest was from the in-laws. Packets of buckwheat (we love that stuff), chocolate, honey cakes, more dolls, russian handicrafts etc. etc. The Girl, as you can see, is quite pleased.

By Ourselves or A Weekend by Weekend Account of What We Did When The Boy Was Away

2009-07-30T09:07:00.000-04:00

The Boy went to Moscow in early June and suddenly lost all interest in coming back. So in his absence we amused ourselves with an assortment of activities.

On the First Weekend by Ourselves we went hiking in the Great Falls area. Four hours of walking and rock scrambling on a Saturday afternoon and a day trip to DC on Sunday later we were done with the activity quota for the week. And we proceeded to spend the week

day evenings parked in front of our projector watching reruns of Coupling.

The second Weekend by Ourselves started off well with good food at Penang. The misguided idea of a nocturnal visit to Gravelly Point led to an accidental visit to Alexandria and some more TV till the wee hours of the morning.

By the time the Third Weekend by Ourselves came around, we had managed to pass on the Coupling bug to others and thus spent it gloriously rewatching Season 1 and 2 of till we passed out. By then the good part of the brain started up this protest march inside our cranium and in an effort to hush it we decided to do something cerebral - like visiting the Smithsonian Folk Life Festival. Also met Cleo the furball who loves sleeping in the closet.

We recuperated from our Fourth Weekend by Ourselves by pigging out on cholar daal, paneer, jhinge posto, chicken and chatni and then lazing around in front of an absolutely corny Uttam Kumar movie- "Deya Neya". Watching fireworks from a horizontal vantage point added to the happiness quotient too. And just when life just could not get any better we were invited to partake of leftover chicken and chatni with luchi for lunch next day.

So now, where were we...ah! the Fifth and Final Weekend by Ourselves. We did the only possible thing left on the list...heading to the beach. After much misadventure, we made it to Cape Henlopen in Delaware. There was plenty of good food, some beach football, dolphins in the water and good music too. Also our frilly beach hat recieved a lot of unpleasant attention.

We highly recommend the beach at Cape Henlopen. The sand is a little too fine, but the beach is very clean and the no alcohol policy means no drunk people making a nuinsance of themselves. There is an entry fee of eight dollars per car and the umbrella rentals cost us about 15 dollars each.

Why does Ralph Fiennes

2009-06-21T16:10:00.004-04:00

never get the girl? No, seriously. I watched The English Patient for the umpteenth time last night and a few days back I watched Oscar and Lucinda. Have grand plans to watch The Constant Gardener again. He scowls, he glowers, he looks mournful but still he looks wretched at the end of it all. The girl either dies, or he dies or they both die.

Dreaming of Mountains - Part Three

2009-06-11T17:32:00.004-04:00

Sunday morning...we leave at 11”o” clock again. I decide to drive. The level of enthusiasm folks have shown for driving, has finally piqued my curiosity. After a few minutes I can see why? We drive through the northern most parts of the park. This is definitely the more scenic and remote area. The snow banks are higher and the elevation gains spectacular.
And then there is that holy grail of park sightings - a bear!

Followed soon after by a moose.

We drive on to the Artist's Point to take in the iconic image of the Yellowstone as it cascades down hundreds of feet of rock.

The plan is to drive around the loop and head south into Grand Teton National Park and then take the scenic back roads all the way to Salt Lake City. The road gets bumpy soon after we leave Yellowstone. The weather turns a few shades grayer. And then right there…out of the clouds appears a vision. The Tetons…

We stop at every bend in the road. We grow silent and wonder. Yellowstone feels like a Disneyland in comparison.

We keep driving south in silent contemplation.

At the ski town of Jackson, we slurp what can be only described as the best vegetable soup ever at the Bunnery. As the rain starts coming in fast, we head south, through the cloud covered Teton Pass (10, 334 feet) onto Idaho, where a brilliant sunset suddenly lights up the landscape.But fear of wildlife forces us a change of plan and soon we are heading down I-15 (ugly, nasty I-15) at 90 mph..hurtling towards the twinkling valley lights. And just like that it is all over. We are back in our little suburban cubby holes still dreaming of mountains.

Dreaming of Mountains-Part Two

2009-06-11T17:31:00.005-04:00

A tummy full o' scrambled eggs, French toast, sausage, coffee and juice makes for some rather happy hikers.

First stop:-Brink of Lower Falls. Small hike down to the edge where the might Yellowstone goes tumbling over. The hike is short but steep-a drop of 600 feet in about half a mile.

Been there done that…what’s next? A mini hike up to Inspiration Point takes us to another waterfall instead. Always seek directions from the traffic engineer who does not know her left from her right...you might be pleasantly surprised!

Now what? Head to Canyon Village and refuel on coffee and fudge. Make a mental note to mention that they have rather good coffee every where in this park. See the boring movie in the visitor center while Ishan gets his passport.

Head out to the Yellowstone Lake next and find a frozen, grey water body. No dippy toes here!! THE toes are rather disappointed.

Finally head back to the Lodge again…Driving the windy mountain road to Mammoth is no fun in the dark but atleast there are pretty waterfalls at every turn, or so it seems.

Wonder where the bears are on the long ride back. The bison and elk get boring after a while.

After a long day the bison burgers taste extra yummy at dinner and the extra sleeping space is a welcome relief too.

Dreaming of Mountains - Part One

2009-06-10T22:14:00.002-04:00

A few hurried phone calls, some internet deal hunting and a bit of finagling for leave later, we are all set for our Memorial Day weekend trip. The Boy and I fly into Salt Lake City, Utah on Thursday evening and are joined by our friend Ishan and his colleague from California. We pick up our rental vehicle (a Chrysler Apsen), spend the night at the little sister's apartment and on Friday morning head out for Yellowstone National Park.

The Aspen purrs along I-15 and Utah, Idaho, Montana go by in a six hour blur of mix CD’s and satellite radio pop. A quick stop for lunch at Bountiful, Utah and for coffee at Idaho Falls. We enter Yellowstone through the West entrance.

Three more hours of daylight remain. Stop, gawk, click pictures, stretch... and then some more before heading for the Old Faithful. Ishan the trip organiser has a very clear idea of what he needs to photograph on this trip and Old Faithful just happens to top that list.

She does not dissapoint. A gazillion pictures later we are still not satisfied. So we grab dinner at the Old Faithful Lodge, walk through what seems like a field full of geothermal oddities...all just to see her erupt once more*.

A landscape of fantastical shapes and twisted colors, the magic of Yellowstone is just about beginning to work when...

...the setting sun finally forces us to head north to the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel where the friendly staff inform us that they have thoughtfully reserved a “crib” not a “cot” for us. Errm…no thanks! will manage without. And manage we do as all five of us pack into an itsy-bitsy cottage(second surprise of the evening) and settle down for the night.

Moral of the story: It helps to be tired when one is as cozy as sardines in a hermetically sealed can and it also helps immensely if one happens to be close friends with the other sardines.

* Speaking of oddities....this is also where I spot her, the young lady in the wispy dress and nine inch heels struggling to maintain her balance on the boardwalk!

Mt. Sugarloaf

2009-05-17T22:44:00.004-04:00

An early start with visions of toast, sunny side up eggs, coffee and the newspaper were dashed to smithereens... quite early on. No bread on the premises. Confound it. Coffee and cookies later, the day started looking up once again. So off we went, speeding down the Beltway and up I-270 to Sugarloaf Mountain.

A pleasant hike up the lonely mountain, a few moments spent listening to the wind in the treetops and a fun hike (getting lost is half the fun!!) down. And on the way back, stopping by the wayside vineyard to sample the wares (yay! MD wines) and pet the most friendly Siberian husky ever.

The Mind is Elsewhere

2009-05-17T11:20:00.003-04:00

I am currently in the process of turning a whole bunch of drafts from 2008 into legitimate posts, so nothing much will be happening on this page for a while. Once I am done, I intend to put up a link to all the new/old posts here...for folks who don't use Google Reader.

You Know You Are True Homeowners When

2009-05-05T14:39:00.007-04:00

...you can walk fearlessly into Home Depot, accost a bored sales rep and confidently enquire as to the whereabouts of a certain rubber-y washer, come back home and install said rubber-y washer into the fill valve of your disobedient toilet cistern, thereby browbeating it into submission and re-establishing your territorial supremacy - Roar!Grrrrrrr!

Saturday Shenanigans

2009-05-03T19:46:00.004-04:00

The plan was to watch football and eat our way through the day. And that's how, thanks to our friend Y, I watched a real football match yesterday after ages. We caught the last 60 minutes of the Real Madrid Vs. Barcelona match. Y's teenage daughter was rather heartbroken that Real Madrid lost.

That was the football bit, now onto the food. We munched on crispy flatbreads, yogurt dips and baba ghanoush during the match and gorged on couscous and fish later. And to top it all, there were Algerian pastries to be washed down with copious amounts of mint tea. Hmmm...if only all Saturday's were like this.

Of All Things New and Shiny

2009-05-03T11:21:00.004-04:00

For the past two weeks, we have been celebrating graduations, new jobs and new beginnings.

Over in NYC, Nandan welcomed a new brother and closer home our little Ms. Rai did the same. SD is officially done with grad school and come summer Dr. SD will be headed to New England to start the next phase of his life. R will follow later. The Papaya genome guy - Dr. NN and his tree hugging wife - I are also done with Maryland. Singapore beckons them to her shores. And just like that, the Boy and I will be left with a ginormous black hole in our social calendar. No more impromptu thursday night outs... at last it is time to grow up.

And in the middle of all this, no one noticed when the front yard went bonkers and sprouted dandelions all over...ugh!!!

To Tweet

2009-04-21T10:09:00.004-04:00

or not that is the question.

For starters we are just not that cool and interesting and on an average day, there aren't many tweetable thoughts that go through our mind. Besides we fear that the extra neuronal activity needed to tweet smart and witty tweets might just further tax our miniscule supply of grey matter.

On the other hand, we have to admit that we are intrigued by the prospect of tweeting. But that is not enough to convince us...yet!!

Ohm

2009-04-19T22:38:00.005-04:00

2009 looks rather promising. The Boy joined a new band.

And then he got himself a new board.

And then last night was rocking sweet.

And then there was a superlatively good mutton curry this afternoon.

Anyesha was Here

2009-03-09T17:02:00.004-04:00

For the sake of that joint resolution that we apparently made in some moment of madness (the one about posting more) here is a quote - a place marker of sorts.

"It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Lancaster County

2009-03-02T14:27:00.002-05:00

A trip to Lancaster County, PA always leaves me feeling like an intruder. Downtown Lancaster is a tourist trap. On weekends you have folks dressed like the Amish peddling all sorts of stuff to the hordes of tourists who come to town while the real Amish are enjoying their weekends which they take rather seriously. Besides if were them,I would not like tourists traipsing through my yard, gawking at my kids, my chicken coop and my wash basin either. So let some impostor play dress up while you go about your own business.

We usually visit one of the three museums in town. It feels less intrusive. You can click all kinds of cool pictures without bothering real people and once you are done you can head out for lunch. Authentic Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine is a little too bland for us. But we do love their apple cider and the green beans and always make it a point to buy a gallon of apple cider if we happen to chance upon an Amish Market, which happens quite regularly in Lancaster. And remember that thing about this place being a tourist trap, it has its positive sides...lots of chain food establishments which cater to every kind of cuisine.

Then onto North Market Street, to see the Quilt Museum. Since most of the trips we have made are were orchestrated for the sight seeing benefit of others, we always make a stop here. Infact, we first visited Lancaster in 2008 with the in-laws.

From the humble hand made ones to the jaw dropping ones designed with the help of sophisticate computer programs, this museum has always been a hit with our visiting friends and family.

And once we are done with the downtown, we prefer driving the back roads and taking in the scenery. No crazy traffic here, just mile after mile of bucolic vistas.

There might be an occasional buggy on the road that you might have to share the road with. Other than that, just driving these country roads is relaxing by itself.

And in the evenings when everything shuts down, we indulge in some retail therapy at the scores of outlets that line Route 30, before heading back to D.C.

Maryland Day

2009-03-02T14:23:00.001-05:00

Maryland Day at the University is a spring ritual for us. They always have free cake and ice cream. This year it was cupcakes. Much easier than cutting up a sheet cake into a gazillion pieces.

Though, the highlight of the trip was this tarantula. Yesh, I stood in line with little people and yesh, I might have elbowed some of them to get to the front but at the end it was worth it. I got to hold a tarantula, and feel her soft fuzzy skin (yesh, it was a she) and turn her upside down.

Fallingwater

2009-03-02T14:12:00.003-05:00

A trip to Fallingwater had been on the cards for ages. The only problem-a four hour ride (one-way) to the boonies to see an architectural delight always seemed like a lot of work.

So when our friend Nandini and Rajesh expressed the same feelings about Fallingwater, we decided to bite the bullet together and plan a weekend trip - together. The plan was to start the day before, spend the night at a log cabin at Yogi Bear's Jellystone Campground in nearby Mill Run. The Jellystone Park is very good value for money, if you are looking for accommodations with a kitchenette and would not mind carrying your own sheets. I am not going to waste to much time describing Fallingwater here, because nothing I can write (photography is not allowed inside the actual house) will be able to capture the splendor of this place. And secondly, you have to make the trek yourself to really get a feel for Frank Lloyd Wright's vision. The picture below is taken just before the tour began and shows the drawing room staircase that goes in to the spring over which the house is cantilevered.

On our way back, we stopped by the Cucumber Falls in the Ohiopyle State Park to dip our toes in the gurgling waters of the Youghiogheny [yaw-ki-gay-nee] River. No,not really. As much as we do not let an opportunity to dip our toes in a water body go by, this time we stopped to get ourselves some lunch and the falls just happened to be nearby.

At the risk of sounding

2009-03-02T13:33:00.002-05:00

...like the Weather Channel here is another post on the weather, snow and shovelling sidewalks. Presented in order of appearence- the backyard, the cardinal who lives in the bushes by the entrance and your fearless blogger shovelling her walkway with Mafia, the neighbour's dog. Needless to say, we are at home warming our toes and enjoying yet another snow day.

Brrrrrrr....

2009-01-30T17:41:00.003-05:00

First the little stream started freezing up.

Then we got dumped on by the truckloads. Now the big man in the white house thinks we are a bunch of sissies . But really, what's not to like about a snow day?

Wake up in the morning, look out onto the soft pillows of snow that have settled on everything and then check office website.

Liberal leave....yipee! go back to bed and settle in a little more deeply under the blanket. Wake up at around noon, look outside once more and murmur at the snow (which by now has turned to ice). Proceed to plod around in pyjamas, call up friends and discuss how "snowed in" one is while chowing down hot ramen soup. Plod around some more, listen to NPR and pontificate on the economy or watch the weather people on the local TV station go bananas. The next step is the most important of all...keep annoying the Boy about shovelling sidewalk till he gives up and goes out to shovel the sidewalk and clean the cars! Plod around near the door and helpfully dispense clots of constructive criticism. Shovelling done, warm up with some coffee (for the Boy!!), watch Lord of the Rings, eat leftovers for dinner and somewhere in between go take a shower. So you tell me, what's not to like about a snow day?

A New Beginning

2009-01-20T13:45:00.003-05:00

No, I did not go and join the half frozen multitude on the National Mall. Instead I stood around a tiny (by current standards) TV and watched THE ceremony with my colleagues, while around us TV monitors spewed out live footage from the eerily empty area highways!

And, after all that I went and emailed my resignation letter to my boss. Nah! not much drama there. It has been in the works for quite sometime just made it official today.

The Problem with Global Warming

2009-01-18T11:17:00.004-05:00

After three years of tepid, lukewarm winters when I had just about declared my cold weather parapharnelia obsolete and dropped them off at the nearest thrift shop, guess what happens? We get blasted with arctic chills and now I am scrambling for woolies to protect my extremities.
Ugh!!

Austin Trip - Part Two

2009-01-06T18:43:00.003-05:00

The other highlight of the trip were these designer jars, handcrafted by our very own S and S.

Also their lovely new home, which we who live in the land of exorbitant home prices ooh-ed and aah-ed about till out of breath.

We welcomed the New Year by waiting patiently for a clock tower full of resolutions to burn (those Texans are a funny lot) and then gate crashing the Mayor's party and finally clicking some silly pictures.

In between all this Austin madness, we managed to watch a horrible show by The Brothers Karamazov. It was so bad that the Boy and Singh went hysterical making fun of it and we had to leave early lest be thrown out. And this being Texas after all, we also ate some really good barbecue, before turning in our cowboy hats at the airport and heading home.

Austin Trip -Part One

2009-01-05T14:04:00.000-05:00

This year the Thanksgiving meetup was potponed to December due to scheduling conflicts. Gone are the graduate school days. We are all busy proffesionals now, with work life balance issues! We broke with traditions and did a lot of things differently. This was strictly R&R, so instead of four days we made it seven. There was no turkey. We had a much smaller and more manageable meal. But some things can never be changed... like the arguments that ensue when the boys meet.

All of us landed up at Singh and Sunayana's place in Austin over the Christmas weekend. After the catching up was done and the couch was no longer a very iniviting a proposition, we ventured out. First stop -The Alamo at San Antonio. Take a picture and move on. Want to read about the history, go here.

The Mexican Market was way more fun. Full of color, life and 15 dollar pitchers of maragarita.

The Texas Capitol in Austin was grand to say the least. But most curiously, there was hardly any police presence in this cavernous building. We waltzed in at 8 pm and pretty much walked up and down and this way and that. We did not even have to go through a metal detector. I have a sneaky feeling that Texas being the land of capital punishment has something to do with it.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T13:53:00.002-05:00

Good cheer and wishes from Austin. With a wee bit of luck, regular programming will be commence soon.

The Christmas Party

2008-12-28T18:45:00.001-05:00

Just a few friends and friends of friends, a few candles...

And some good food, wine and very competitive board gaming.

That was Christmas 2008.

New Orleans

2008-12-11T13:57:00.000-05:00

The Boy was scheduled to visit New Orleans for a conference* just before the winter holidays and I decided to tag along. It would have been a nice break from the cold weather, unfortunately the weather gods had other plans. It was breezy, wet and cold for the most of our four day stay. However we did manage to look around and indulge in the sights and smells of New Orleans.

We stayed at the Marriott in the French Quarter - an average hotel with nothing to write home about except the location. Staying in the French Quarter meant that one could just walk out and grab a coffee and beignet in the historic downtown.

Amble through the narrow streets, admire the intricate wrought iron fences and take in the spontaneous outbursts of jazz on street corners.

The Cabildo and the Pontalba Buildings were within walking distance as was the river walk.

The trolley from Canal Street took us all the way through the historic district upto Tulane University.

And then there was Bourbon Street. The streets were empty, the average mixed concoction pedalled in plastic containers by the average bar (which is 90 percent of them) was disastrously unpalatable. The Boy and I settled for a beer to wash out the taste of a radioactively colored hurricane or some such. However, the sight of groups of tropical disease specialists from all over the world walking up and down Bourbon Street, clicking pictures was a sight to behold...most surreal.

Since we were in full tourist mode, we signed up for one of the guided walking tours of the above ground cemeteries. Not a grand idea on damp, freezing afternoon. Atleast our guide, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Jack Black was knowledgable and quite interesting (how can someone who looks like Jack Black be boring?). The tour itself was a little creepy (the average age of the dead was around 24) and the tour of a vodoo temple at the end was plain weird.

Since you cannot talk about New Orleans without mentioning food...here goes. Our meal at Olivier's was probably one of the best. Sorry no pictures of that as it was a semi-official event. There was a totally blah meal somewhere in between at a touristy place on Bourbon Street. The only reason for mentioning that totally blah meal-alligator sausage. Nah!, doesn't taste anything like chicken but it's quite good, in a gamey kind of way. A later meal of shrimp tchefunte and popcorn rice at Palace Cafe was quite satisfying and the bananas foster at the end were blisfful. Just thinking of those gooey, sugary,buttery morsels makes me want to fire up the oven right away and make myself some. Perhaps I will and then I might just have some pictures to post.

* Pssst....this the conference for which Boy put in loads of effort and grew a beard for..lest he be mistaken for a student again!!