B L A C K O U T !

We just had a complete and total blackout.

Power in India is iffy at best but the temperatures have been in the low - mid-90's for the past few days so you know everyone has their ACs cranking. Some houses have 4 or 5 units, we have 3 but so far have used them only to cool off the bedrooms before bed.

The power went off so we checked our circuit breaker. Everything was fine so Jennifer opened the front door and the neighborhood was dark. The kids and I grabbed a flashlight and went to the end of our block to get a bigger picture and it was all pitch black except for the occasional headlight and our own flashlight.

We walked home, Jennifer had lit a few candles, and a few minutes later the power was back on.
Pretty cool but as the temps go up I can see this becoming a common occurrence.

Cooking with Angel

Today we made:
Butter Chicken, Saag Paneer and Gulab Jamun... the house smells soooo gooood!

Butter Chicken



The smell of this puree was unbelievable!! We cooked it on the stove, added turmeric and yogurt and it eventually turned the yellow/orangy color of Butter Chicken that we're all used to. Surprisingly, there is very little Ghee in Butter Chicken - Angel said it's the yogurt that gives it that name.

Saag Paneer


The cooked mixture is pureed before adding the paneer


And finally Gulab Jamun

The recipe in Kannada with a few English measurements

We crumbled a milk product called Khova - it's like a sweet paneer

And added Rose Water (Gulab = Rose) then kneaded it into a soft dough

I did the rolling, like my Mahendi?

Simple sugar syrup, thickened

Hot Gulab Jamun go straight from the oil into the sugar syrup

Can't wait for dinner!!

Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden announced her engagement

The wedding will take place in the early summer of 2010.
Read the article

Her fiance, Daniel Westling, 35, is a personal trainer and owns a central Stockholm gym chain, Balance Training. He was born in Örebro, central Sweden, and grew up in Ockelbo, a town of 6,500 people on the east coast of Sweden. He met Victoria in 2002.

Westling is to receive the title Prince Daniel, Duke of Västergötland.

Things are starting to heat up

It's 11:30am and I went outside to study Hindi before class. It's very warm so I decided to check Weather.com
Right now it's 86'
The high for today is 90' (low of 68') and 94' (low of 69') for tomorrow...

Everyone knows I'm a delicate flower and wilt easily.

The bedrooms were very warm last night. I might have to use the AC to cool off the kids' room before bedtime tonight.

UPDATE: When Gopi drove me to Hindi this afternoon he mentioned that the air is getting warmer. So I told him I had the same observation. He said it always heats up after Shiva's birthday and stays hot until May.

Happy Birthday Lord Shiva

Today is Shiva's birthday. Which explains the loud music and chanting coming from the villages around us this past week. Many people have today off from work, such as Erik, but schools are in session. So Erik and I have a day to play. We'll start with an outing on the 2-wheeler and see where it takes us.
The local tradition for celebrating Shiva's birth is a full day of fasting with no sleep and, of course, a trip to a Shiva shrine/temple to give him offerings of fruit, flowers, yogurt, milk, etc.

Grocery shopping

I just got back from grocery shopping. My favorite shop is called M.K. Retail and it has almost everything I need except cheese and meats (sometimes it has chicken but you can never count on it). And there is a very nice vegetable/fruit vendor next door so it's as close to one-stop shopping as you can get in India.

Today I had to buy rice. I hate to buy rice because there are so many kinds and I don't understand the nuances. So today I decided to count the different varieties... 17!! And I'm not talking "short grain, medium grain, long grain" I'm talking Basmati, Ponni, Sona Masuri, Kajaya, etc. I went with the Sona Masuri... can you really go wrong with rice? To me rice is rice. Maybe someone will educate me one day.

I also spotted Schweppe's Bitter Lemon for the first time. That was Mom's favorite drink and the only carbonated beverage she indulged in - but those indulgences were few and far between. Every once in a while I'd sneak a can from the garage. I bought one and put it in the fridge to chill. I'm looking forward to it.

The fruit/vegetable stand had beautiful strawberries again today. Strawberries here go bad so fast due to the heat. The transport trucks are hot and the air is hot so I often don't buy them. I found a couple containers that looked promising. I took them home and washed them and they truly were a good batch. I'll bring them to the bus this afternoon for the kids' snack.

Then I stopped at the butcher to pick up some meat. The butcher is a "cold storage" facility and has many frozen products too. In one freezer I spotted Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream for the first time. I thought, oh what a treat, Erik would love to be surprised with some Phish Food tonight. I picked up a pint and the cost was Rps. 650/ = $13.54. I put it back.

Ragi Ball / Ragi Mudde

Whenever I have leftover food at the house, Angel (our cook) asks me to not throw it away, she'll take it home for her family. This has included 1/2 of a child's serving of cold spagetti, to an overripe papaya, a crystalized 1/4 bottle of honey, etc.
Angel is the 2nd oldest of 10 children. Her father is not living, her mother is not physically able to work (I'm not sure what her affliction is but she has large swollen legs and sores, is this diabetes?) And one of her sisters lives in their "house" with two kids (one is deaf) and her husband left her to marry another women.
A majority of the household expenses falls on Angel's shoulders. But since she is a Christian she maintains her happiness and believes God will provide.

Yesterday I offered Angel a liter of heavy cream. She made a Valentines cake for us on Friday and asked me to buy cream. There are two sizes - small or BIG and I didn't know how much she needed so I bought BIG. She only used a little bit and the heavy cream here is crazy heavy so I knew we wouldn't use it. I asked her if she wanted it, she said yes but does not have any refrigeration so she didn't know what to do with it. I said to make a creamy lentil dish for dinner because the small children in her family are super skinny. I said the cream would give them a little fat and would be very filling. I also sent her home with .5 KG of a different kind of lentil so she could make something entirely new.

This morning she came by the house to thank me. She made the lentils and used the whole liter of cream in the dish (even swirled water in the container to get every last bit). She said it was the FIRST time they have had something new in their house for dinner.
WHAT?!?
For dinner, every night, they have Ragi Balls. Ragi is a black flour. Their mother boils water in a pan, adds the flour, stirs it until it's the consistency of dough, then they roll the dough into 12 balls (1 for each person). This is served with a "gravy" of dahl.
How to eat:
You pull off part of the Ragi Ball, dip it in the dahl, and swallow it whole. Like a tablet. You don't chew because it's too sticky.
And this is what she and the other 11 members of the family have for dinner every night.

When her mother goes buy "groceries" she spends Rps. 10/ = $0.21 to feed the family.

Egypt: Call to Mosque / Veg shopping

From my sister Linda:
Hi Little One! I read your blog this morning... about the mosques and their loudspeakers proclaiming their "lullabies" for all the countryside to enjoy. We, too, enjoy those lullabies here in Egypt! Maybe the volume is meant so that we can hear them several countries over, not just several streets over. Ours start at 4:30am and go intermittantly all day until the last one around 8pm, but the times of the broadcasts change with the sun, so they go later in the summer and end earlier in the winter. We don't get music with our call to prayer, they start off with a call of "Alllaaaaaaahhhhhh" (to get his attention) and then some long and beautiful acapella chants in Arabic some of which I'm getting to know and/or recognize, most days... but on Fridays (the Muslim religious day) there is a wild, intense and emotionally loud dude yelling over the loudspeaker. I can't understand one word, but I feel like anyone within listening range (which is quite impressive, haven't YOU heard him, too?) is being scolded for a solid hour for every transgression possible. It doesn't sound like an inspiring surmon, and forget trying to take a nap around noon on a Friday.



Miss Laurie and I are going to do our weekly produce shopping at the souk this morning. The only difference is that it rained yesterday for a short time, but the streets flooded and the souk might be a bit of a swamp to wade through. See the photo of the donkey cart driver standing on the platform while negotiating the flooded streets? We'll see when we get there, eh? :-) Egypt is an adventure, I'll tell you. Here is a photo of my little friend, the herb lady - I've asked her name, but I forgot, I think it starts with a Z sound - I buy fresh dill, cillantro, mint and parsley from her each Wednesday, and she charges me 1 LE and 25 piasters (about $0.25) so I give her 10LE (about $2) which is still a huge bargain for me, but can make a huge difference in her whole day's earnings, and it makes me feel really good. In the other photo I'm next to the MONSTER size cabbage they sell around here - one cabbage can probably feed a family of 30 for a week. The souk is sooooo interesting, especailly now that the vendors know that I am a regular customer and I'll be back week after week. We get very friendly smiles and waves from my herb lady, nods of heads from the more serious vendors, and even kisses on the hand from the egg lady because she is so happy that we have returned. Miss Laurie spotted a smallish watermelon last time and thought it would be a nice change of pace (abundant fruits right now are strawberries, tangerines, bananas and guava) but the fruit merchant told her "don't buy this, it isn't good". We were surprised but thankful that he was helping us with advice like that. It's also kind of funny what each vendor carries at his little area: the egg lady, for instance, also sells rice grains and freshly made cheese. (so, do the chickens produce milk around these parts?! Where does she get the milk?) The sweet potato guy also sells grapefruit (and those are his two items... nothing else) By coincidence, the fruit merchant a few stalls down does NOT carry grapefruit, so you have to know that before passing the first guy. There is one vendor who sells non perishable items and dried stuff, like beans, peas, lentils, etc. as well as dish soap (in little baggies and it looks like honey) or laundry powder by the kilo. I want to show Dad all around the souk, it will be so fun! I don't miss shopping at Carrefour much at all.


I believe this is a pot hole Linda has mentioned before

Murder She Wrote

At the gym this afternoon I was the only person there, so the janitor walked by and put on an English TV program for me. It was very sweet of him to do 'cause I wasn't watching TV just jammin' to my iPod (yes Erin, I'm actually using my iPod).
The show was Murder She Wrote and it totally made me smile.
Why?
1) It was one of my Mom's favorite shows, she watched it every Sunday. I think it came on after 60 Minutes. It was one of my guilty pleasures to hang with my folks and watch the show with a hot cup of Earl Grey or one of General Foods International Coffees (Cafe O'Lait I believe)
2) The 80's clothes, make-up and D-list actors
3) It was also fun to see who was going to get murdered by seeing who was making everyone else upset with them
4) It was fun to figure out who did it and why
5) My old friend Eric was from Maine and I love hearing an overexaggerated Maine accent (Pepperage Farm guy... A'yeah)

Mexican Food!!!

I'm so excited...
I think tonight will be the second time I've had Mexican food in India... in 7 MONTHS!!!

Fresh chapatis for tortillas


Followed a recipe for Cuban Black Beans but I only found Pinto Beans... so they're Cuban Pinto Beans


Fresh Salsa Verde and grated cheese








Butter Fruit aka Avocado


The carnage

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIN

Hey old lady...
You know you'll always be 1.5 months older than me. :-)
Miss you.
Hope you have a great day.

If you can sleep in India, you can sleep anywhere

We're used to getting lulled by daily lullabies. The local Mosque plays music over a loudspeaker calling people from early morning and into the evening. When we first arrived and lived in an apartment in downtown Whitefield we were closer to the Mosque and got used to the daily callings. The 8:00pm call I referred to as "Auggie's lullaby" because I was usually putting him to bed at that time and his window aimed straight in the direction of the Mosque. Here in Ozone we still hear it, but we're farther away.

For the last couple of days a nearby village has been having a festival. They play very loud music over loudspeakers starting crazy early in the morning. A neighbor told me yesterday she got up at 4:00am because her husband was going to the airport the blaring loudspeaker was already going.

It's hard to describe the decibels used in India. It seriously sounds like the festival is happening 1 street over but I live in the middle of the compound and the festival is probably in the center of the next village.

Oh, as I'm writing this (6:44am) the music has changed to chanting over the loudspeaker accompanied by drums. It's super loud. And all you can do is grin and bear it and say "that's India".

Unwanted 72

I was at the gym today and a commercial came on in Hindi for a product called Unwanted 72.

I was a little shocked - for a culture that does not permit public kissing. In the commercial a couple wake up in bed and the female is obviously bummed, then she slams a few Unwated 72s, then she gets out of bed and gets ready for her day... I was a little taken aback.

Their tag line:
Feel CONFIDENT
work FREELY and
live WORRYLESS

"Because you want to maintain your smile"

Is this our "RU486"??? Readily available over the counter?

Auggie kickin' butt on Indus Sports Day

Indus had it's annual sports day on Thursday.
Annika wasn't able to participate because the semi-finals were held the afternoon of Sheela's wedding. I gave Annika the choice to stay and compete (since she had qualified in two events) or go to the wedding and she chose the wedding. So there wasn't much for her to do on Sports Day.

August on the other hand was a different story. The Prep kids didn't do any qualifying because their events were tailored to their age group so he participated in everything.


Hanuman
There is a Hanuman temple on the way to Indus. I asked Gopi to pick us up a few minutes early so we could stop by the temple on the way to school. Hanuman is an extremely fast runner (you could even call it God-like) so I thought it might give August an edge if he had Hanuman's blessing before the events.
We stopped and the kids and I had Puja.

Hanuman's blessing did the trick because August got a 1st, 2nd and 3rd in his 3 events.

August's biggest competitor and best friend Rohan








Annika's new glasses

Invalidate CA Prop 8

It's hard to be so far away from home when a fight like Prop 8 was/is going down...

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day!
Jennifer stayed home with the kids last night so Erik and I could have a romantic night out together. We have "date night" every Friday but we usually hook up with friends, so last night was just the two of us.
We went to an area of Bangalore called Marathalli - not known for it's romance or ambiance but there is a nice Italian Restaurant there and we thought a nice meal and a couple glasses of wine would be lovey.
Well... for a moment we forgot we were in India. :-)
I mean no disrespect, but when you're used to things working a certain way it can be frustrating when your expectations are not met.
The restaurant is called Restorante Italia and it's owner/chef is from Italy. The food is wonderful and they have a woodburning oven for several options on the menu including thin pizza. (That's a little slice of heaven in India)
We arrived at the restaurant about 8:40p. We were hungry and had to wait for a table. They said a table would be ready about 9:30p - we decided to stay and have an appetizer and drink at the bar. The place was full and obviously understaffed.
As we waited at the bar the manager came by a few times to tell us that our table would be ready soon. Once we were seated, he came by a few more times which gave us the impression that we would be taken care of, but "impressions" can be deceiving. The restaurant had a special Valentines menu in the regular "Veg / Non-Veg" catagories, or you could order off the menu. I made the comment to Erik that if we ordered off the special menu everything would come a bit quicker. He agreed.
Once Erik managed to flag someone down to order we waited and waited for our glass of wine that came with the special. As we waited we said we were going to walk upstairs to check out a new nightclub. This sent the manager into a spin. But we believed once we returned our wine and possibly 1st course would be waiting for us - or at least follow shortly after our return. No, we had to ask a few more times for the wine and when the appetizers arrived they were cold.
The next course was leek/celery soup. I was looking forward to it because I'm a big fan of leek. We waited and waited. At 10:30p we got up to go. The Manager was flabergasted! He said "No please, your pasta is ready, please, we'll bring it out right now." So we replied we hadn't even had the soup and we'd been at the table for one hour. If we continued until the end of the menu we would have been there until 1:00am.
We paid for everything we had and said goodnight.
The appetizers and a glass of wine was a light dinner but did the trick.
It was the company that mattered anyway, and it was lovely. :-)

Facebook

So sorry...
I joined Facebook this week and I've been so curious about everyone I've connected with that I have not paid much attention to the blog.

Loooove the internet!

Just showed Angel a video on how to make Salsa Verde!
Looking forward to it!

Pork

Both my maid and cook are Christian but neither one will touch pork. That's fine, we don't have it that often. But on Monday I found a BEAUTIFUL bunch of thin, fresh asparagus and I though pork chops would go well with them so I picked some up. My cook doesn't come on Tuesdays so I made them last night. As I was trimming the fat Jennifer came into the kitchen and said "What is this M'dam?" So I said "pork chops." She said "Oooohhhh" and walked away.

I fried up a couple chops for the kids' dinner. They gobbled them up and then went to play with Jennifer. Jennifer jumped back as the kids tried to touch her. I could tell it was pork related because this is not her usual behavior. I told the kids to back off and go wash their hands. As they were doing this Jennifer showed me that she was wearing her Rosary around her neck. She said she was doing this because pork was being cooked in the house and she can't help but inhale the smell so she put on her Rosary.

When Erik got home I fried up the rest of the chops. We enjoyed them, then I washed all the pork-related pans, utensils and dishes.

Another instance was when Angel was going to make quiche. She comes Mon, Weds., Friday and we talk about what she's going to make the session before so I can have the ingredients on hand. She talked about making quiche and got out a recipe and didn't know what "bacon" was. I told her it was pork. But I also told her Erik would LOVE the quiche if bacon was included. She said she couldn't cook pork. So I said I would cook the bacon and have it all crumbled on a dish so she only has to add it as an ingredient. She said OK.
The next time she was at the house she got out all the quiche ingredients and I got out the bowl with the crumbled bacon. She walked away for a moment, made a phone call, came back and said she couldn't put the bacon in the quiche. She had called her Pastor for advice and he told her she couldn't have anything to do with pork. So I said what if I add the bacon to the quiche and she'll never have to touch it, she said no, she couldn't do it.
So I crumbled it on top after she left. :-)

The continuing education of Jennifer

It is so fun to expose Jennifer to things she might not normally see.

This afternoon I was watching some clips of the NBC interview with Octo-Mom. Jennifer came into my room so I showed her the woman on the screen and explained that 8 babies just came out of her. Jennifer was shocked... she didn't know it was possible. So I told Jennifer the Mom had to have help from a doctor to have that many babies at one time.
The NBC interview went on to tell how Octo-mom was implanted with 6 babies (didn't want to get into a discussion about embryos) but the ultrasound showed 7 and during delivery it turned out to be 8!
I also told Jennifer the woman has 6 children at home, no husband, no job, lives with her parents (which isn't that unusual in India) so it's crazy that she went on to have more children.
We watched more of the interview together.

As we were watching Jennifer noticed the mother's fingernails. The Octo-Mom had a French Manicure and Jennifer thought it was very pretty. I tried explaining a French Manicure and went to Google Images for assistance. We looked at all kinds of French Manicures and Pedicures. As we looked at the pictures there were pictures of people with long fingernails that progressed into Guinness Book contestant-type length fingernails. Jennifer exclaimed that she had never seen anything like it.
So I typed in "long finger nails" which showed us some grotesquely long fingernails and eventually led us into alternative lifestyle photos such as piercings. So I typed in "facial piercings" and that led us to photos of tattooing, piercings, under skin implants, filing teeth, splitting tongues, etc.

Jennifer was captivated...

Sheela's wedding - Part II

Jennifer's family is Roman Catholic so Sheela's wedding was in a Catholic Church. This is the first church I've been to in India. It looked just like any other neighborhood church. The service was in a language I didn't recognize, probably Kannada.
Sheela wore a white saree with a white veil for the ceremony.






kids were a little bored by the end

then it was off to the reception...



kids got to play on the stage before the bride and groom arrived


everyone changed clothes for the reception






let's eat





Auggie's new girlfriend Brigita

She's adorable, 3 yrs old, but Jennifer said she's very naughty, well, so is Auggie... :-)

When we were getting ready for the wedding, I tied my own Saree. I had tied it for the wedding in Delhi and now I've had more practice so I thought I did a good job. My pleats looked really good.
After the ceremony I was mingling with some of Jennifer's family members. They said "Nice Saree M'dam" so I proudly stated "why thank you, I tied it myself" and they said "yes... we'll fix it."
I was a little deflated but was well taken care of when we reached the reception hall and 3 of Jennifer's aunties dragged me into a closet, stripped me down, and retied me. Hahahahaha.

UPDATE: This past weekend the newlyweds went on an all-day motorcycle outing around the city. It's the first time they were alone and able to get to know each other. Jennifer said Sheela came back happy. :-)