One is never too old to learn new things, right? Here are a few 1st day stories about how us two old dogs learned a few new tricks. After we passed out at 4am (sleep never felt so good) we awoke at 9:30am to Charanya ready to prepare our first Indian meal (you knew it wasn’t going to take me very long to get to food! :o). Our hosts are from southern India so this is the main type of food that is prepared in the house. Mostly vegetarian. I cannot tell you how excited I am to learn how to cook this food!
Our breakfast consisted of fresh homemade Indian crepes called Dosa that are made with two kinds of rice flour and are cooked in Gingley (sesame) Oil. The batter is prepared and they are cooked in a flat skillet. All sorts of things can be eaten with them. We chose ginger pickle (a mix of grated ginger and red chilies)
and Molaga Podi (a spice blend w/chilies and sesame and coriander seeds). The spices are mixed with gingley oil to make a paste. YUM! Did I say YUM?! Fresh homemade yogurt is also served to cool the heat of the dish. Did I say YUM yet!!!! We were so, so happy after our meal that filled our tired bellies. I was so overcome with food joy; I had to take a nap (love that jetlag). Rowan worked, of course.
As I awoke from my nap, there was Charanya again ready to prepare our next meal. :o) It is truly amazing what this woman prepares in her kitchen. Rowan and I stand around her asking questions and writing things down. This is where you might need google to figure out what some of the ingredients are.Our meal consisted of Kara Potato Curry (cubed potato with a variety of Indian spices and red chilies), Sambar (toor dal, tamarind and radish plus Tadka - mustard seed, fenugreek, curry leaves) and Rasam (tamarind, peppercorn, coriander, chilies and toor). The last bit was the dry roasted spices that included cumin, coriander, red chilies, pepper corns, channa dal and toor dal - an absolute flavor explosion in the mouth. This was all eaten with rice an Indian wheat tortillas called Chappathi.
Kara Potato Curry
spices & herbs
Sambar
Dry Roasted Spices
Cooking Chappathi
Heaven! I fear there may be a digestive emergency about to happen :o) I will now resist more YUMS; you just have to know they are there. Now the funniest lesson of this meal…….Indians eat with their hands. No forks, spoons and knives here. Charanya began the instruction on using the right hand only (you know what the other one is used for :o) it was so hilarious watching Rowan absolutely cringe with fright that her proper British upbringing was being violated. She could barely use three fingers to pick up the food. Of course I was using my whole hand like a ladle. Just try eating soup with your hands! This is where the rice comes in handy as a vehicle for soaking up some of the liquid. Keeping it from running down your arm and dripping off of your elbow onto your pants and the floor is nearly impossible! Hilarious! What great fun we had. No eating out until we perfect these maneuvers.
Again the food induced the next nap.............Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Now, about our crash course on how to survive the streets of this city. About 5pm we hit the road for the 30 minute walk down to the LV Prasad Eye Institute where Shrikant has his research lab. Chaos is the only word I can come up with to describe what goes on out here. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night; the streets are active with people, motorbikes, cars, bicycles and small 3 wheeled taxis called ‘autos’ which swarm at high speed in every direction possible. Lanes don’t exist. No double yellow lines. When one walks, one walks in the street along with this chaos. There are few stoplights, even at major junctions. There are cows along the street. People just EVERYWHERE! Pedestrians do not have the right of way. Ever! Taxis and motorbikes nearly skim your pant leg as they whisk by you on the street. The small motorbikes often carry 3 people or more. The noise is constant as people constantly honk their horns so they don't run over each other. Charanya’s most difficult task was teaching us how to cross the street amongst all of this chaos. One really does take one’s life in their own hands when attempting this. No one stops. It’s like playing dodge car. We really wanted to take pictures of the street during our walk but the chaos was so intense we didn’t want to distract ourselves from learning how to survive out here (nothing worse than having your toes run over by an auto). It took us nearly 15 minutes to cross one street! Timing is everything, and it also helps to learn to stare a driver down so they at least slow down for you. When we got to the other side of the road, we had to go through an electronic security/search checkpoint before entering the mall where we were meeting Shrikant to get a snack. Security is very high here for reasons we do not have to explain. Pictures from the streets will come later once our street-smart confidence is in order and we feel OK about multitasking out there. Whew!
Our last lesson of the day was surviving the horror of getting in a car and pulling on to the street in all of this chaos. Not something for the weak of heart to do (Mom, I promise I will never bring you here!).
We passed one police security checkpoint on the road on our 7-minute drive back to the house. Shrikant then thought it would be fun to take us on a night walk (help!) down the street from their house to get some tonic for that gin we got in duty free at the airport (boy do we need one of those after today!) We came to the famous chaos junction as we walked. I'll let the video speak for itself.
We returned home and guess what? Time to eat again! The four of us prepared Chappathi (wheat tortillas) and Gobi Masala (cauliflower, peas, onion and chilies in curry). Sleep came to us without a problem. Call it sensory overload. What a wonderful, wonderful day!
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