Catching Up Part II: India

The view from my house, Alibaugh

     Well, and where did I go from Normandy? I went back to Paris, and stayed there for a few days, hanging out with friends, bidding farewell to CV, AB, and AGD who returned to North America, and walking up and down Paris from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre and back to the Eiffel Tower.

The Louvre, Paris

The Eiffel Tower, Paris

     And then? Then I finally left for India! My Air France meal could not have been as impressive this time around because I do not remember it at all. Oh well. How do Air France meals matter when one has reached Mumbai? A city of most awesome foods.

Thali at Chetana, Mumbai

     The thali (which basically means plate) above is from Chetana, a lovely restaurant. This Rajasthani (a state in India with its own distinct style of food) thali contains all kinds of lentils, vegetables - including eggplant, beans, potatoes, and many others, and Indian flatbreads cooked in styles ranging from slightly sweet to very spicy. I explored Mumbai with my friend RL from high school, and I can safely say that she enjoyed it - she is a vegetarian after all, and India is a vegetarian's paradise, especially at thali-serving places.

The sea and Gateway of India as seen from the Taj earlier in the day, Mumbai

     We also arrived in Mumbai right in time for the first rains of the Monsoon. After everyone told us that the rains wouldn't start while we were in town, we were sitting peacefully in the Taj Sea Lounge (a beautiful place) sipping cold coffee and suddenly the waves were getting whipped up, and it started to Rain as it only does in India.

The view from the Taj a few minutes later, Mumbai

     After a few days in Mumbai, we then left for my house across the sea. It is a house on the beach, and a good base from which to explore nearby beaches and little villages. Of course, that is if you are in an exploring mood and not in a sleeping, reading, drinking coconut water fresh out of coconuts, and eating lots of home cooked food mood. Guess which we did? 

 

Coconut trees in my front yard, Alibaugh

More of the view from my front yard, Alibaugh

     Summer vacation is all about relaxation. Especially if your next stop is New Delhi, where the temperature is 110 degrees F on average in the summer and you will be expected to visit many relatives and sightsee.

Bangla Sahib, New Delhi

     Not that we went out that much during the day, we mostly ventured outdoors in the late afternoon or at night. One day we went to Bangla Sahib, a gurdwara or temple for Sikhs. It is beautiful from the outside with its gold-topped roofs, but it is even more peaceful and gorgeous inside where this pool is with the many people circling around it.

     But, the nicest part about spending three weeks in New Delhi was getting to stay with the most awesome relatives in the world and get fed lovely foods. Look at this dinner! I am afraid I have forgotten the identity of the vegetables because they are not what I was interested in. That red curry is Egg Curry, i.e. curry with whole eggs in it. It's so good. This one contained bell peppers (which, though I just cannot eat, I must say did add to the flavor of the curry itself) and was slightly spicy. The other dish in the white bowl might just be my favorite food (might). It is Dahi Bhalla, or steamed lentil dumplings in yogurt? I suppose that is what it is. But that does not describe the soft fluffiness of the balls soaking in yogurt and the sweet tamarind sauce (that's the sauce that comes with samosas in the states) and slightly spicy chutney. Yum.

Lamb Biryani at the Radisson, New Delhi

     I leave you with fond memories of another Indian dinner. This time the dish in the center is Lamb Biryani, or lamb cooked in a clay pot with rice and a lot of spices. The pot is covered in dough and baked, and then the dough is taken off when it's served. This allows everything to steam together inside so all the flavors get melded together. Yumminess. Yes, these are the kinds of meals I ate. But now I'm back in good old Boston, and today I am going to eat a BURRITO. There are great things about the USA too.

Catching Up Part I: Europe

Le Jardin des Tuileries, Paris

     I'm home! I'm finally home! I'm back in Boston, and I am so happy. Slowly, I am getting over my jet lag, unpacking my bags, and getting out the cricks in my back from a 9 hour plane ride, an 18 hour (read: 18 hour) wait in one airport terminal, and then a 7 hour plane ride that landed me back Home. And now, I will actually cook! I cannot wait. But, before I cook, let me tell you a bit more about my travels:

Normandy

     I know when I wrote before everything was very scattered. As you might remember, my itinerary was: Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Normandy, Paris, Bombay, and New Delhi. It seems so simple when I list it like that. Traveling was tons of fun, but food eating was the most fun of all. Food eating was even fun on my flight from Boston to Paris! Look at all my food! I am very proud of Air France for creating a meal that I actually scraped off of my plate...plastic tray thing. Rice salad with flaked tuna, egg noodles, beef stew, cheese, French bread, and an orange cake. Yum. Do you know what makes slightly dry cake better? Pouring a little bit of your orange juice onto it. Don't look at me funny, it elevated the  cake.

     I already told you a bit about my first days in Paris, at Sacre Coeur eating fondue et al. We also explored the Musee d'Orsay, went through Le Marais, wandered around St. Michel (and had pizza with the loveliest crust I have ever gotten to taste), saw Notre Dame, went to Shakespeare and Company (a really cute all English book store with a little bed upstairs for sleeping on), and ate many many crepes (generally Nutella Crepes...I just couldn't resist). 

Notre Dame

Shakespeare and Company Book Store

     And then from Paris, we took the train to Brussels! The land of waffles. Really good waffles, as I think I mentioned. Also, the land of much elaborate architecture, like the old guild buildings of Grand Place shown below. We spent three nights in Brussels exploring the city and finding out exactly when the night trams stopped running each night. But it was fun, and then we went on to Amsterdam. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries before I got there. Fortunately, we were only there for one day and one night, so not too much of my life will go undocumented.

Grand Place, Brussels

     Hm, leaving Amsterdam. Dwelling on that particular day fills me with emotions that cannot be properly expressed First, that morning, my wallet got stolen, then we arrived at the train station to find out that the tickets we had pre-ordered could not be picked up in Amsterdam so we would have to buy new train tickets (at 130 euros each), then our train to Paris got delayed so it arrived only 40 minutes before our connecting train to Normandy from a different station, then we ran to one metro, then we caught a connection on another, then we ran through the station (literally from one end to the other of a giant station) huffing and panting and....half fainting on my part due to lack of sustenance...and then we got onto our Normandy train. Phewf. But then we got to eat crepes when we arrived in Normandy. And ham and cheese and egg crepes cannot help but make everything better.  

      And then we arrived at the farmhouse we were staying at in Normandy! This was a lovely basket of hazelnuts and walnuts left for us to eat. It is hard to describe ten days of pure relaxation. Every morning I would get up to drink a glass of chocolate milk (we had been brought milk and chocolate powder) with a sweet roll. Of course, morning could be at 7 am or at 4 pm depending on our moods, but I always had my breakfast nevertheless. 

The Kitchen

     There was a lot of sunbathing involved. A lot of grocery shopping, almost every day for fresh bread, and a lot of salad making. What else does one need to eat on such nice summer days? Just a bowl of pasta salad, or some bread with cheese and salami or Pork Rilletes (shredded pork in pork fat)...I want some now. Now. If only wishes were Pork Rilletes and fresh bread... 

     We also created an epic cheese plate. And ate it (slowly over the course of a few days, but that first go at it did account for a lot). 

 

     We went to the beach and lazed there, we lazed and read in the living room and the front yard and the back yard. And it was the best time ever. Sometimes, laying back and doing nothing but listen to your friends playing the guitar or read or write poetry is all you need. Now, during the year when all is stressful and I'm running around without pausing to take a breath, I will stop and think of Normandy, and maybe it will make me feel a little better.

Sorry...

     I'm sorry. I'm so lazy over vacations! What has gotten into me? I shudder when I look at when I last wrote. Urgh. Bad blogger me. But, it has been a lovely month so far, and I feel like I have plenty of excuses for being offline. I told you a little bit about France and my Europe trip; now, I'm in India. I was in Bombay for a week, and now I'm settled in Delhi for the next three weeks (with stable internet), so I'm back! Actually, I've been in Delhi for a week but my friend RL from Brookline was here, so I wasn't in blogging mode. Now, I'm with family and I have all the time in the world.

     First on the agenda: I actually cooked today! Miracle of miracles. But, I didn't take any pictures. Obviously I need to re-learn some old habits. What did I make? A simple white sauce with cheese for pasta, and a peach melba topping to go on top of vanilla ice cream. It was so nice to be back in a kitchen again, even though I can't possibly regret all the great home-cooked food I've been getting courtesy my relatives..

     While my energy has lasted through being on the internet for this long (a month basically without internet and I've gotten out of the habit of spending hours on it doing nothing! I would be happy but I'm guessing I'm going to get used to it again pretty fast), I am waning. I promise promise promise I will put up pictures soon, let me fish out my camera and cords, and I will put some pictures on this post and the last one - and maybe I'll even write more! But, for now, I hope you are all having an amazing summer so far, and now you know where I am again! Delhi. And it is great. 

Paris Again

Le Grand Palais, Paris

     Hello World! How have you been? I'm back on the internet....Even though I'm not supposed to be. I'm supposed to be in Normandy sunbathing. But, sometimes plans get spoiled when silly pickpockets steal your wallet which didn't have any money in it but did have your greencard so then you have to return to Paris to go to the American Embassy which ends up telling you it can't help you. Sigh.

AB and AGD sunbathing in Normandy

     Well, now that that's out of the way, let me tell you that otherwise my vacation has been amazing. Awe-inspiringly amazing. I have seen Notre Dame and Mannekin Pis and eaten the most delicious caramelized waffles with dark chocolate sauce and duck breast stuffed with foie gras. Imagine that! I tasted foie gras for the first time. In Normandy, we have made pasta salad with tomato and spinach and it has tasted like the best food in the world, along with epic cheese plates. Hopefully, I will find a way later today to upload pictures to go along with this post so you can see all this bounty.

Pasta Salad in Normandy

     That is a very random assortment of snippets of what I have done. I have barely had time to reflect on this trip myself, so I'm not sure what to tell you yet. For now, I just wanted to let you know I am alive and well, and thank you for still reading this! Hopefully I will have more steady internet in India so I won't disappear for such long periods of time, but I will write at least once more before I leave Paris. Miss you all!

Mannekin Pis in Brussels....he is not very intimidating

Fondue and Sacre Coeur

 

     Well, I am in Paris. It was my second day today. Do you know what I did yesterday? I ate lots of bread and cheese. Then, for dinner, I ate oysters. (I mean, we did stuff in the middle too, I’m just giving you highlights here.) We were staying at AB’s house and her father got us fresh oysters, which we learned to open with oyster knives! We ate them just plain or with a squeeze of lemon. Do you know how hard it is not to litter this post with exclamation points? Do you know how delicious fresh oysters with three different types of pasta (yes, three- arrabiata, pesto, pesto rosa) and fresh salad with actually Flavorful veggies and many things including grapefruit tastes? Place many exclamation points after the adjective you think of it and then put it here.

     Onwards, what did I do today? Wait, before I keep barreling forwards, I just realized I haven’t introduced you to anyone: I am in France with CV (stressed friend from Montreal I sent care package to?), and his two friends he goes to school with (AB and AGD), and AB’s friend whose initials I do not know so I cannot give her a name yet. Right now, as you know, we are in Paris. OK, now I can continue. So, today: Woke up, and had a crepe with Nutella. (After so many years! Back in Paris and eating a crepe!!! Anyway…) Had a baguette with jambon (ham) for lunch (with everyone – I’m not just wandering  around eating food alone here….). Walked around Le Marais, which is a great neighborhood full of little vintage boutiques and boulangeries and really cool art galleries, one of which we walked into. After a short break in the middle of the day, we then wandered out again. To where? To Sacre Coeur.

     Sacre Coeur is one of those places I have always wanted to experience. It has just always seemed so grand and gorgeous to me. And it is beautiful. We wandered up the hill to where it is, and saw the most amazing views of Paris. I have nothing to say, look at the pictures. But, then we went into the basilique itself. Being in churches brings me so much peace. And old cathedrals like Sacre Coeur have so many beautiful statues and mosaics, its awe inspiring. It’s great to walk out of somewhere like that and be faced with a beautiful view of the world as well. I take a contented sigh in contemplation of it all.

What did we do after so much beauty? 

     We wandered around the area, which is all tiny cobbled streets winding down the hill. We saw the Artist’s Square where there’s all the portrait painters, and passed all the touristy restaurants with waiters wearing cutesy red berets. But, we were on a quest. To find a fondue restaurant that AB’s friend (which makes me sound as though I don’t know her name, ew, but she knows I do…) had once been to. After much searching and asking at the tourist office, it was found! And it was awesome.

     It was a set menu: A plate of appetizers (olives, bologna, salami, red-sliced things that looked like pepperoni, cheese, pickles, and spicy potato) and then the choice between cheese fondue or hot oil in which to cook raw meat and potatoes (i.e. fondue bourguignonne). We got both. The meat fondue came with four different types of sauces, something like a béarnaise, something mustardy, something ketchup, and something good and creamy which I can’t put a name to. Do you know how our dinner was? It was an experience. It made us all very full of bread and cheese. Ooey gooey awesomely delicious cheese. I ate a lot of fried up beef with the béarnaise-y sauce. SO GOOD. And just when you think you have eaten enough, CV reminds one of the crusty cheese that forms on the bottom of the fondue pot. I have run out of appropriate words for the meal. Good food in France. It just never ends. I could keep on going forever as well, but there will be other things to tell soon enough. Enjoy my little bit of Paris for now and see you soon! 

 

AND I'M BACK

     Kind of. I'm actually leaving....to go to France and then India, have I told you?

     Let me tell you now: I am going to PARIS. Then, I am going to Brussels and Amsterdam. THEN I am going to Normandy. I am returning to Paris and then flying out to BOMBAY. It gets better. I have a summer home, on the beach. Mhm. Then, I get to go to Delhi and mooch off the best relatives in the world and get stuffed with food. Anything else? I'm traveling with lovely friends, two different sets of friends in fact (France and India) so I won't have time to miss anyone. AND I'm gone till JULY. Yes people, I fly out today and I'm gone till July 1.

     So, what does this mean for the blog? Well, I won't be able to post so often. Are you rolling your eyes considering how long it's been since I last posted...? I promise when I come home in July and am settled, I will cook all the time. Just between school ending, my three GREAT science finals in the space of three days (sarcasm....), packing up my apartment, driving back to Boston, trying to see all my friends who are home, unpacking and packing for France...well I haven't done any cooking.

     I probably won't be cooking much in France or India anyway. But, various people (Hi AN!) have suggested that I turn this into a travel blog and just write about what I eat...pastry eating blog? I could do that (see Paris Patisseries on my sidebar who is already doing that and has far better pictures of pastries than I ever will...). And of course, if I do ever cook, I will try to post about it. But, I don't know when I will have internet, and I'm not taking my laptop. Still if ever I am at an internet cafe, someone's house, or....um...someone's house...I will write to you! See you soon from Paris!

Excuses Excuses

Dear Hearts,

     I promised myself ever since I started this blog that I would make some kind of provisions for finals week. I would cook a lot before hand and set the posts to automatically be published, so I wouldn't have to deal with them. I would be studying far enough in advance that I would have time to have at least a couple of posts, to cook one or two things, take pictures, and write.

     Fail. No cooking (lots of scrambled eggs and take-out). No picture taking. No writing. Two exams on Tuesday and one on Thursday, and poor physics for Thursday hasn't even been Looked at due to the other two. Sigh. I promise a flurry of activity in the future but right now? No no.

     So, enjoy your week, good luck for your own finals if you have them, and I will be back on Thursday (or Friday...I also have to pack! and leave Philadelphia! time is moving so ridiculously fast.)

Me