Tuesday, April 13, 2010
wine recommendation
I spent this past weekend in Baltimore with friends. I have more to tell you but for now I'll limit myself to just one recommendation: If you can, have a glass of the Rioja Alavesa, Ostatu (Viura, Malvasia) from 2008. I had it at Pazo -- it was delightful. I am going to buy a bottle of it in New York and drink it myself. Yes, I'm that selfish.
New Traditions Part 2
I suppose I should get to the Part 2 of this blog post and tell you about the new Easter Traditions.
Well, to be perfectly honest, this Easter 2010 was rather anomalous for my brother, sister and I were all in the same place at the same time, and what with the sister and brother-in-law having recently moved to Australia, that's unlikely to be replicated soon. But still, the day merits recollection.
But before I get to Easter Sunday, a pause on Saturday. In anticipation of my brother-in-law and sister moving to Australia on Thursday, April 8, they decided to have a sort of open house the previous Saturday whereby their friends could just drop by and say au revoir. Thinking that they probably would not have had much time to do any cooking, what with the packing! and the cleaning!, I decided to make some food.
And boy did I cook. First, I made a three-cheese-lasagne-with-sausage-beef-and-spinach. Yes, you got that right: I said three different kinds of cheese (mozarella, ricotta (well, I couldn't find ricotta in my supermarket, oddly enough, so I used some regular generic cottage cheese, which I think is more or less the same thing) and parmesan), spicy sausage, ground beef, and then about 10 ounces of spinach. That lasagne packed quite the mighty wollop and, if I dare blow my own horn (as though I have ever stopped myself before), was quite tasty!
Also, I made a pumpkin cheesescake. Yes, you got that right: think creamy deliciousness (oh, and by the way, a lot of creamy deliciousness in the form of three 8 oz. cans of cream cheese) mixed with pumpkin puree and just pinches of tasty ingredients like cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, vanilla essence. Of course, the experience required me to jaunt off to Williams-Sonoma to buy an electric mixer (for I have been informed that no, one could not whip 24 oz. of cream cheese together to get the right consistency for cheesecake), which is one hell of a scary shop: there are kitchen things everywhere you look! Fortunately, I was able to ask some customer representative to point me in the direction of electric mixers. I came across, oh, say 4,580 of them, but fortunately saw a sign which said "Kitchen Aid," which I seem to recall from somewhere meant that the product was decent. And thus was my process of elimination.
Now, back to the point of this post, which was about Easter Sunday. So, my brother and his girlfriend stayed over on Saturday night rather than return to New Jersey. We all woke up on Sunday, and quickly dressed. We met my sister at Church of St. Apostle at 60th and Columbus Avenue -- it was actually very nice to attend mass with your family. I enjoy doing that at Christmas time when I am home in India. Thereafter, once the religious obligations were done, off we went to . . . Tiffinwala, down in Curry Hill at 28th Street and Lexington. Since we were done opening our hearts to the Lord, we opened our stomachs (through our open mouths) (everything seems open in this sentence, doesn't it? Rather disturbing). Anyway, we scarfed down piles of South Indian food (and when I say "scarfed" I mean "scarfed." I think my brother's girlfriend was seriously disturbed to find out that she was but half-way through her meal and the rest of us were done.
So that's what I did on Easter Sunday.
Well, to be perfectly honest, this Easter 2010 was rather anomalous for my brother, sister and I were all in the same place at the same time, and what with the sister and brother-in-law having recently moved to Australia, that's unlikely to be replicated soon. But still, the day merits recollection.
But before I get to Easter Sunday, a pause on Saturday. In anticipation of my brother-in-law and sister moving to Australia on Thursday, April 8, they decided to have a sort of open house the previous Saturday whereby their friends could just drop by and say au revoir. Thinking that they probably would not have had much time to do any cooking, what with the packing! and the cleaning!, I decided to make some food.
And boy did I cook. First, I made a three-cheese-lasagne-with-sausage-beef-and-spinach. Yes, you got that right: I said three different kinds of cheese (mozarella, ricotta (well, I couldn't find ricotta in my supermarket, oddly enough, so I used some regular generic cottage cheese, which I think is more or less the same thing) and parmesan), spicy sausage, ground beef, and then about 10 ounces of spinach. That lasagne packed quite the mighty wollop and, if I dare blow my own horn (as though I have ever stopped myself before), was quite tasty!
Also, I made a pumpkin cheesescake. Yes, you got that right: think creamy deliciousness (oh, and by the way, a lot of creamy deliciousness in the form of three 8 oz. cans of cream cheese) mixed with pumpkin puree and just pinches of tasty ingredients like cinnamon, nutmeg, ground ginger, vanilla essence. Of course, the experience required me to jaunt off to Williams-Sonoma to buy an electric mixer (for I have been informed that no, one could not whip 24 oz. of cream cheese together to get the right consistency for cheesecake), which is one hell of a scary shop: there are kitchen things everywhere you look! Fortunately, I was able to ask some customer representative to point me in the direction of electric mixers. I came across, oh, say 4,580 of them, but fortunately saw a sign which said "Kitchen Aid," which I seem to recall from somewhere meant that the product was decent. And thus was my process of elimination.
Now, back to the point of this post, which was about Easter Sunday. So, my brother and his girlfriend stayed over on Saturday night rather than return to New Jersey. We all woke up on Sunday, and quickly dressed. We met my sister at Church of St. Apostle at 60th and Columbus Avenue -- it was actually very nice to attend mass with your family. I enjoy doing that at Christmas time when I am home in India. Thereafter, once the religious obligations were done, off we went to . . . Tiffinwala, down in Curry Hill at 28th Street and Lexington. Since we were done opening our hearts to the Lord, we opened our stomachs (through our open mouths) (everything seems open in this sentence, doesn't it? Rather disturbing). Anyway, we scarfed down piles of South Indian food (and when I say "scarfed" I mean "scarfed." I think my brother's girlfriend was seriously disturbed to find out that she was but half-way through her meal and the rest of us were done.
So that's what I did on Easter Sunday.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
New traditions
When I was young and lived in India with my family, we typically went for Easter Mass together and then headed over to my grandmother's house for lunch. In fact, we do the same thing for Christmas (although in later years we moved to attending midnight mass instead of going for mass on the 25th morning). The routine is quite typical at my grandmother's house: we ate -- a lot -- and then we played Scrabble, slept, watched TV, chatted, and then ate leftovers for dinner. In other words, heaven: Jesus had indeed been born and had risen from the dead (as applicable to Christmas and Easter, respectively).
With regards to foods --
First, at the 11am hour or so, normally my grandmother, mother and aunt would have a "Rum 'n' Coke." As children, we typically drank Indian soft drinks (like Rasna or Tang, sometimes Thums Up, the Indian Coke) and now I might go for a beer or a glass of wine. We eat sweets, too, just to whet the appetite. I know, you're thinking it a bit odd to be eating sweets before lunch but, especially at Christmas time, we would have been waiting for weeks to bite into Christmas marzipan (Indian-style, totally different from the European "real thing") or kalkals (doughy-rolled up things that are covered in sugar) or milk sweet.
Second, at around lunch time, we normally would eat (a) roast pork, (b) chicken curry, (c) sorpatel, (d) pulau (fancy rice) and a salad (normally, this would be my aunt's contribution to the feast, the other dishes typically having been prepared by my grandmother in earlier years, and now my mother helps in more recent years). Delicious. I mean -- utterly delicious. We would have seconds and thirds, and the meal typically would linger on and on . . .
After a few games of Scrabble (intense competition between myself, my siblings and my aunt) and/or reading and/or watching TV and/or snoozing wherever one could find a spare bed or space on the couch, it would be time for the evening meal.
Quite possibly, at the 7pm hour, there might have been another round of drinks (again, rum 'n' coke for the grown-up ladies, possibly a whiskey for my dad when he used to drink) and then leftovers for dinner. And somehow the food, which had marinated in itself during the afternoon, was even tastier. Night would fall. We would sit in my grandmother's dining room, which has two windows looking out on to the terrace. The terrace lights were rarely on, so outside was very, very dark, while inside, the dining room was lit up with bright, fluorescent lights, almost too bright. We'd sit there, our elbows occasionally bumping into each other (indeed, we had to pull an extra chair to the table when the complete family was eating together (this would become two extra stools when my sister's husband accompanied her to India, although admittedly, we've only eaten together -- all eight of us -- a handful of times)).
When I was a child, I typically would fall asleep right after dinner. My dad would have to carry me to the car and then from the car up to the apartment. I remember sometimes being told, "Lift your arms straight up," and my shirt would be pulled off. Then, lying on my back, I would raise my legs, and off would come my pants. Oh, the sweet life of a child.
Which reminds me, I titled this post "New Traditions" but haven't told you anything about how I spent this past Easter Sunday. But I'll leave that for a Part 2 - this post is long enough.
With regards to foods --
First, at the 11am hour or so, normally my grandmother, mother and aunt would have a "Rum 'n' Coke." As children, we typically drank Indian soft drinks (like Rasna or Tang, sometimes Thums Up, the Indian Coke) and now I might go for a beer or a glass of wine. We eat sweets, too, just to whet the appetite. I know, you're thinking it a bit odd to be eating sweets before lunch but, especially at Christmas time, we would have been waiting for weeks to bite into Christmas marzipan (Indian-style, totally different from the European "real thing") or kalkals (doughy-rolled up things that are covered in sugar) or milk sweet.
Second, at around lunch time, we normally would eat (a) roast pork, (b) chicken curry, (c) sorpatel, (d) pulau (fancy rice) and a salad (normally, this would be my aunt's contribution to the feast, the other dishes typically having been prepared by my grandmother in earlier years, and now my mother helps in more recent years). Delicious. I mean -- utterly delicious. We would have seconds and thirds, and the meal typically would linger on and on . . .
After a few games of Scrabble (intense competition between myself, my siblings and my aunt) and/or reading and/or watching TV and/or snoozing wherever one could find a spare bed or space on the couch, it would be time for the evening meal.
Quite possibly, at the 7pm hour, there might have been another round of drinks (again, rum 'n' coke for the grown-up ladies, possibly a whiskey for my dad when he used to drink) and then leftovers for dinner. And somehow the food, which had marinated in itself during the afternoon, was even tastier. Night would fall. We would sit in my grandmother's dining room, which has two windows looking out on to the terrace. The terrace lights were rarely on, so outside was very, very dark, while inside, the dining room was lit up with bright, fluorescent lights, almost too bright. We'd sit there, our elbows occasionally bumping into each other (indeed, we had to pull an extra chair to the table when the complete family was eating together (this would become two extra stools when my sister's husband accompanied her to India, although admittedly, we've only eaten together -- all eight of us -- a handful of times)).
When I was a child, I typically would fall asleep right after dinner. My dad would have to carry me to the car and then from the car up to the apartment. I remember sometimes being told, "Lift your arms straight up," and my shirt would be pulled off. Then, lying on my back, I would raise my legs, and off would come my pants. Oh, the sweet life of a child.
Which reminds me, I titled this post "New Traditions" but haven't told you anything about how I spent this past Easter Sunday. But I'll leave that for a Part 2 - this post is long enough.
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