Aji's recipes: Eggless icecream and gheeless sevaiya

Thanks to my yesterday's success with Mojito, I tried few more ventures in the kitchen. I was searching for ice cream recipes, and a few I read involved contraptions like ice cream machine, or a container-in-container_containing_ice_and_salt, or beating icecream every half an hour for 3 hours so that it does not crystallize.

My aji has a unique method for most stuff. And mind you, aji being aji, there is no egg involved in the icecream. So the big secret is if you have to prevent water in milk from crystallizing, try doing away with that water. Now, I have to give due credits to my mom too. Mom says softy icecream that one gets for like 5Rs in India is so cheap because there is mashed paper pulp in the softy. I guess my mom and aji put 2-n-2 together and came up with this recipe. So here goes my aji's secret ingredient: bread crumbs to soak up water. Starkly simple ain't it? Wonder how the western smartypants dint come up with the idea. Aji suggests 4 slices of bread (with brown sides removed) to be crushed real finely per litre of milk. Aai also adds a couple of "pedhas" to make the milk a bit thicker, note again there is no egg involved so custard powder to make a base is out of question. 

Quick, simple and non-messy ice cream recipe:
Boil together milk, a couple of pedhas / corresponding amount of khoya, sugar on low-medium heat . Let it simmer for a couple minutes. Pour the mixture into a regular dabba with a tight lid and keep it in a plate full of water to cool it. (Aji doesnt transfer hot things directly to her fridge.) When it has cooled, add the bread crumbs, and a few drops of vanilla essence and now is ready to be transferred to the freezer. Aai recommends stirring it once after initial round of freezing. Ice cream is ready in a couple of hours.

Quick Sevaiya
Sevaiya Kheer has been my standard one-of-the-five "pancha pakvanna" for Ganapati for my last 3 years of Gaeshotsav in USA. (The other 4 being shira, khirapat=sugar+grated_coconut, shikaran = indian version of banana smoothie  and 5th something from Indian store.)  My recipe was roast sevaiyya on ghee till golden brown and add milk. Aji knows better. Aji's recipe does away with milk chugging by sevaiyya and "tupache tavang" or ghee film on milk.
Aji's recipe: cook sevaiyya in plain water. Top it with sugar and milk.

Hats off to aji. I have literally had kheer in almost every wedding, I have even tasted Id special kheer several times. No one else has thought of this idea to do away with tupache tavang. (Usually in weddings and all, they use Dalda/ not the real deal in place of ghee, and such a kheer with a thicker "tavang" leaves a sticky film down the palate as it is eaten.) 

To all the guys and gals out there.. sure you will find a lot of recipes online. But in most circumstances, your parents and grandparents have a special something born out of years of experience. No better gift to receive than a handwritten book of recipes passed to the gen-next.

India Diary: Ghar ki Lakshmi Beti

Mom wanted to see Rajasthan. Apparently, the in-season for Rajasthan is September to March. Usually people go to India during December. My friend Amriti suggested that I should go to the VI when there arent too many people queued up for the VI. And so - I landed in India in Feb. Away from December visa-seekers, and too early for the Fall-students.

More about jaipur trip in later blogs, but I came across a disturbing poster in Jaipur.
It features a wooden crib (palana), and urges people not to kill their unwanted female babies, but to drop them off in the "palana". Note that Rajasthan's Chief minister at the time is a woman.

Following are the excerpts of some conversations/ incidents during the trip:
1. Our driver has two sons. Mom asks if daughter was also venerated. Driver changes topic.
2. A illiterate woman in train, travelling with her 2 daughters, out of which one has completed BA. Her husband is 12th pass, and doesnt have a fixed job. The woman, though well educated, stiches saree blouses at 20Rs each (the rate in Pune is 100 Rs) to make ends meet. The older woman  has only one son. His wife has 4 daughters. She tells that her son wanted to stop after 2 kids, but the mom insisted they try for a son. I have an only son - "vansh" should propogate. My mom is like "beti to donon gharon ko ujagar karti hai" (Daughter lights up both homes - her parents' and in-laws').
3. We meet a young high ranking army officer. Baaton-hi-baaton mein the topic shifts to if he is married, and mom asks if he has kids. The man says he does not want to bring new kids to the bad bad world/ overflowing population. We are like, we are sure you will raise your kids to be good citizens.
4. I see some women in traditional ghaghara at Pushkar. Our driver tells me not to take the pics of women because if someone catches me in the act, they may misinterpret it and I will be in trouble. I finally get a pic later in the day at Chittorgarh.
5. The fort which houses Jayaban cannon, Jaipur: a group of other tourists are hitting on me. My driver asks me to identify the guys and tells me that "ye rajpooton ka ilaaka hai, yaha koi tumhara baal bhi baanka nahi kar sakta".
6. We are returning quite late from the sound and light show at Chittorgarh. The road from top of the fort to the city is dark and isolated, and I am literally praying. But all is well.

India diary: Exotic chocolates and my friends

Whenever I had asked my friends if they wanted anything from US, their answer was "XYZ, and chocolates ofcourse". When it was time to actually gift them the chocs..i found it to be quite otherwise.

Personally, whenever I would go to Butler Plaza in GNV, I would seek out a different flavour of Lindt each time I go.  Amongst all quirky flavours I tried, I liked Lindt Orange, Chili and Sea salt the most. Orange is my perennial favourite in anything, but chili and salt is something you so cant imagine with chocolate that I found the flavours mesmerizing. Obviously, when it was time to shop to gift back home, Orange, chili and sea salt topped my list.

But my friends reactions put me off, to the point that I was really hurt. Sometimes it literally felt like my firnds were doing me so favour, the way I was begging/ vouching that it tastes awesome and they should try it.

When in US, I was eager, literally yearnt to try what one doesnt get in India. My friends couldnt. And if a chocolate chocolate was all that they wanted, technically there is no difference between an Indian Cadbury and an american chocolate. Oh yeah - there is one major difference - the Indian one costs about a third of the firangi one, and wouldnt have needed to be carried from US.

My 2nd shocker during my India stay!

India Diary: Stray Dogs

Living away from India hides you from a horror story lurking round the corner.

My best friend is a huge fan of dogs - though once she has been bitten by a pup she was so lovingly trying to feed. The other day she visited me, and for some reason our conversation turned to how to not panic around dogs. The next day, I was returning from my Pune shopping at around 3 pm. About 5-6 stray dogs who while away in my parking lot suddenly encircled me and started barking.

There is nothing you can do.. you cannot run - because a dog can outrun you. You cannot yell for your mom 2 floors above the scene, because it will only reflect you're scared. I tried baby talking, as my friend had suggested - which dint help.

Finally after barking at me for about 5 minutes, the dogs got bored of me, and ran out. Now that I could look around, I saw our neighbour's maid standing at the gate and literally enjoying the scene. There is a building being constructed right in front of my apartment, but no mason from the site felt any necessity to aid me.

I can draw only 2 conclusions from this - dogs rule Pune street, and incidents like this happen so frequently that no one cares about the poor human. Or people have become so indifferent. Either ways.. a big shocker during my goody-goody stay in India.

Inning 2 @ India: PMT bus

Cycling is good, but with the sun glaring at you there's a limited distance you can go.
My past experience with buses is before I started cycling to school, and hence dates to like 15 years back. Nevertheless, as far as I remember, travelling in a public bus isnt so great! I have faced pickpockets, overcrowding, rude conductors who conveniently forget to return change, and worst of all "touchy" men. Equipped with bus experience in the US, and hopefully nurturing the street smartness over the years, I thought I could brave PMT travel now.

My 1st was a visit to my dentist, whose clinic is near my Primary school on the Karve road, which is a busy road with people returning from offices, the flow of traffic being in the direction from my school to Warje/ towards my home. Hence, going to the dentist was a piece of cake with nearly empty bus. I have alighted at that particulat bus stop hundreds of times, since it is the same bus stop to go to school. So I am positive that I made no mistake in letting the conductor know which one is the stop I wish to alight at. Yet, through some comedy of errors the bus stopped at the next stop!

Returning from the dentist was tough. People literally spill out of the crowded bus, and this time I was the one on the last step, holding on to the bus with all might for my dear life. Thankfully my ordeal lasted only till the next bus stop, since new people got in, took my place, and I was pushed in a tiny bit inside the bus. 

My next braving-the-bus jaunt was to go out for Formals shopping at the so-called classy stores (read exorbitantly priced stores) on Bhandarkar Road. Since most of the buses from Kothrud go towards Deccan, I had to wait for a long time to get a bus to Bhandarkar road. I was at the bus stop during the lunch break of the Cummins factory nearby. There were some Cummins employees at the bus stop chewing tobaco, and spitting it out at the bus stop. Judging from the Cummins uniform, they appeared to be educated. But in India, being educated doesnt mean that you automatically develop any civic sense.

After I was done shopping, I waited for the bus at the designated bus stop. After waiting for half an hour, a bus passed by, and the driver completely ignored me and didnt stop at the bus stop. What? Am I invisible or what! Unlike US, just being at the stop is not enough. I recalled, that after you see the bus, you have to perform a war dance to let the Indian bus driver know that you wish to board the bus. So after a further hour-long wait, I waved like crazy at the next bus driver to get in.
That day, my papa was to meet Dr. and Mrs Amte. Thanks to the bus driver ignoring me, I missed the golden chance to meet the people whom I idolize.

With these 2 "how to get in/out from the bus" learning sessions, the rest of my bus travels to Lakshmi Road/ Tulashi baug were comparitively incident free. Or I guess, its the practice that makes one accustomed to it. 

Day 1 Inning 2 @ India

When my US roomies were visiting India, how I had laughed at them when everyone was up at 4 am on their 1st day in India, thanks to the jet lag.
I woke up quite early to the songs of birds, most prominently, of the kokil. How amazing is it, and how much I appreciate it now! Really I should come up with a list of stuff that is inherent to life in India, but not seen in the US. (So far the list is mangoes, chikku, usacha ras, and waking up to the sound of birds)

Mom had to go to work and I offered to drop her on MY pep. Mom sort of has confidence in my riding skills and was sure that they will be intact irrespective of 2 yrs of disuse atrophy. Kickstarting the pep, balancing myself + mom wasnt an issue at all, and I was already congratulating myself mentally, when we reached the chowk. 2 years back, Deepika would have penetrated this chakravyuh of vehicles coming in from all directions at the chowk. But now I simply couldnt do it. OMG!!
According to my friend H, 2 yrs back, I was the most over-confident driver she had known, and I could pull off antics in the middle of the road and she has photo-proofs of my insane mid-road dramebaaji :P Time changeth woman! 

Now that my bro had taken over my pep, and there was a lot of shopping that I needed to do, I turned to my good ol' cycle. It was last used 3 yrs back, so I hadnt expected the tyre tubes to be intact. But they were! I started on my 2nd road attempt of the day. This time it was around 9.30 am, which is a peak traffic hour. But I was able to brave the traffic, and managed sailing past the chowks, even the most crowded Karishma chowk. Thank God, back to normal!

If just the traffic was not enough, there was an elephant at the Karishma chowk! The infinite charms of India :)  
 

My India Visit

I got a job in the 1st week of April. I was waiting for the immigration docs, but decided that waiting can be done in India too (risky, but going to India was worth the risk). I got the updated I-20 on thursday, me and my roomy were surfing for good deals, we did find one, but by the time I booked it, it was Friday midnight and the ticket price suddenly shot up. More surfing for another ticket, and my roomy found another deal even better than the previous one. She was shocked that how could I book ticket for the next day when it will be obviously too costly, to which I replied that " माणसांसाठी पैसा असतो, पैशासाठी  माणस नसतात" ! Quicky booking, double quicky packing.. n off I go.

Shashank was my "saarathi" to drop me to the Orlando airport. While we were like 5 miles from the airport, arnd 4 am on saturday morning, we got confused whether the domestic and international airport were one and the same (ORL Vs MCO) and what we had entered in the GPS was really our destination. Neither had a smartphone on us. Thankfully, my brain seems to work under pressure and I recalled that my friend Akshay is the Night Auditor at the Reitz union hotel, and would be awake that early in the morning. Akshay tracked the flight and confirmed that MCO was really our destination.

We reached MCO in time to pass through the huge security check queue. I had a 8 hr layover at Newark, which was quite boring since I had forgotten to take something to read n my "deepika refurbished" laptop was stamped on during my MCO to NEW flight and the LCD screen broke permanently. After a short nap, I discovered another Indian gal who seemed to be hanging out since some time. I accosted her, she was to fly in the same flight too, and the rest of the time was well spent in discussing everything from her biotech college, which directly gives out University transcript instead of the marksheet, and saves the students hell lotta trouble, to our discussion on whether its possible to have a 24-chromosome-paired baby Renesme from a human Bella and a vampire Edward.

The next leg of the flight was a direct NEW to Mumbai flight, with us flying over the North Pole and even Pakistan. I requested my seat mate that this was the first time I am flying home, and wish the window seat. Pakistan looks super awesome from the top. We reached Indian air frontiers post sunset, so I couldnt really see how Gujrat looks like from the top. Mumbai was very obvious from the long stretch of the highways and lights all across. We circled Mumbai for a while and the descent began. Obviously I knew that Dharavi exists right next to the airport, but I had never imagined such a stark and shabby contrast between the airports abroad and Mumbai. Fortunately, just the feeling of reaching Mumbai/ India was so overwhelming that I soon couldnt see anything through teary eyes.

In the ~2 yrs out of India, I had got unaccustomed to Indian men staring at you. As soon as I stepped out of the jet landing, a once-over by a havaldar, a few steps further, a once-over by a porter! I am like welcome to India!!

But except for these 2 guys, the rest of the people at Mumbai airport were simply amazing. The airport was super clean, airy, and efficient. Special kudos to KK Travel guys who let me use their cell phones to call my mom, since I didnt have an Indian simcard.

There are simply no words to express the joy of seeing your mom after 20 months! As we neared Pune, I could tell where we were, could recognize buildings in Pashan etc. Once in Kothrud, it was a very familiar road to my friend Sonaki's home in Bhusari Colony, and I told them which shortcut to take that would take me home faster from Bhusari Colony. The KK guy was surely impressed, but this could have backfired because I have always passed by the road on a slim n trim Scooty pep, and a large Tavera probably could not have passed the bylanes, but thankfully that was not the case.

Special kudos to the song that was playing on the cab stereo when I reached my home.. तुम बिन ये घर सूना सूना है!