Pictures of our life

It's the last day of 2012, and I notice that I haven't posted a menu in a while, so here are a few pictures of the Nesara menu. More to come later I imagine, when I've taken them. I took these because I was so baffled by the different types of curries and wanted to be able to look them up at home!

Sorry they're so blurry. Not sure why that is, since at least of my pics come out reasonably clear!

Here's Liel polishing off a bowl of tomato soup at Nesara. She loves that stuff!

Zion, reading his book.

And Fluffy, chilling in her hammock.

Happy New Year!

Menu and banana leaf

Today we had lunch at an outdoor cafe on campus called Prakruthi.  At the request of one of my legion of fans, I took pictures of the menu, so you can all play along at home! I'm also hoping to figure out what some of these things are before my next visit, via the magic of the internet.

So without further ado, here is the menu!

On the walk to and from Prakruthi we walked through some of the forested bits of campus, which was lovely. The weather in Bangalore is so outstanding in December! On the way home the kids found a banana leaf on the path, which was somewhat surprising since there aren't any banana trees to be seen in the immediate area. They both wanted their picture taken with it. It was a banana leaf celebrity!

Lunch, incidentally, was super delicious. Our basic meal plan at the moment is to go out for either lunch or dinner each day (usually lunch) and then I cook something delicious in the rice cooker for dinner. Tonight I'm making toor dal with cabbage, cauliflower and carrots, seasoned with garlic, ginger, turmeric and cilantro. Nom!

Prohibition-era dinner

We're having some friends over to dinner tomorrow night and I've spun my interest in prohibition-era cocktails into an entire prohibition-era dinner! Turns out I'm just as enchanted by reading about food from different eras as I am about booze from different eras, and I'm contemplating doing other decade-themed meals. But, one thing at a time, right? Right. Here's what I'm planning for tomorrow:

- Chicken ala king. I've never eaten this, but food history tells me it was invented in the 1890s in NYC, and continued to be very popular throughout the 1920s.  I can't decide if I should serve it on biscuits or rice though. Or pasta, I guess.

-Ceasar salad. We all know what this is, and it was a 1920s smash hit. Nothing like ground up fish in your dressing (no, really. there isn't)!

-Ambrosia. Funny story: I've never made ambrosia. When we were kids my grandmother used to buy it for my brother and me at the deli counter when we spent the night with her, but no one in my family ever made it. In fact, my mother is probably learning that we even ate it right now, and is horrified. Anyway, Robert said his mom used to make it and he'd get her recipe. And you know what it calls for?? Pineapple tidbits! OK, maybe that's not super funny, but the name cracks me up. I told Kenny about it and it cracked him up too (side note: he and Jenny have only used the tooth powder once so far, but they like it!). Neither of us were sure what a pineapple tidbit was (crushed pineapple?) which surprised and amused Robert. He tells me it's like pineapple chunks, only "sliced more".

-Jello "salad". Again, never made this. Not sure what I'm going to do exactly, but something with Jello and fruit. Reading recipes on the internet turned up something I hadn't thought about in, oh, 30 years. It's a dark Jello (blueberry? grape?) with matching fruit and walnuts. Or maybe the walnuts are their own layer, my memory isn't *that* clear. And on top is a layer sour cream. Amazing the things our brains hang on to. Kenny remembers it too. I'm not making this though- I draw the line at dairy in my Jello. Standards, I haz them!

-Cocktails: thinking colony cocktails and french 75s for this. They both seem very light, which would be a nice counterpoint to the rather creamy meal, right?

I am soooooo excited to make (and eat) this meal. I will probably even take pictures!