Back after a big break....

Hello Maname!!
I do this quite often, I take a break from my blogs and now this time I am back after a long gap....there are few reasons for my absence after the last blog...well I was working (not that working people cant write) but I cant, then our trip back to India, and life changing events....a baby and other things which comes free with a baby... now we are back here. This is for sure a joy phase but most of the times I'm overwhelmed with the tasks that are to be done in raising a kid...Adding to it I am trying to renew my relationship with my blog...lets see if it succeeds atleast this time.. if not I shall have to promise myself i wont blog...woah thats a little hard..but I reallyyy wanna try :)

Birthday celebration with a lesson learnt!!

This happened last month, my friend who was pregnant (not now, she delivered a baby girl recently) was having a birthday...myself and couple other friends thought of giving her a surprise visit ----here in US, I saw that for almost everything there will be a surprise party...like surprise bday celebrations, surprise bridal/baby shower etc-----so we also decided to go to her house and surprise her...I baked a cake and even geared myself to go out in the cold weather and buy some flowers for her. My other friends had made some hot snacks and we all went to her home. My friend was REALLY surprised to see us and we went inside and settled down, even waited a couple more minutes for her husband to come home as well. And there he came home with a pizza since they cant go out much with her nearing her delivery date and all...and her mom was also there, so she helped us to keep everything on the table and we asked our bday girl to cut the cake...we took out the flowers we brought and thats when we saw that there were like a dozen lovely pink roses already given to her by her hubby. You would be thinking why I am saying this, let me get to that, just before we entered her house, my other friends were asking me how did I manage to go out to buy the flowers(remember the weather I already mentioned) and I was proudly saying that normally our husbands wouldnt remember to bring flowers on their wife's bday( thats personal experience, ok? and also most of the time I've heard from other married women sharing similar thoughts on this topic, so if any men comes across this pls- No Offense meant... ) and we taking these flowers to her she will be very happy...so now u would know why I was mentioning about the flowers!!! So I already got a bulb...( chennaites wld know what I mean by bulb...for others-its a small size nose-cut)Then comes another one, her mom went inside and brought another cake (Courtesy: her hubby, again) from the refrigerator which looked pretty and had icing also on it, so she can cut both cakes!!!
You shld have seen my cake next to the cake...forget the fact that I made it with affection/love etc etc but by looks that other cake already won the show there...arrgh.....brrrr....(Who knows may be they had a private party planned??!!?! )
Anyways my friend cut the cakes and we had snacks/pizza together. For sure my friend was happy with us also being there but I left with a lesson learnt....Dont take all husbands for granted!!!

Carrot Payasam

Ingredients:
6 carrots
1.5 to 2 cups milk
1.5 cups sugar
2 tsp. Ghee
10-12 Cashewnuts (broken into halves)
4-5 cardamoms

Method:

1. Peel the carrots, cut and boil in cooker or can microwave too.
2. Grind the boiled carrots into a fine paste
3. Boil the milk and add the carrot paste
4. Add cardamom and sugar to the milk
Keep stirring the above for about 10 - 15 mins on a low flame
Fry the cashew in ghee and add to the above ( also can add almonds )
Take the payasam off the stove top and refrigerate it. Serve chilled, this dish is very easy to make and when I'm hosting get-togethers this is one of the sweets I would consider....Also it is good for kids who dont eat veggies. :)

from Su's kitchen...

I have been cooking for a few years now and have got the confidence of posting my recipes (previously I used to only give verbal receipes) but with people's feedback(positive only, guys), I have decided to put them here now. You could find my regular recipes which are a success and other recipes I like which we can try....
Mangalagarama oru sweetoda arambikkalam (auspiciously lets start with a sweet)...will be posting under recipes..

A Journey on a cold and windy day!!!

One day last week I was meeting with somebody downtown regarding a job. I was thinking of taking the car but then after the snow storm the previous week, there were a lot of places which were still not cleared, so my hubby suggested me to take the train. And trains are better in conditions like these plus no tension of downtown driving and parking problems. So I decided to take the train. But the frequency was like one train in like an hour or so..I had to be there @ 10:30 and myself and my hubby looked at the schedule and felt that if i take the 8:32 train then I will be there an hour early but I will have more than ample time instead of the next train which will give me only 6-7 mins time to reach the venue..So left home and as I was approaching the train station, I could see the parking lots were full and I was hunting for a apace desparately, and then there I saw those bright lights pulling into the tracks for a halt...I got a little nervous but I cant do any mistakes there..every inch i drove away from the station into the parking lot, I was getting tensed off the distance I have to run to catch the train..and there I found a space, managed to park and grab all my stuff and I stepped out for a very cold wind touch....ooh it wasnt just very cold, it was something more than that....but I cant let this stop me so I decided to walk towards the station but to my dismay the train had already left...I took my cell phone and checked the time it was 8:34, so trains do come and leave at the said time, huh??? Now I was confused, shld I still take the train or just take the car and drive instead!!! Wtih all these thoughts in my mind I had already reached the station office and paid for the car parking also. So went inside and just wanted to make sure if I had really missed the train. But the tickets counter was closed, Now I was confused. What is this? Do they sell tickets here or not? I was nervous to notice the sign which said will be back by 9:15. So i went to the coffee shop and a friendly person greeted me and I asked her wont they issue tickets here( I think I sounded dumb)?? Then she asked me are u going downtown( I think she is used to people like me), to which I said yes, and she said dont worry, the next train is at 9:30 only, so he will open at 9:15 and u can get ur tickets that time and also asked me if i want something from her coffee shop, since my questions were answered and she was nice, i bought a coffee, even though I was not in a mood for it..
I called the person whom I was supposed to meet, to let her know if it would be ok, if I run in late by max 10 mins...but no response...left a voice msg and was sipping the coffee. In the mean time I received a call from my hubby to make sure if I was alrite and whether I got into the train or not, I briefed him my story and he asked me to better drive instead of waiting for the next train, even if there is traffic, I would be still able to make it before time. But then I told him I had left a msg and it would be better I take the train itself...one reason: I was scared to venture out and walk back to the parking lot. So there, he left it at that point and I waited there desparately for 2 things, the train and the phone call. After 10 mins the phone rang but it was my cous for Germany and she sensed I wasnt in my usual excitement and I had to tell her that I will call her back and I am expecting somebody else's phone call...my poor cous, wished me good luck and hung up...now I am sitting there in that small office, with may be 4 or 5 men and just that coffee shop lady. Finally it was 9:15 and the counter opened, i understood, no other trains come here may be, it being a suburb station and all, then slowly people started coming in may be like 10-12 people thats all...so I thought its just better to be in the crowd and just follow them..nobody was talking to anybody...couple of them were on their cell phones and the rest in their own world...so it was silence most of the time...2 mins before the train came, everybody started walking to the platform and i joined a oouple of ladies....woah it was so cold, have never felt this cold anytime before, and chicago is very famous for its winds and now its cold winds..to add to the situation I had forgotten the gloves, cant do much, except for putting one hand into the jacket and the other couldnt help becos I was holding to my folder. In that one minute, I found out that the 2 other ladies had also missed the other train, and they were waiting in the car, well it was a little relief for me that out of those dozen people 3 missed trains which is a good percentage so even regular commuters and people from here, can miss the trains...So me being new and not a train traveller, this thought kinda pacified me, becos I was feeling so stupid for missing the train... I dont know if its common to feel ok if we see somebody else also doing the same mistake which we did, looking for a little comfort there....then the train came at the said time (somebody's punctual here...hehe), boarded the train and sat in a place and everybody was either reading or listening to music, there were a couple of ladies (didnt look like office crowd) they were the ones who were chatting laughing etc....and then there was another lady who on her cell phone trying to finalise a real estate deal....well she was loud, not that I wanted to hear the conversation....
On my way I found something else which made me even more comfortable, lot of commuters have run towards the train from the streets or the parking lots which I could find from the foot prints on the snow...And I saw at some stations people running towards to train, I was even trying to see if they made it or not...that was the time pass I had during my journey
Finally I reached the destination at 10:23 and literally ran to make up my time....so atleast i can enter the reception by 10:30 and I did...I was glad, i even got a min to run to the restroom to make sure i look ok.....I was asked to wait at the conforence room and I was thinking it would be me and may be some more people there, but it looked like there was a whole lot of people there and that person was busy in arranging the meetings....no wonder I didnt get a call back!!!
And all went well and came back home happily...

Thank God It's Friday!!

After a regular week, I expected the past friday nite with great enthusiasm...the reason being we suddenly decided to have a small party and all the more fun becos friends had asked me not to cook, since I cook for all parties atleast that's what they told me, I dont know what the actual reason was??!! So no cooking but party @ home is exciting, right? just a lil house keeping, which isnt a big headache!!
Then friday eve, started off with some starters (ready made samosas only, just deep frying needed, that too a friend helped) then some hot egg rolls..which was nice for this winter and then some started w drinks and we had a new couple to hang out with us also and all of us got settled, after I ordered some pizzas online..wow things are so convenient..!!
The actual fun started when we all started singing songs esp solo performances which suited the mood of drinking and masti...my hubby started off with his favourite nos like thanni thotti thedi vantha kannu kutty naan, then sorgam mathuvile etc etc...there was even polling for repeats...(not that he is a great singer, but its fun to watch him enjoying the song while singing, well I have to admit that he does sing well atleast better than me...hehehe) One guy during our antakshari -Boys Vs Girls- commented at my SINGING, as though he heard some kind of an advt, to be precise, he even referred to this advt: Nirma ...Washing powder Nirma...what a nerve??? Isnt that enough for us girls to get back at him, so every time he started with a song, our girls gave a chorus performance of Vicko Turmeric illai cosmetic etc.....woah the look on his face....gradually singing led to the next event and so we all danced (feeling guilty to say danced so I would rather say we jumped around) for some peppy numbers...the ultimate thing was we were trying to dance for Dola Re from Devdas by seeing the video but man it was not just tough it was not even possible..I have to say they did a great job (I meant Madhuri & Ash) one thing is i didnt have to go to the gym for the weekend since i burned so much calories just by my attempt.....
So it all came to a slow stop by around 2 or 3, I am not sure of the time...so it was indeed a great friday nite, which would keep my excite o meter fully charged for the coming week!!! :-)
But after every party we can't help this thought: will we able to have get-togethers/parties once we go back home, hmm ????

Excited & Senti....

Well...it is exciting to see how tech can be used in our daily lives. I'm sure everybody would have felt it at some point of time, even if we are too busy to notice....like a cell phone when the car broke down on a cold and lonely night on the freeways, the internet connection esp for females like me, sitting at home, this is our window to the world...like wise the reason for my exitement today is....
My elder sister had given birth to a girl baby (and she is my 2nd niece) in March 2006, I never got an opprtunity to see her ( I did get a photo of hers but still...) or to hear her cooing ( I could hear her whenever I called my sis but still...) today it all came true...She finally had taken an internet connection and thats not it, she had even installed a mic and webcam...so i saw the whole family today, my bil, my sis, both my lovely nieces...it was such a wonderful moment for me to see her smiling, cooing all at the same time and i could even see her crying...she was cute while she was crying...can't help that thought!!!!
My other niece was excited to see me on the computer and to hear my voice thro'the headphones, she knows we can talk thro phones but this was different for her...hehehe
So that was a senti moment for me...thanks to my bawa and to my hubby as well(just in case he reads this;)