Here it is!!!!

Cancun means snake nest. If I had known that before, I would have never gone there. But, this trip was definitely a divine calling. I had no plans, no maps, no reservations, no GPS, no directions, no habla espanol. All the values I possess were not only not valued here, but also people did not know why I was the way I was [again validating my point USA is the best place for an NRI]. I don’t drink even when the 5 star hotel full-bar was all-inclusive complimentary (I did enjoy coconut water in real coconut and not from a can, pineapple juice filled in a carved pineapple), I am a Vegan (Lady, you Indian/Texan/Vegan??), and I don’t dance or lie around the pools or bars (I am either swimming/baby-sitting - surprisingly to a large number of kids whose parents were nowhere to be seen. A security guard once brought a kid to me at 10.30pm for a hand over since he thought I was the mom, I did not know if I should just take the kid or call my husband or just say no).  I was totally in an unknown place. The previous statement applied to me at different levels. I have been that way for quite some time now - spiritually lost, meta-physically burnt-out.

My daughter and I went on a vacation to celebrate our birthdays, both of us being cancerians. Crabs love beach. We will also be hitting Hawaii this year. Beaches are one thing I never get bored off. I have lived on ocean-front residence for nearly 2/3rd of my life.

Cancun and Cozumel Beaches were the best I have ever seen among San Diego, LA, NY, Houston, South Padres, Madras, Mangalore, Bombay, Singapore, Hongkong, Kanyakumari, Thirupullaani. I cannot include Florida in this, since I only saw Florida after dark .  Later some great Italian world-traveler informed me that these beaches were the best in the world for many reasons. He also told me to go to Australia since the reefs there too are good. As always, by the time I left Cancun I was already itching to go to El Salvador/Chile/Brazil based on Mr. & Mrs. Berbiari’s advice. Australia, later with hubby, since he has some friends there.

The hotel resort we stayed at was a 5 star and a leading hotel of the world. Staff were waiting at the beck and call of the guests. I was worried they were spoiling my daughter. I kind of hated all this pampering: handing the towel as soon as you step off the pool, fixing your chair when you go in for a casual breakfast, opening & closing doors, taking my hand to seat me in a jeep, cleaning the room everytime we left (this scared the hell out of me the first time when we returned from beach at 12pm and saw the TV on with classical music and a lady in the bathroom - my immediate thought: is she meeting with her lover in my room when I am not there? Or is she trying to steal my most BELOVED american passport?). People were dressed upscale for the restaurants, and here I was wearing my most casual swim slippers. I could not care less.

I read a book, Mount Vernon Love Story recommended by Vidya, wowed at the reefs and the beach, amazed at the natural state of such a popular destination.

My daughter enjoyed swimming with dolphins, hugging nurse sharks, holding live sea anemones, collecting real starfish….

But the most important thing was that I was placed in IMMENSE solitude and  silence. The first day, I was very uncomfortable. It made me look inward and I am not used to that. I was beginning to question the purpose of existence. I mean, WHY are we here? For making money, enjoying the pleasures, being good to others???  AND I am not good at any of these, would that make my life a failure?

WHAT is the point?

But, by the time I left, I realized that solitude and silence are the ultimate ways to be one with the Infinite. After all, Buddha, Jesus, and all the great ones had to go through years of it to maintain their serenity, peace, and bliss.

I have definitely not got answers to my questions. It is okay, I will keep seeking. It took the great Enlightened one 39 days in a forest. I am a mere mortal, I can wait longer. Most important thing is, I feel initiated on this spiritual journey. Cancun vacation turned out to be my pilgrimage. I am so glad I went alone to a place where it was a chore to talk, even for me , with native spanish.

I am beginning to think the reason for life is to seek this ultimate truth. To be one with nature. To feel the great bliss of being one with the Infinite, being the infinite.

I am going to do this travelling once a year without my husband. My daughter proves to be a great travel companion.

On my birthday, I have promised myself a few gifts:

1. slow down,

2. 1 hour of silence and solitude everyday in the morning,

3. being humble enough to pray for what I seek everyday, being grateful is not enough, aspirations are necessary.

4. I am only accountable to myself.

Also, I was surprised at how my last blog on Carly’s last 2 paragraphs applied to me to the point. We did have 2 hour breakfasts!!!!

Between Osama and Carly I have read a few more books about Bill Clinton (Giving), Barrack Obama (Audacity of Hope), Neil Armstrong (A Giant Leap), Einstein and a non-fiction by Nelson Demille (Wildfires). The only one I was close to blog about was Wildfires, it had a strange view on Iraq war and was written with humor.

I like reading biographies  and auto-biographies because people interest me. I picked Carly because I was eyeing it sometime ago and now I had a chance to read it. I wanted to know what would a labeled loser like her have to say? How will she be able to self-portray her public-perceived flaws? How does she make peace with the society that hated her? It does take a lot of courage and perspective. I will also definitely give you my word, along the same lines I will read GWB’s book as soon as he writes(??).

The book was a short one, a quick read. I learnt so much about her and how the media was focusing on her looks and gender instead of her performance. All leaders have to pay a price, Carly paid it to press. While her decision of the HP-Compaq merger was highly criticized, there are a lot who believe it laid the foundations for HP to perform better than Dell after she left HP itself. Sometimes, timing is everything. I don’t know if she was a great leader or not, but she was honest and candid, qualities I admire, which ex-CEOs of TYCO, ENRON, and WORLDCOM and Larry of Oracle don’t possess. Even if she did make a stupid decision, the court itself decided in 2002 it was not based on corruption on her part. She did what she truly believed in.

Some excerpts I liked &/or agree with:

My boss was absolutely right (on not taking a hard job), and it was why I wanted to go. It was brand-new. Every one was trying to figure it out. Maybe I could help. It was chaotic - maybe that would be exciting. It was difficult work - I wanted a challenge. It didn’t bother me that it wasn’t a typical move. I was looking for interesting work where I could make a real difference.

xxxx

That night, after I’d cried long enough, I made a decision. I would not cry again over others’ prejudice. Sure, what people thought or said about me might hurt. What people did to me might hurt as well, but I would not carry their narrow-mindedness or bias as my burden…I would accomplish all I was capable of. I would concentrate on doing what I believed were the right things for the right reasons to the best of my ability. Some, perhaps even many, might believe I couldn’t or shouldn’t , do what I chose. That would be their problem, not mine. They would not wound me again. I had decided once that my life was my own. Now I decided my heart would be my own as well.

…since 1986 I have saved my tears for more important things: my family, the beauty of nature, Beethoven, a dear friend, the goodness of people, their wisdom, their tragedies or their triumphs.

xxxx

I love to watch the sun rise and the sun set. I take comfort in the everyday event and feel wonder knowing that it will never be the same. I love the slower, natural cadence of my life. i love to fall asleep at night and awake when I choose. I love to do something on the spur of the moment…I love to spend a day, as I am today, in the company of children with nothing particular to do and nowhere particular to go.

I believe I have been blessed all my life. I feel blessed today - blessed to have had the opportunities and the experiences…

Why only 6 is the question to Janani who tagged me…?

I am very paranoid of writing personal stuff online, but since this comes from Janani(http://jananisatyajit.blogspot.com/2008/06/quirks-tag.html), I am forced to listen, ha ha ha

1. I laugh and smile for no reason. And even if there is a reason, I probably out-laugh it

2. I hate making mistakes and get extremely embarassed when I find I have made one. But once I see the mistake, I have no trouble owning up to it and not stopping until I fix it.

3. Most people think I am an extrovert, but people who know me for a long time know I limit being myself to a few people and I am extremely shy of talking in crowds or meetings.

4. I hate when people behave stupid at others’ cost. Like:

       - cutting in front of the line while getting into flight

       - boarding the flight before your boarding group is announced

       - parking car in handicapped parking

       - taking credit for work not done

       - making fun of someone’s inability, physical or intellectual

       - lying

       - being unaccountable, irresponsible

       - letting elementary school kids ride dad’s golf cart to the neighborhood park

       - moms who are on cell phone when their toddler is walking into a swing that is swinging w/ full speed.

       - et cetera (Janani, now you know why 6 is not enough)

5. I cannot confront people to tell their mistakes (like the ones I mentioned in quirk # 4). I try to avoid those situations. This is also because I am ultra-sensitive to be fair to everyone and to not hurt anyone. Sometimes this causes inaction in me.

6. I am too passionate and energetic about my work and workout. It puts me close to a psycho-workaholic range.

Due to my Quirk 5, I am not going to select anyone to tag, please feel tagged when visiting my blog. Of course Vidya & Karthik, I would love to know your quirks, the ones I have not known in the years past…

Shashi is surpassing my enthu for blogs by ordering me to take this picture last night and blog on it. Love you, Shashi

I just noticed that the middle item was not labeled, it was the crowning jewel of the evening - Moghalai Chicken Briyani.

What Do I blog on this?

- People who think I don’t know anything other than Work and workout, please look at the picture, it speaks far more than a 1000 words. (except I never published my blog site to many who think so)

- I can’t take credit for all the stuff on this plate. 2 more friends did bring food too. Shashi’s Kofta is the best I have had so far. Muni’s Chicken items got great reviews too.

- Eating like this will cause us to walk more in the park, not to mention all the soda and strawberry mousse cake. Same friends who gave me company yesterday will accompany me in the walking too, right

LONG LIVE OCCASIONS THAT MAKE US MEET AND EAT!!!!

I LOVE TO COOK.

I don’t cook often or even daily when I am busy with other passions in life such as work & family. I do put up healthy stuff together to feed the stomach and it is mostly for survival rather than awakening the taste buds. My husband and child have gotten used to it since they also seem to have greater interests elsewhere than the kitchen/dining table on an everyday basis. But when I do cook, I do it very passionately.

Also, I cook when I get stressed. I remember cooking the whole night before my Investments exam during MBA days. I still cook late at nights when my brain gets congested with trying to solve an issue.

I am used to cooking for a lot of people in big vessels but can’t cook for 3 of us. Even all the pots, pans, and serving dishes in my possession are meant for 15-30 people. Can I use that as an excuse for not cooking for my family unless we have friends visiting us? As a matter of fact I remember during our early years of marriage my husband begging people to come to our place for lunch/dinner telling that is the only way he gets me to cook well

I brought all of these last Sunday night, but still missed spinach, cilantro, green chillies, garlic which I bought later. All of these are completely finished off. It is as though we returned from a famine

This is my entry to the event:

http://simpleindianfood.blogspot.com/2008/05/think-spice-think-cardamom-event.html 

Ingredients:

1 cup Rava

1.5 cups sugar

1.5 cups water

1 cup milk

1 tsp Cardamom powder

A pinch of food color

1 spoon of rose water.

2 tbsp of ghee

Method:

Fry Rava in 1 Tbsp Ghee and keep it aside.

Fry sugar slightly and add water to form a light sugar syrup.

Add Rava, Cardamom, food color, and rosewater.

Keep stirring.

Add milk and keep stirring.

As the mixture turns into the consistency of egg ehite (that is what I can think of ) add remaining ghee and turn off the stove.

Then, enjoy Rava kesari.

Variations: You can add raisins, cashews, pinapple chunks etc.

Around V Day I went to La Madeleine’s Bakery and Cafe for a work meeting with a really nice person. He was kind enough to order a capuccino and a Raspberry Cheesecake, huge as it was in the shape of a heart [since my right brain is disabled, I will use the same shape too], just for me. When people order stuff for me to eat, I feel cared for. I have to mention that at this point I had completely given up on caffeine related products and I have never liked Raspberry or Cheesecake. But I finished both of it, because what was supposed to be a 30 minute conversation turned out to be a 2 + hour discussion. I never felt time pass, clearly I was having fun

That has been the only time I had eaten raspberry so far….

And here comes the event http://ammaluskitchen.info/2008/05/01/announcing-afam-raspberry/

Ingredients: 1 Litre of Milk

2 Tbsp Sugar

1 spoon of Rosewater

1 pinch of Saffron

1 Tbsp of Ghee

Raspberries

Directions:

Boil the milk with Saffron

Add sugar, rosewater, and ghee.

Once it becomes semi-solid, lower the flame.

This, by itself is very tasty. I moved it to a seperate dish, forgetting all about raspberries.

Now, I remembered the event and wanted to go and buy organic raspberries and a heart-shaoed cookie cutter. But my husband was trying to "SAMPLE" this for quite sometime. I literally had to push him away and hide this in the freezer before I left to buy the fruit.

Then this happened:

When I wake up in weekends and come down the stairs to the kitchen, I don’t think of a healthy breakfast, just some garbage out of my refrigerator. This time, a really unusual thing happened. I saw ripe mangoes and an almost life expired bell pepper that I had bought at a premium price for its freshness and organic nature were staring at me and making me feel really guilty.

I had to do something to use both of these. Here goes:

Ingredients: [please note: I decided to ditch the green capsicums to avoid the strong raw taste, plus they did have a shine that told me I could have one more week of less guilt because of the green ones ]

Place a pan on stove in low heat and toast the onions without oil:

Add red bell pepper sliced like in below:

After frying for while, add cubed ripe magoes:

Cover with a lid and kind of let it cook on low heat for 5 minutes or till your 5 year old daughter comes down hungry

Then, just serve it like in a 5 star hotel like this:

If you are lucky you get a re-do for next day’s lunch like this:

If you are really lucky to get a husband like mine, then you get to eat fancy gourmet lunch like this on a MONDAY with him in your house like this:

But can any "one" be as lucky as sending the post to 3 online events like this?

This is what they say in tamil as "Orey kallula moonu maangaai," which translates to Befalling 3 mangoes with a single stone throw at the mango tree, to illustrate the point you get 3 times the expected result for a single effort = Meaning I am blessed.

http://arundati.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/wbb22-announcement-may-mango-madness/

http://creativepooja.blogspot.com/2008/05/lets-celebrate-completion-of-2.html

http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/2008/05/macaroni-salad-and-anouncing-mbp-may.html

Last Friday I had gone to Sowmya / Vidya’s [ http://blogwithadifference.blogspot.com/ ]  place for a swim and dinner with my daughter [I thought it was a girls only swim until I spotted dear Swami and his wife, then missed hubby]. Technically, it was just for a swim, but since I was there, they decided to feed me, nothing unusual for us.

Vidya had made this AWESOME pineapple rasam I tasted for the first time in my life, and I was immediately a die-hard fan of her cooking. I took the recipe from her. Also found one from Singing Chef [ http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/2008/01/pineapple-rasam.html ] and another from Jugalbandi [http://jugalbandi.info/2007/03/pineapple-rasam/].

I liked Vidya’s the best since it was easier with fewer ingredients, obviously I am the lazy kind.

Here is the picture of the Ingredients:

1 Pineapple

2 tbsp Masoor dal boiled with 5 cups of water and trumeric (any lentils will do)

1 Tomato

1 sprig of curry leaves

2 tsp of Rasam powder

2 Green chillies

1 tsp Pepper powder

oil, mustard, and urad dal to tamper.

Salt too.

Cut 1/3 rd of the fruit into slices, V and Singing Chef used chunks, since I am pretty jobless, slices will do.

Puree the 2/3rd. (Couldn’t take more pictures step-by-step, was on phone with another bud).

In a pot, tamper urad dal, mustard, curry leaves, chillies, and tomato in oil, in that order.

Add rasam powder, pepper, and salt.

Add boiled lentils with water.

Add Pineapple puree.

Allow to boil.

Add slices of Pineapple.

Add Ghee. [Optional]

Serve hot.

My entry to my muse’s event http://chefatwork.blogspot.com/2008/05/macaroni-salad-and-anouncing-mbp-may.html