Yes, that's the exact Question I've been asking myself today, since the last 4 hours (that's the time I took today to cook the food-item mentioned in the title, and FYI, Potato Subji is supposed to be one of the quickest things to cook :P). Why ? Guess what, I finally got down to cooking in Charlotte, all on my own, with nobody to help or supervise (my apartment-mates had all gone out, and I'd very enthusiastically offered to cook lunch on my own, so there I was, trying to figure out the mystery called 'Cooking' :-P ).
This post is dedicated to 3 particular ladies, out of whom the first is my dear ol' Mommy, the second is my dear Bhabhi (and 3 gentlemen too, namely 2 of my apartment-mates and the 3rd being one of my best friends from college, HG) who'd prodded me to start to learn cooking, and had hoped to teach me the same. This post especially gets dedicated to the third person on the list, a dear friend of mine from TCET, who was teaching me the finer nuances of the culinary arts at 2 AM IST (through Yahoo messenger, of course :-P) yesterday.
So, anyway, I'll come back back to the title of this post, and the options for answering it, are as follows:
(A) 6 people
(B) 2 people
(C) 3 or 4 people
(D) I don't know
As I've mentioned before, I'd been introspecting about the title of this post about 4-5 times, and all of the option above seemed like the proper answers to The Question at some point of time. When I was taking instructions from KD (my friend who was trying to make me learn cooking thru IM), I misunderstood her & thought that option (B) was the correct answer to The Question. Now, you can imagine what would've happened, or rather, what did happen today :-P.
Option (C) was what I was thinking when I started cooking the Potato Subji. I thought I had taken a huge quantity of potatoes, but since there was nobody around to correct me, I stifled my second thoughts and resumed cooking with 6 large potatoes (the potatoes we got here, are atleast 1.5 times the ones we get back home in India, so you can imagine what quantity of Bhaji I'd decided to make for 4 people - me + my roomies, obviously :-P).
Option (A) was what I thought was the answer to The Question, when I was halfway through the cooking. As per KD's instructions (or what I'd thought them to be), I'd first boiled the potatoes in a pressure cooker (and needless to say, nearly burnt my hands since I tried peeling them as soon as I took the cooker off the gas) and then peeled & diced them. After that was done, I further proceeded to make a mess of things, by soaking them in water (for what reason, I myself don't know :-P). After that, came the part of the "Vaghaar" ("fodni" in Marathi), wherein we're supposed to heat some oil, put in some Jeera, Raee & Hing when the Jeera in the oil starts crackling. Being the accomplished cook that I am (as per what I bragged to KD yesterday :-P), after doing the "Vaghaar", I then proceeded to tip the entire lot of potatoes in the hot oil. The only thing that I'd forgotten to take care of, was that the potatoes were soaked in water, and I just tipped the entire vat over into the oil (and, got a first-hand experience of what happens when a huge quantity of water gets thrown into boiling oil :-P). Fortunately, as I later realised, I was lucky, in spite of being foolish, since I wasn't injured, nor was the apt. burned to the ground :-P (for those of you who don't know cooking, never add water to any utensil that contains hot oil, and don't try this at home :-P).
Now, once the "thing" was cooked, I realised something was wrong, only because there weren't supposed to be that huge a quantity of bhaji in the kadhai (I'd observed Mom when she cooked, and it seemed so easy back then, so I used to take the process for granted). Only practice makes one perfect, especially when it comes to cooking, since without prior experience (call it trials or experiments if you want to), nobody gets a hang of what stuff to put in, how much to put in. Same was the case with me, since I had very less prior experience when it comes to cooking (you'll find mentions of that in the 2nd post on this very blog :-P), so you can imagine the extent of my knowledge in this field. As I'd expected, things got screwed somewhat (understatement ? :-P Only my roomies can answer this question, since I didn't have the guts to taste my own creation much, but they're going to be the first in the line of fire :-P), since apparently, I'd added much more Hing (asafoetida) than was needed, so to ameliorate the situation, I added lots of ketchup & salt to the concoction. Turns out, that the salt wasn't needed, and the potatoes turned out to be very salty (I've left my roomies to deal with that small problem :-P). Not only that, but also, the quantity was a minor issue. In my enthusiasm, I'd over-boiled the potatoes, so 2 of them melted & formed a think congealed mass (I think I'll have to use them to make sandwiches for breakfast tomorrow :-P), and still the remaining bhaji is more than sufficient for the 4 of us (or so my apartment-mate says).
Now whenever anyone asks me anything related to cooking, such as The Question above, the only answer I can provide, is Option (D). So, does anyone want to try out something cooked by me ? :-P ;-)
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Close Encounters of the "cop" kind...
Sorry, Mr. Spielberg, but I couldn't just resist adapting the name of your masterpiece for the title of this post. :-P This is an anecdote of a very funny incident (in hindsight, of course :-P), one which scared the hell out of me (as would it do to any tourist in any foreign country) and something that's not about to happen to many people in their very first week as a student with a visa....
This is an incident which happened just yesterday to my room-mate, whom I'll refer to as Mr. R. Now, we'd come on campus to get some formalities done, like getting his 49er ID card, and we wanted to fill some cash into it (for those of you who don't know how this works, this is how it is: our student ID card can be used an a debit card anywhere on the UNCC campus, once you fill it up with some money, and whenever you swipe it on campus, at say, a vending machine or when you use it to buy food at the many cafeterias on campus, the proper amount gets deducted from your balance). So, Mr. R, feeling very enthusiastic about this system, wanted to fill some cash into his card, and so we proceeded to the ID card office, where he gave a $50 bill to the cashier. The lady at the counter checked it & became suspicious about the bill. Thinking that it might be a fake, she asked us to wait, while she called the cops. As you might be knowing, the university campuses here in the US are very large in size (ours here at UNCC is around a 1000 acres), so most universities have their own police force on campus, which is always on hand. Now, at the end, fortunately the cops verified the bill in question, and declared it to be genuine. So, having put me & Mr. R through a lot of tensed moments and scared us both out of our wits, the staff almost tripped over each other to apologise to us, and gave us a $10 Gift Card for all our trouble :-P
But, all is well that ends well, as they say, and we got a gift card for free, so I'd say my close encounter of the "cop" kind wasn't so unproductive after all :-P.....so, keep checking this blog for more of my misadventures, as & when they happen....
This is an incident which happened just yesterday to my room-mate, whom I'll refer to as Mr. R. Now, we'd come on campus to get some formalities done, like getting his 49er ID card, and we wanted to fill some cash into it (for those of you who don't know how this works, this is how it is: our student ID card can be used an a debit card anywhere on the UNCC campus, once you fill it up with some money, and whenever you swipe it on campus, at say, a vending machine or when you use it to buy food at the many cafeterias on campus, the proper amount gets deducted from your balance). So, Mr. R, feeling very enthusiastic about this system, wanted to fill some cash into his card, and so we proceeded to the ID card office, where he gave a $50 bill to the cashier. The lady at the counter checked it & became suspicious about the bill. Thinking that it might be a fake, she asked us to wait, while she called the cops. As you might be knowing, the university campuses here in the US are very large in size (ours here at UNCC is around a 1000 acres), so most universities have their own police force on campus, which is always on hand. Now, at the end, fortunately the cops verified the bill in question, and declared it to be genuine. So, having put me & Mr. R through a lot of tensed moments and scared us both out of our wits, the staff almost tripped over each other to apologise to us, and gave us a $10 Gift Card for all our trouble :-P
But, all is well that ends well, as they say, and we got a gift card for free, so I'd say my close encounter of the "cop" kind wasn't so unproductive after all :-P.....so, keep checking this blog for more of my misadventures, as & when they happen....
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Cooking experiences.....or should I say, "experiements" ? :-P
So, finally, I've come to my favorite topic: food, food & more glorious food. As you might've gleaned from the title above, what I'm going to share with you in this post, are some of my gastronomic experiments. I'll add to them as & when I become more accomplished at cooking, but till then I hope to entertain you with my antics of the past while in the kitchen.
The first time I decided to start my hand at cooking, was when I was in my 8th Standard. I'd seen a recipe in some magazine of a Thai-style fried pomfret, and I decided to pester my dear mother into cooking it for me (oh how I miss her cooking now :-P). I took on the role of the head chef, while my Mom ran around preparing the fish for marination, and subsequently, the deep-frying part. Well, in all the hurry, I screwed up somewhat, and the marination wasn't done properly enough since maybe I'd not left the fish in the marinade for an ample amount of time. The coating which was supposed to come after the marination, all came off during the deep-frying process, and the raw fish was left behind. At the end, the fish tasted so bad, that we had to throw off the entire lot, since prior to frying, I'd insisted on trying to marinate all the 4 pomfrets that we'd got (very much in spite of Mom's reluctance to do so) and I got paid for it by having to face all the music courtesy Mom :-P.
You'd think I'd have improved the next time around, but it wasn't to be so. The next time I tried cooking, was in the vacations after my 12th Standard. I'd tried making Paneer Tikka on my own. This time, the marination was perfect, but the only problem was that I'd baked them for a much longer time than was necessary. The result was that the end product was the best quality rubber that I've ever seen in my entire life :-P. Also, you'd be surprised (or maybe, you won't be, depending on whether you know me or not), that I'd made the same mistake that I'd made 4 years earlier: I'd baked the entire lot & then tasted the end-product, so I'd to throw the entire batch of freshly baked Paneer this time around too :-P (needless to say, I got another long lecture from Mom for that).
Now, I'm in the US, and I'm expected to cook for myself. Or rather, I'll put it this way, if I don't cook, I'll starve. So, as it happens, I was in my cousin's house in NJ for a week before coming to Charlotte. During my stay there, my dear Bhabhi tried her level best to teach me cooking, while I just stood by & "observed" :-P. So anyway, one day the entire family had gone out, and I was alone at home, starving to death. Having woken up at 11 AM & chatted online with friends till 2 PM, I suddenly felt hungry, and being the genius that I am, decided to whip up a meal for myself. I asked some of my friends for suggestions (damned if they know cooking either, what a bunch of friends have I got :-P), and one of them suggested me to cook some pasta. I hunted around in the fridge for pasta, but couldn't find it anywhere. Instead, I found some Palak Paneer leftover from the previous night, and something that resembled Paneer Tikka (which was cooked God only knows when). As I was bored (and am a very lazy guy when it comes to cooking), I decided to mix both of them up & fry it a bit. So, I pulled out a kadhai with a flourish, and having subconsciously immersed myself in chatting, proceeded to make my lunch. It was only after I tasted it (after almost letting it burn for 20 mins :-P), that the thing I'd thought to be Paneer Tikka, was actually Chicken Tikka :-P (I've decided to christen my creation as Palak-Paneer-Chicken-Bhurji :-P) And to my misfortune, I'd boiled the Palak way much more than was necessary so all of it had become one great congealed mass, and was sour as hell :-P All my Bhabhi's efforts gone down the drain in this way, and I'm expected to cook for myself (she still is unaware of this "experiment", and I hope it stays that way, else I'll be given a dressing-down by her).
In parting, if you've been scared by these "experiments" of mine, and are willing to pray, do me a favor & pray for my dear room-mates who're yet unaware of my antics :-P
Till the time I starting messing up with something else, ciao, and happy eating ! ;-)
The first time I decided to start my hand at cooking, was when I was in my 8th Standard. I'd seen a recipe in some magazine of a Thai-style fried pomfret, and I decided to pester my dear mother into cooking it for me (oh how I miss her cooking now :-P). I took on the role of the head chef, while my Mom ran around preparing the fish for marination, and subsequently, the deep-frying part. Well, in all the hurry, I screwed up somewhat, and the marination wasn't done properly enough since maybe I'd not left the fish in the marinade for an ample amount of time. The coating which was supposed to come after the marination, all came off during the deep-frying process, and the raw fish was left behind. At the end, the fish tasted so bad, that we had to throw off the entire lot, since prior to frying, I'd insisted on trying to marinate all the 4 pomfrets that we'd got (very much in spite of Mom's reluctance to do so) and I got paid for it by having to face all the music courtesy Mom :-P.
You'd think I'd have improved the next time around, but it wasn't to be so. The next time I tried cooking, was in the vacations after my 12th Standard. I'd tried making Paneer Tikka on my own. This time, the marination was perfect, but the only problem was that I'd baked them for a much longer time than was necessary. The result was that the end product was the best quality rubber that I've ever seen in my entire life :-P. Also, you'd be surprised (or maybe, you won't be, depending on whether you know me or not), that I'd made the same mistake that I'd made 4 years earlier: I'd baked the entire lot & then tasted the end-product, so I'd to throw the entire batch of freshly baked Paneer this time around too :-P (needless to say, I got another long lecture from Mom for that).
Now, I'm in the US, and I'm expected to cook for myself. Or rather, I'll put it this way, if I don't cook, I'll starve. So, as it happens, I was in my cousin's house in NJ for a week before coming to Charlotte. During my stay there, my dear Bhabhi tried her level best to teach me cooking, while I just stood by & "observed" :-P. So anyway, one day the entire family had gone out, and I was alone at home, starving to death. Having woken up at 11 AM & chatted online with friends till 2 PM, I suddenly felt hungry, and being the genius that I am, decided to whip up a meal for myself. I asked some of my friends for suggestions (damned if they know cooking either, what a bunch of friends have I got :-P), and one of them suggested me to cook some pasta. I hunted around in the fridge for pasta, but couldn't find it anywhere. Instead, I found some Palak Paneer leftover from the previous night, and something that resembled Paneer Tikka (which was cooked God only knows when). As I was bored (and am a very lazy guy when it comes to cooking), I decided to mix both of them up & fry it a bit. So, I pulled out a kadhai with a flourish, and having subconsciously immersed myself in chatting, proceeded to make my lunch. It was only after I tasted it (after almost letting it burn for 20 mins :-P), that the thing I'd thought to be Paneer Tikka, was actually Chicken Tikka :-P (I've decided to christen my creation as Palak-Paneer-Chicken-Bhurji :-P) And to my misfortune, I'd boiled the Palak way much more than was necessary so all of it had become one great congealed mass, and was sour as hell :-P All my Bhabhi's efforts gone down the drain in this way, and I'm expected to cook for myself (she still is unaware of this "experiment", and I hope it stays that way, else I'll be given a dressing-down by her).
In parting, if you've been scared by these "experiments" of mine, and are willing to pray, do me a favor & pray for my dear room-mates who're yet unaware of my antics :-P
Till the time I starting messing up with something else, ciao, and happy eating ! ;-)
My first day in the U.S. of A.
Let me start off with a question: How do you recognise a desi, who comes to the U.S. on F-1 Status, at the airport ?
Answer: Look around you, if there's a guy or a gal having lots of luggage, all packed with the help of someone like the Great Khali sitting on it to make it shut (no offense to the man whatsoever), who looks dog-tired and is on the verge of collapsing in the queue at Immigration, then that's the person you're looking for.
You must be wondering, why I asked this question here. Simple, because I've gone through this same experience 2 weeks back, as have thousands before me, and as will thousands in the future. Tired, jet-lagged, completely flabbergasted by the drastic change in attitude & accent, everyone who comes to the States is somewhat disoriented upon arrival. Some suffer the misfortune of losing their luggage (as did 2 of my room-mates at JFK). Worse still, is the case of those who have a connecting flight to catch, and who end up missing it, or those who board it with the luggage having disappeared without a trace (yes, that happens sometimes too). The first day of anyone who comes to the US is full of surprises, and has a myriad of experiences which cannot be forgotten in a lifetime.
This brings me to my personal experience. I came to JFK on a flight that was supposed to land at 7 AM EST, but landed an hour earlier (surprising, isn't it ?) After having being woken up from a deep slumber in the skies above Canada to forcibly be given a rather early breakfast, we were given some forms to fill up (namely the white I-94 form & the blue Customs Declaration form). Then, after some time, at exactly 6:05 AM, I touched down on US soil, at the end of my virgin international flight. In the same groggy state, I deplaned and proceeded to the Immigration counter. After waiting there for over an hour, I came face-to-face with the officer, who inspected my documents and put the Immigration stamp on my I-20 (finally, I was in the U.S. of A., what an exhilarating feeling it is) There, I was so tensed up, that when he told me to press my right forefinger on the biometric scanner, I groggily proceeded to press my right thumb on it :-P
Anyway, having done that, and feeling a great rush of excitement, I proceeded to the Baggage Claim. Here, all my excitement was crushed under the full weight of my baggage, which was somewhere around 63 kgs. :-P Puffing & panting heavily, I managed to take my baggage somehow from the conveyor belt, and was desperately trying to get a trolley to make my life a bit easier. But I got a mixture of shock & surprise, when I found out that the trolleys could be taken for $3 (someone in India had told me they could be taken for $1 or so) I promptly reached into my wallet, and voila...no $1 bills....I only had a few $5 and $10 bills, so I asked an airport employee for change. Little did I know, that only beggars (panhandlers are what some people call them here) ask for change, and there's no such concept of "exchanging bills for coins" over here as is in India. To my amazement, the guy swiped his own credit card (or employee pass, or whatever it was), so I got the trolley for free. The thing to be noted here, is that he was an African-American guy, and human nature is not related to the color of our skin, as some of us wrongly believe (most international students are told to be wary of some specific type of people, as was I, when I came here...I'm not saying that all of that is false or hearsay, but I'm just telling all F-1 aspirants to let go of their misconceptions like these). Thus feeling elated, I came out of the terminal where my dear cousin was waiting to pick me up.
My first impression of the US was this: this a an awesome country, and the people here in general are very polite & helpful. Their mindset might be radically different from those who come from other cultures (like ours), but they immensely value & respect individuality & freedom in all forms. This, however, does not mean that they have a blatant disregard for rules, since in fact, it's just the opposite. Stick to the rules, do not plagarise, and always be polite & never hesitate to ask anyone anything at all, no matter how dumb the question might seem to be, and I'm sure you'll do just fine.
A final note to those of you who'll be reading this blog of mine, and who wish to come to the US for further studies: give this experience your best shot, and enjoy every moment of it, since this is one hell of an experience, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, which'll remain with you till the end of your life, so don't screw it up ! All the best !
Answer: Look around you, if there's a guy or a gal having lots of luggage, all packed with the help of someone like the Great Khali sitting on it to make it shut (no offense to the man whatsoever), who looks dog-tired and is on the verge of collapsing in the queue at Immigration, then that's the person you're looking for.
You must be wondering, why I asked this question here. Simple, because I've gone through this same experience 2 weeks back, as have thousands before me, and as will thousands in the future. Tired, jet-lagged, completely flabbergasted by the drastic change in attitude & accent, everyone who comes to the States is somewhat disoriented upon arrival. Some suffer the misfortune of losing their luggage (as did 2 of my room-mates at JFK). Worse still, is the case of those who have a connecting flight to catch, and who end up missing it, or those who board it with the luggage having disappeared without a trace (yes, that happens sometimes too). The first day of anyone who comes to the US is full of surprises, and has a myriad of experiences which cannot be forgotten in a lifetime.
This brings me to my personal experience. I came to JFK on a flight that was supposed to land at 7 AM EST, but landed an hour earlier (surprising, isn't it ?) After having being woken up from a deep slumber in the skies above Canada to forcibly be given a rather early breakfast, we were given some forms to fill up (namely the white I-94 form & the blue Customs Declaration form). Then, after some time, at exactly 6:05 AM, I touched down on US soil, at the end of my virgin international flight. In the same groggy state, I deplaned and proceeded to the Immigration counter. After waiting there for over an hour, I came face-to-face with the officer, who inspected my documents and put the Immigration stamp on my I-20 (finally, I was in the U.S. of A., what an exhilarating feeling it is) There, I was so tensed up, that when he told me to press my right forefinger on the biometric scanner, I groggily proceeded to press my right thumb on it :-P
Anyway, having done that, and feeling a great rush of excitement, I proceeded to the Baggage Claim. Here, all my excitement was crushed under the full weight of my baggage, which was somewhere around 63 kgs. :-P Puffing & panting heavily, I managed to take my baggage somehow from the conveyor belt, and was desperately trying to get a trolley to make my life a bit easier. But I got a mixture of shock & surprise, when I found out that the trolleys could be taken for $3 (someone in India had told me they could be taken for $1 or so) I promptly reached into my wallet, and voila...no $1 bills....I only had a few $5 and $10 bills, so I asked an airport employee for change. Little did I know, that only beggars (panhandlers are what some people call them here) ask for change, and there's no such concept of "exchanging bills for coins" over here as is in India. To my amazement, the guy swiped his own credit card (or employee pass, or whatever it was), so I got the trolley for free. The thing to be noted here, is that he was an African-American guy, and human nature is not related to the color of our skin, as some of us wrongly believe (most international students are told to be wary of some specific type of people, as was I, when I came here...I'm not saying that all of that is false or hearsay, but I'm just telling all F-1 aspirants to let go of their misconceptions like these). Thus feeling elated, I came out of the terminal where my dear cousin was waiting to pick me up.
My first impression of the US was this: this a an awesome country, and the people here in general are very polite & helpful. Their mindset might be radically different from those who come from other cultures (like ours), but they immensely value & respect individuality & freedom in all forms. This, however, does not mean that they have a blatant disregard for rules, since in fact, it's just the opposite. Stick to the rules, do not plagarise, and always be polite & never hesitate to ask anyone anything at all, no matter how dumb the question might seem to be, and I'm sure you'll do just fine.
A final note to those of you who'll be reading this blog of mine, and who wish to come to the US for further studies: give this experience your best shot, and enjoy every moment of it, since this is one hell of an experience, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, which'll remain with you till the end of your life, so don't screw it up ! All the best !
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)