"You Sound Like a Girl" ----Grrrl!

I crack down on anyone who makes sexist remarks around me (unless they are senior citizens - you know, old dog, new tricks, etc.). But as my son gets older, I am finding it harder and harder to counter the kind of casual sexism that prevails in age groups as young as eight- or nine-year old boys. On a playdate, recently, as I did the mommy thing and popped corn and cut strawberries, I suddenly heard this cry, "You sound like a girl!" Aaargh! I almost dropped the knife and rushed out to reprimand the boys. What is wrong with sounding like a girl, eh? Don't your mothers and sisters sound like girls? Then, instead, I decided to talk to them while they ate their snacks, but as they played, the other mother came by and in the general conversation, the little episode was forgotten. And I know that somewhere in my son's brain there has been planted the lesson that girl=bad, inferior, laughable, silly. I need to be a more vigilant mommy.

Take That, Creepy Dinner Guest

In November, came the Barack wave. And now the progressive, and hopefully practical (for how effective can progressivism be without practicality?), center-left is back in India and in the USA. And we can breathe again, I hope.

About 14-15 years ago, the son of one of my father's colleagues contacted me in Chicago - you know, the Indian network - and invited me to dinner at his uncle's house in suburban Oakbrook. His uncle and aunt were wealthy physicians, very nice and hospitable people, and I attended a dinner party at their wonderful, elegant house. Great food, great drinks, a bunch of local Indians and one visting creep from Delhi.

Said creep was in the United States, visiting family (all of them solid supporters of the Hindutva parties), and was working the dinner party, talking tough about Muslims and "culture" and the need to stand tall and proud with one's "Hindu-ness", etc. And this when the shame of December 1992 was still a fresh wound. Of course, he was scoping the joint for potential big donors to his party. And of course, I, being younger and more ardent than my middle-aged hosts, argued with him then and there, to show him that not every one at the party was so easy to brainwash (actually, I don't think anyone there was getting brainwashed, they were just being polite to the visitor from desh).

The next ten years were highly frustating ones for people like me, your average liberal, constitutional democrat (with a small 'l' and a small 'd'), as creeps sprang up like mushrooms in the manure that was the Indian polity. It was as if the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and then of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 had so shaken up politics in India that things fell apart and the center could not hold. Looking back, I think I know how 1960s-era Americans felt, when assassinations roiled their world and eliminated public figures like John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. The world suddenly seemed endlessly unstable and unpredictable. Only the brazen, the thick-skinned and the absolutely thuggish, could survive and thrive in the 1990s and early 2000s. The good ones kept their heads down and tried to keep going, one foot in front of the other.

It didn't help that during the 1990s America saw the rise of similar manure-y politics as in India (oh, Ken Starr, in how many ways do I despise thy sanctimonious ways?). My friends and I spent our time gnashing our teeth, shaking our heads, arguing with individual rightwing creeps at individual parties, and trying to make feeble jokes at the expense of our Hindutva or Christian fanatic or Muslim fundoo opponents. And we also got good at weathering new shocks, whether from Gujarat or from Baghdad.

But now, our days of mourning are over. Take that, creepy dinner guest and go down to your dark, manure-filled hole with all the other mushrooms.

No More Jobs for the Boys

Oh no! I guess this means that there are going to be fewer jobs for the Minute Men. Recession sucks, doesn't it?

Japanese Maple Watch-Sunday, May 10, 2009

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day! May you have a beautiful day full of flowers and sunshine and your favorite drink and may your child/ren always be within hugging distance (I know, Maa, I know that it's not so for you, but I do send hugs your way telepathically).

Who Wants to be a Toff?

Just finished reading Sarah Lyall's book, The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British. Overall, what stayed with me were the characteristics she outlines of the British upper class, a status that everybody else in Britain aspires to reach, including the "aspirational middle class" so despised by the toffs. Here is what I understood: in order to be a member of the aristocratic upper class in Britain, one has to eat some very bad food and drink a lot of very good alcohol (no doubt to wash down the execrable food). Lyall writes about going for a picnic with an aristocrat of long lineage who served his guests canned soup, bad ham and white bread sandwiches, swilled down with good wine. Given these criteria, here is a list of peoples and nations who will never be upper class Englishmen or Englishwomen, and some who might be eligible:

1. Indians. No way, will the people who eat fragrant biryanis, pulaos, chutneys, dosas, sambhar, curries, spiced dals and fresh yogurt, ever belong to the world of mediocre food. Besides, Indian alcohol sucks. Except for Old Monk rum, when hidden inside a chilled glass of Coca Cola.
2. The French. They are disqualified on two counts. First, the wines of France are ambrosial. Second, why would any Frenchman or Frenchwoman in his or her right mind ever give up Confit de Canard, Coquilles Saint-Jacques and Pommes Duchesse in order to eat Wonderbread and canned soup? No, no, the food and the drink is too good to qualify them for the English aristocracy.
3. Italians, Greeks, Spaniards and Portuguese. See last sentence in previous paragraph.
4. South Americans. The alcohol probably sucks (I don't know, have only drunk Chilean wines which are pretty good) but the food is great. So sorry, amigos and amigas, you can't join the bad food club of the English upper classes.
5. Chinese, East Asians in general. Again, no alcohol, but the food - oh my God! So, no entry to them either.
6. Americans. Inspite of the best efforts of McDonald's and Burger King, a people that can invent things like Buffalo Chicken wings and gumbo, and peach cobbler and smothered pork chops, are barred from the English upper classes. Well, maybe the North East with their love of boiled dinners might qualify, except that their clam chowder might prevent them from enjoying full membership benefits.

So what does that leave us? I'm going to offend a lot of people here and offer up for full membership of the English aristocracy, based on the criteria of bad food and lots of alcohol - the Germans.* Any others who might qualify?

*I say this with great sadness. The nation of bratwurst and frankfurters, the land of bad food, how could that be?! Well, it was the boiled cabbage that decided it, for me.

Shubho Noboborsho and Happy Baisakhi

In honor of the Bengali New Year and the Punjabi Baisakhi, we went to eat at the Indian restaurant Bangalore in Fairfield. I was looking forward to this as I felt that finally M. was big enough to sit through a meal at a restaurant and so we could all enjoy our dinner at leisure. The restaurant is a pleasant place, the food is very good, but the service was very disappointingly hit-or-miss. Now this is not a hole-in-the-wall place so one is definitely expecting better than for one's dinner to arrive in fits and starts with long gaps between dishes. The waiters were quite sweet and very polite and you knew it wasn't their fault that the cooks were not producing the dishes in a timely way. But we all ate in a staggered way and needless to say, by the time my Rava Masala Dosa arrived, the kids were quite done and then it was all over for me. It was back to the bad old snarfing-down-my food ritual to the chorus of "can we go home now?" "are you done?" "I'm full" "I'm tired." Hmmm....maybe we will try this going out to eat business in two more years.

In the City

Yesterday was Girls' Day Out in New York City which actually turned into Girls' Day and Night Out as we strolled from pleasant place to pleasant place until we finally headed for dinner. I am always amazed when I head into New York - it is so urban that rightfully the place should be setting one's teeth on edge, but it always ends up dazzling its visitors. It is, I think, the pulsating liveliness, combined with the sheer magnificence of the city's buildings - the highrises with their gleaming windows, the gorgeousness that is Grand Central Terminal, the stateliness of New York Public Library - that consistently wins one over. See, I told you that I am always amazed. This despite the heaps of garbage bags waiting to be picked up and the taxis driving like maniacs and darting in and out of lanes.

There are also so many young people there. I wonder how they manage to survive in one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the world. Are they visiting like me or are they residents? Like the young man in the worn down Converse sneakers and faded corduroy pants riding the M-1 bus, blue eyes looking off into the middle distance like everybody else's eyes on crowded public transport. Or the woman with the bleached hair and the shocking orange tights worn under her short-short shorts. Or the teenager with the heavily embellished leather jacket. What a place to people-watch, this city. Not as pretty as Paris or as soft, but edgy and stylish and strong and just so, so diverse. As I walked I heard heavily-accented voices say things like, "In Italy, we..." or "In England, this..."

We headed down first to the little three-table Kati Roll Company on MacDougal St. that sells the most delicous kati rolls. I ordered a chicken and unda roll and we all shared an achari paneer roll. Then, we headed down to the lovely little organic Priti Spa, which sadly is being sold and will disappear, hopefully to be resurrected soon. I bought an organic nail polish for the sandal season coming up so soon. And got myself a much-needed pedicure from the efficient and pleasant Nadia who, I hope, will land on her feet.

More walking landed us first in NoLita for window shopping and then in Soho, browsing at Sur La Table, followed by a stop at Marie Belle where we lingered over iced cardomom chocolate (moi), guava tea (U.) and mocha European style (R.). Despite the snacks, the long walks had more than whetted our appetites for dinner at Grand Sichuan International (we went to the branch off 23rd St.). It was early enough that we only had a ten minute wait (otherwise on Friday nights, expect far longer wait times). I have heard mixed reviews about the service but one goes to these places for the food, not for the personableness or lack of it of the waitstaff. We ordered the pork soup dumplings, the excellent spicy Au Zhi (sp?) fresh chicken (poultry is slaughtered the same day as it is cooked, or so they claim), the so-so whole braised tilapia in hot bean sauce (not worth ordering a second time) and the really good beans with pork (we asked for more beans, less pork, which was an excellent idea as otherwise it would have been way too salty). Grand Sichuan is hearty eating, not fine dining, but it totally hit the spot.

As I took the 10:22 PM Metro North back to Fairfield County, I reflected on the day and came to this conclusion: life isn't half bad when you have kati rolls and organic spas and good chocolate and plentiful Chinese, a train ride away from the quiet backyards of suburbia.

A Revolution

We're living through a revolution. And nobody has any idea what to do. So we carry on with our everyday routines, the commutes to work, the school drop-offs, the soccer games on the weekend. What else is one to do? We are in uncharted waters here. I drive to my part-time gig and as I drive down the much-diminished (thank God!) traffic on I-95, I think to myself: "This is what a revolution looks like, this is what a revolution looks like." It looks like empty retail space, less inventory in the stores, fewer cars on the highways. Social peace hangs by the thin thread of cheap gasoline prices. If that thread breaks this summer (or, worse, this winter), what will happen?

"I'm in the Bathroom!"

Guess, that excuse won't cut it in these hotels. See, I could never go for these sort of places, with their exposed bathrooms. You mean, I can't get away for even those blessed ten minutes now?!!!

Chronicles of an Accidental Gourmet: The Imperfect Italian

Despite my bad introduction to Italian cuisine via White Hen Pantry Pizza, I have developed an affectionate relationship with Italian food over the years. In lieu of pizza I developed a strong bond with the pasta family. My favorite pasta dish was the shrimp fettucine at Rudi Fazuli's, a wonderful Italian restaurant that was a ten minute walk from our Chicago home in the Lakeview area. We used to eat there once in a while only, because the food was so good that you had to waddle out of the restaurant, stuffed to the gills. Then, other people got to know about this great little restaurant and Rudi Fazuli's moved down to the ritzy Lincoln Park neighborhood where I know not whether it still lives and thrives. Anyway, the awesome experience with Rudi Fazuli's convinced me not to give up on Italian food, that like all cuisines, it was about the cook, the spices and the location.
After I had children, I was really glad that I had given Italian cuisine a second chance, because what khichdi (a separate post on that later) is to Indian children, well, pasta is to American children. Pasta and meatballs, in particular. Not being a beefeater for cultural reasons, I have created my own version of Italian meatballs, using ground turkey. I call these my Imperfect Italian Meatballs because try as I might, they refuse to keep the cheese inside them (or maybe I'm just too lazy to get them perfect). Here is what you need:



1 lb ground turkey (not turkey breast)
1 small or medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium zucchini, grated
1/4 cup feta cheese
2 tablespoons olive oil plus one more for oiling the cookie sheet
1 tablespoon Montreal Steak Seasoning
Zest of one lemon
Juice of one lemon
Fresh mozarella balls in water or oil (use small balls of cheese or chop large into smaller pieces)
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley or 1 tbsp dried parsley

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Line cookie sheet or baking tray with aluminum foil (that's aluminium to Indians). Grease covered sheet with 1 tablespoon olive oil. In a large mixing bowl, combine ground turkey, chopped onion, garlic, grated zucchini, feta cheese, 2 tablespoons olive oil, Montreal Steak Seasoning, lemon zest, lemon juice and parsley. You shouldn't need salt after all the feta cheese and steak seasoning, but if you do, well go ahead and add a pinch. Mix well, but go easy on the meat. Roll a piece of mixture between your hands to make a small ball. Make a dent on the top. Insert a small mozarella ball. Cover dent with more mixture and roll to smooth it. Place meatball on prepared cookie sheet. Repeat till you have about 12-14 meatballs. Put the sheet into hot oven for 40 minutes. Check at 30 minutes for doneness as oven temperatures vary. You can also mix some chopped assorted vegetables (red peppers, zucchini, carrots, etc) with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast alongside meatballs as a side dish.

While meatballs are cooking, put water into pot to boil. Prepare linguini according to package directions. Drain, put spaghetti back into dish and coat with a splash of olive oil if desired. Open and heat your favorite prepared marinara sauce (what? You think I'm going to make everything from scratch?). My choice: Trader Joe's marinara.

When done, meatballs are golden brown and deliciously imperfect because some will have mozarella oozing out of them. Here is what they look like:

A Right Step

The announcement this morning that the White House had rejected the restructuring plan submitted by the automakers is, in my opinion, a good move. Again, I am not a trained economist but it doesn't take much training to know that there was a lot of wasteful practice in Detroit - does everyone really need to buy a new car every three years, especially if said car is clunky, fuel-inefficient and not an object of any particular beauty? An orderly - and I can't overemphasize 'orderly' - dismantling is the right thing to do.

Japanese Maple Watch - Monday, March 30, 2009

Spring Has Sprung!

Unlike my husband, I'm not much of a gardener. Oh, I love flowers and fruit trees and all the rest of that, but only to admire. When presented with a wonderful garden, I am never moved to wondering - "How do I get my garden to look like that?" Instead, I think, "Drat! Wish I had a nice glass of wine so that I could sit here amongst these beautiful flowers, in a comfy chair, with a nice book." But when the first buds and blossoms of springtime appear, even I am moved to write about them. My absolute favorite garden being in the whole yard is our mature Japanese Maple tree (yes, I consider it a being, with a benevolent personality all its own). It shades the backyard in summer and turns an awesome blood red in the fall. In fact, it is the last tree in our yard to shed its leaves. When the backyard is full of crimson leaves, I know that it's time to really put away the Halloween decorations and get out the heavy winter coats and the gloves. There are some buds on it now, and I am really excited.

Back Off!

Yes, it was wrong to give them taxpayer subsidized bonuses. Yes, it was wrong of them to have accepted the bonuses. But enough with the intimidation and the harassment!It is just plain wrong. These people have kids and families and I cannot fathom the anger that threatens the physical safety of children and dependents. So back off, ye self-righteous wrathful - go use the court system. That's what it is there for. Sheesh!

Signs of the Times

If there was a symbol of the roaring 1990s, it was the notice one saw in so many business windows: "Now Hiring." Today, the sign of our times is the ominous one seen on so many office buildings: "Now Leasing."

Close Them Down, Mr. Geithner

Dear Mr. Geithner, I am not a trained economist, but I feel bad seeing you and your buddies flailing around, trying to come to grips with this slippery, ugly beast that is the financial meltdown. So, here is my admittedly non-specialist solution to the problem: Close them down, Mr. Geithner. Close down AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, any company that is bleeding money and is supposedly "too big to fail" and needs large infusions of our taxpayer money. You cannot reinflate a collapsing bubble. So shut them all down. Just go about it in an orderly, systematic way so that panic does not ensue - see I am not one of those nasty libertarians who want death by free-market, I did say "orderly" and "systematic". You are a clever man, Mr. Geithner, and your friends are smart people too. I'm sure you'll be able to work out the details of the downsizing between all of you. Sometimes home remedies are the best.

Keeping Down with the Joneses

Frugality is all the rage these days. For many people, though, thrift is just another fashion statement, yet another accessory that one wears in order to impress. In today's Washington Post, Kelly Marages had a scathing commentary on this bizarre trend that glamorizes the economic downturn. I liked her observations on the evaporation of common sense:

We've been told to go shopping in our closets. Cute -- but what does it mean? That I should take a shirt and pair it with some pants or a skirt that I haven't already matched it to? Call me crazy, but isn't that just called getting dressed? Or does it mean I should -- heavens, no! -- re-wear an outfit that I've worn before?

All of this recessionista business is, I think, just showing off by other means. I have nothing against any kind of lifestyle as long as it is genuine. I love being around people who are full of joie de vivre, who eat, drink and are merry. Seeking pleasure because one enjoys the good things of life is fine as long as the pleasure-seeking is to satisfy one's own desire for enjoyment, gluttony, happiness, whatever. In fact, one does not have to be wealthy to live life large (although money does help). It is repulsive, however, to observe people pursuing pleasure in order to show off their fine clothes and their money to others. The same principle applies to simplicity. If you like things simple, that's great. I'm all for whatever brings you peace of mind (I'm a die-hard "value shopper" myself). But the minute people start bragging about how "simple" they are - why then, frugality is just another way to show off one's superiority and to be snobby and judgmental about other people.

Happy Holi

It's a gray, wet, cold day here in Fairfield County, Connecticut. It's Holi and I am dry and not dyed in a rainbow hue. People in India have had a lot of fun today, celebrating Holi, the festival of colors, while here I hide under layers of woolies and carry an umbrella when I go out on errands. Holi was the one holiday that I found both enjoyable and very disconcerting when I lived in India. It was a world turned upside down where grown-ups behaved like children, running around throwing water balloons at each other and at us. There was lunch at the club and as many cokes as your little mouth could gulp down, before you had to go home to be hosed down.

When I moved to Delhi as a college student, I found Holi far less attractive as the rowdies on the streets - testoterone-charged young men looking for women to grope under the excuse of Holi revelry - were out in strength at this time. The best way to enjoy Holi is in a small circle of friends and family - known faces - with whom you can spend a fun and sometimes, er...a pleasantly-buzzed morning and afternoon.

Chronicles of an Accidental Gourmet: Chapter 1, The Graduate Student

I am a really good home cook. As in mmm-mmm good (yeah, I'm modest about it). I think that I am just as good as Clara with her Depression-era cooking, bless her wise old soul. The reason I am so proud of my cooking ability is because this is the one talent I developed entirely on my own. Cooking is my very own expertise, learned not at my mother's or anyone else's elbow, but in the dark and dismal days of young adulthood when the future seemed full of boiled eggs and slices of execrable White Hen Pantry pizza. Now you know why pizza is not my favorite food (see previous post). The fact that I taught myself to cook, all on my own, gave me enormous self-confidence. I knew that I could take care of myself, once I learned how to peel, chop and saute an onion. So to those of you afraid to turn the stove on - be brave, it is indeed possible to save yourself and your bank balance by wielding a knife.

My abiding memory of my last day before I left for the United States as a twenty-something was that of my mother pacing up and down my room as I packed, muttering darkly over and over in a maddening way, "You are going to starve there. How will you survive? You can't cook!" For the first couple of months in Chicago, I almost conceded that she was right - I was going to starve. I could cook nothing more than boiled eggs. Other sustenance was slices of pizza from the White Hen Pantry half a block from the dorm. I was desperate for fresh food that tasted good and did not cost a fortune. I couldn't duck into a restaurant - I was on a limited student stipend and it would not cover eating out on a daily basis. Something had to be done, and quick!

Then, my brother - my big brother, who still watches out for me - came to my rescue. In those long-forgotten days before the internet, when the only electronic communication was email, he sent me a file called "The Graduate Student's Guide to Indian Recipes", available here and here, in abridged form. From Mahadevan Ramesh via Sanjiv Singh, I learned basic things like how to chop onions. And in this way, an army of invisible teachers, graduate students like me, whom I will probably never meet, came to my culinary rescue. I learned how to chop an onion, peel potatoes, dice carrots, make my favorite aloo-gobi. I made friends with other graduate students and often we ate together, feasting like kings and queens on our spiced and flavorful creations. So thank you, Sanjiv Singh, thank you Mahadevan Ramesh, thank you Somesh Rao. Here is my favorite recipe from "The Graduate Student's Guide...": Aloo Gobi. It was the first dish I made that was successful and well-received by friends. It does require a trip to the Indian grocery store to stock up on spices. Somesh, if you ever stumble across this blog, thank you for your help, thank you for stepping in for my mother, and here are my variations on your wonderful recipe:


Ingredients:------------
1 Large cauliflower
3 Medium sized potatoes
1/2 large Onion sliced thinly in long slices
1 tsp Mustard seeds
2 or 3 pods Cardamom
1 tsp Coriander [My Variation - grind the coriander]
1 tsp Cumin seeds
1/2 tsp Turmeric
1 Bayleaf
3 Cloves
3 tblsp Vegetable Oil

Method:

-------Start boiling the potatoes in a saucepan. Let them boil for at least 15minutes. After they are done, turn off the heat and let them stand inthe water. [My Variation: Dice Potatoes into small cubes, skip boiling]

Cut the cauliflower into small bite sized pieces (roughly 1" cubes),throwing away most of the stem pieces. Wash and drain in a collander.

While the potatoes are cooking, heat the oil in a wide skillet until itis very hot. Add the mustard seeds and wait until they start popping. Add bay leaves, cardamom and cloves. Mix around for a while and then add onions. Wait until the onion starts to turn before adding the rest of the spices (except for turmeric).
[My variation: Add diced potatoes after the onions start to turn and saute with onions and spices for 10-15 mins, till half-cooked]

Put the cauliflower in the skillet and fry in the oil and spices for 2minutes. While the cauliflower is frying, cut up the potatoes into bitesized pieces and add to the skillet. [I skipped the boiling potatoes step]

Add turmeric and stir. Continue stirring the vegetables under medium heat for another couple ofminutes. [ My variation: cook cauliflowers and potaotes together for about 5-6 minutes]

Add 1/2 cup of water and reduce heat to low. Cover skilletand let cook for 5 minutes. Check tenderness of vegetables. If they are still too hard, add another1/4 cup of water and cover again for 5 minutes. Salt to taste and serve. [You can push the whole spices to the side of your plate, if you don't like chomping down on cardamom or cloves. Garnish with cilantro leaves - optional]