As you might have gathered from my previous post, I have been reading and discussing the novel The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga I personally love and hate this book because it makes me think so much about my own life, and how I take certain things for granted. While reading the novel has revived my fascination with Indian culture, it has also made me consider many similarities between Belize and India. But this pondering of so called third world democracy will have to wait for another post. For now I am going to embrace something I experienced concerning this wonderful novel.
As a final activity with reading the book, my class has decided to have an Indian feast.... Now I know that Rajesh Ramayan Koothrappali,Ph.D, claims that it is horrible that Indian bouquets "only have Indian Food' (The Big Bang Theory) but I for one love Indian food and I am very disappointed that my favourite restaurant The South Indian Restaurant (very original name I know) in San Ignacio no longer exist.... It has been a wile since my last encounter with curry and palapan, so I was excited about this project but I was a little nervous too.... 1. I have never cooked more than a yellow rice with curry chicken 2. my schedule doesn't really allow for great culinary arts adventures. Solution to the problem: I googled and found a couple of great Indian recipes and I woke up early this morning, and with Beloved's help I made thirty mini-samosa's for this afternoon's class. What an experience it was. Beloved hates cooking but he loves to help me whenever he can with my school work.
I learned a couple of things about myself this morning. First, I cannot fold samosas. I followed the instructions carefully but to no avail. It said to moisten fingers and roll the flattened dough onto fingers to make a funnel, fill with the potato and garlic and ginger stuffing and seal. Sounds easy right? Not for me! I am sure any one of my Indian friends can tell me what I did wrong at first glance, but for the life of me, I could not figure where the malfunation was. So instead of perfectly formed triangular samosa's frying in my pot, I had roundish filled dumplings. Beloved, with manning the frying pot, could not help but to laugh and say that this things look like his mama's Warenekje, a home-made cheese filled Mennonite version of a poroggies. Beloved isn't crazy about this dish from his strong cultural background, but he could not help but to muse over the fact that his mama and his wife role in the dough!
So while I can't fold the samosa dough properly, my Beloved thinks I am amazing. With a big pot spoon in his hand, while he "kept an eye" on the frying supposed-to-be-samosas-but-look-like-a-curry-potato-version-of-Warenekje, Beloved told me this many times. He thinks it is amazing that I can work the washing machine while the potatoes boil, google for recipes, stomach foreign food (Beloved, as great as he is, is a little bit like Raj in regards to Indian food), wake up in the morning and whip out three dozen "things" even though it is not coming out right. Why do I gloat over this? Because I know it is true. I am a very versatile woman. Of course, I left my house with a pile of dishes because while the recipe claims that it should take 1 1/2 hours, I spent three making them, but really? What is a few dirty dishes?
I want to take this moment to stop and think about all the amazing people in our lives. The amazing people who do amazing, ordinary things. My, mother for example, who can sew just about anything she wants to (stick horses, puppy dog costumes, you name it) or my amazing husband who cannot cook anything that is not Ramon noodle soup but is willing to hold a pot spoon and fish out the frying dumplings, just because I need a hand. There are some pretty amazing people in our lives and it is time to think about them, breath a grateful thought for them, and let them know how special they are.
Please leave a comment, and share about a special, amazingly doing the ordinary person in your life. Then try the samosas recipes.
As a final activity with reading the book, my class has decided to have an Indian feast.... Now I know that Rajesh Ramayan Koothrappali,Ph.D, claims that it is horrible that Indian bouquets "only have Indian Food' (The Big Bang Theory) but I for one love Indian food and I am very disappointed that my favourite restaurant The South Indian Restaurant (very original name I know) in San Ignacio no longer exist.... It has been a wile since my last encounter with curry and palapan, so I was excited about this project but I was a little nervous too.... 1. I have never cooked more than a yellow rice with curry chicken 2. my schedule doesn't really allow for great culinary arts adventures. Solution to the problem: I googled and found a couple of great Indian recipes and I woke up early this morning, and with Beloved's help I made thirty mini-samosa's for this afternoon's class. What an experience it was. Beloved hates cooking but he loves to help me whenever he can with my school work.
I learned a couple of things about myself this morning. First, I cannot fold samosas. I followed the instructions carefully but to no avail. It said to moisten fingers and roll the flattened dough onto fingers to make a funnel, fill with the potato and garlic and ginger stuffing and seal. Sounds easy right? Not for me! I am sure any one of my Indian friends can tell me what I did wrong at first glance, but for the life of me, I could not figure where the malfunation was. So instead of perfectly formed triangular samosa's frying in my pot, I had roundish filled dumplings. Beloved, with manning the frying pot, could not help but to laugh and say that this things look like his mama's Warenekje, a home-made cheese filled Mennonite version of a poroggies. Beloved isn't crazy about this dish from his strong cultural background, but he could not help but to muse over the fact that his mama and his wife role in the dough!
So while I can't fold the samosa dough properly, my Beloved thinks I am amazing. With a big pot spoon in his hand, while he "kept an eye" on the frying supposed-to-be-samosas-but-look-like-a-curry-potato-version-of-Warenekje, Beloved told me this many times. He thinks it is amazing that I can work the washing machine while the potatoes boil, google for recipes, stomach foreign food (Beloved, as great as he is, is a little bit like Raj in regards to Indian food), wake up in the morning and whip out three dozen "things" even though it is not coming out right. Why do I gloat over this? Because I know it is true. I am a very versatile woman. Of course, I left my house with a pile of dishes because while the recipe claims that it should take 1 1/2 hours, I spent three making them, but really? What is a few dirty dishes?
I want to take this moment to stop and think about all the amazing people in our lives. The amazing people who do amazing, ordinary things. My, mother for example, who can sew just about anything she wants to (stick horses, puppy dog costumes, you name it) or my amazing husband who cannot cook anything that is not Ramon noodle soup but is willing to hold a pot spoon and fish out the frying dumplings, just because I need a hand. There are some pretty amazing people in our lives and it is time to think about them, breath a grateful thought for them, and let them know how special they are.
Please leave a comment, and share about a special, amazingly doing the ordinary person in your life. Then try the samosas recipes.
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