# 1: Things I miss from home

I miss red wine! You can't find it here. And when you do find a bottle of red wine it's sweet and sugary and tastes disgusting.

I found some Italian red wine at a restaurant a few days ago, but it cost a fortune, 400 rupees for a glass, which equates to about $8.50. Not expensive, really. But when you consider the average person in India makes about $400 a month, it is very expensive.
But I bought a glass anyway, and sipped it so damn slowly, and I even made moaning noises as it went smoothly down my throat.


Waaahhh. I miss red wine!

Poutine in India

About a month back, Muscles and I went to a place called Mocha to smoke hookah, have some good coffee and chill out. I discovered on the menu that they had poutine. They described it as a "French-Canadian" treat made up of french fries, gravy and cheese curds and was gooey, messy and delicious, (so far this is sounding like poutine). They also said that is was pronounced as "foo-teen." Which maybe was some kind of foreshadowing as what was to come.

So on Saturday, Muscles and I went back to Mocha, and met my friend Paru there. I promised my sister I would go back and try to the poutine. The menu at this place is pretty extensive and mouth watering, but it's still also India. And even at home in Canada, I try not to go to another cultures restaurant unless the people who own it belong to that culture, and for instance, it's also a bonus when you go to a Japanese (or whatever cultures) restaurant and see not only Japanese chefs, but also many Japanese patrons as well. That usually means the food is authentic. But alas, I am in India, and beggars can't be choosers.

So I ordered the poutine, and knew I was in trouble when they asked me if I wanted a cheese sauce. I was like, no I want gravy and cheese curds. And the waiter was like, no poutine comes with cheese sauce.
"Sir, I'm Canadian, and poutine does not come with cheese sauce." Muscles, leans in, and says, "This is India, remember the popcorn chicken debaucle with Timothy?"

I don't think I wrote about this, so briefly I'll explain what happened. A few months back after going to see a movie we decide to get some food, Timothy does not enjoy Indian food so much, so when he saw popcorn chicken on the menu, he ordered that with some fries. Now we all know what popcorn chicken is. Tiny pieces of fried chicken, which is bite size, hence the name popcorn chicken. Well when Timothy got his order of popcorn chicken, we were all on the ground laughing. It was pieces of chicken cooked in POPCORN!! Actual popcorn was stuck on the chicken and deep fried. The poprcorn chicken fiasco was hilarious enough as it was, but seeing Timothy's pouty face for the next hour was really what was priceless!!

Moving along to the poutine incident, I just tell the waiter to bring me the poutine. I know this isn't going to be what I get at home, because seeing poutine on the menu was just too good to be true. But I told my sis I'd try it.
The batteries in my camera had died and I so wish I could have taken a picture of what the hell I got. It was french fries smothered in a white cheese sauce. Disgusting. I called the waiter over, and Paru and Muscles are now a little afraid of what might come out of my mouth.

Me:"Sir, what is this?
Waiter: "It's foo-teen"
Me: Laughing- "no, it's not. The menu says it has gravy and cheese curds"
Waiter: "oh so you want curry sauce then"
Me: "No, I don't want curry sauce, I want cheese curds and gravy like the menu says"

He takes away the poutine and brings me back the same damn thing but with a curry sauce on top. Not a single cheese curd to be seen! Ok, I have to admit it was improved, but it was still NOT poutine. I ate the thing in silent disappointment and forced Muscles to eat some too. "This is not poutine" I say sadly, mostly to myself. I can sense Muscles is about to say something, and I turn to him, before he has a chance, and I say "If you even tell me I'm in India, I am going to dump this cheese sauce over your head."

I'm just going to stick to Indian food from now on......I got my hopes up with seeing the poutine on the menu. But eating the chocolate avalanche afterwards did make me feel a lot better!!!

How I spent my birthday!

Well another birthday come and gone, and the second one I spent living in another country. My experience in South Korea was nice, except the green tea cake I got. Now that was disappointing!
In India, it was a nice experience, and no green tea cake. Actually in India the rules are kind of the opposite than at home, or in most places. The person who is celebrating their birthday usually takes their friends out, and pays them a lunch or dinner or drinks at a pub. Also when you get your cake it is tradition to get it smeared on your face.
So on Saturday I'll buy my friends a round of drinks at the pub and hopefully they won't smear cake on me, because I plan to be wearing nice clothes. I don't think I'll take it too lightly if I do get a whole bunch of cake in my face. I'm a good sport, but come on that's just gross and a waste of perfectly good cake!!!

So back to how I spent my birthday. Well I woke up nice and early and went to Juice, my salon of choice here and had a pedicure, manicure, and a hair cut. So essentially I pampered myself. Then J came to meet me and he took me shopping where I bought myself a cute birthday outfit. Skinny black trousers, and a black top. I love my new figure cause these pants were skinny and went just above the ankle (think Audrey Hepburn style cigarette pants). I'll wear them Saturday and take some photos. Then I took J to my one of my favourite restaurants called Chutneys. It's a veg restaurant (what they call vegetarian restaurant), and you are served these amazing chutneys with your meal, like coconut chutney, ginger chutney, and curry chutney . I had an amazing paneer tikka dosa. Paneer is Indian cottage cheese that is hardened, and tikka is the spice. It was so delicious. J, who does not really love vegetarian food, cause for most non-vegs in India if they don't have meat at every meal it isn't a meal, actually enjoyed his meal of mushroom masala and butter naan.

I also received some great gifts from my friends at work. My friend Parvathy and Delsuz bought me a gorgeous candle holder and tea lights. M, bought me some copper coloured Indian style sandals (I'll take pics and post soon), J bought me a royal blue silk halter top and a white and black dress/top to wear with leggings, earrings and flowers. Good taste for a guy I must say!! And Shae bought me a lovely black scarf.

All in all a wonderful birthday spent with new friends, in a new culture, and country. Quite a lovely experience, and made getting another year older a little easier.
I missed spending my birthday with my girls back home, but thank you all sooooo much for the birthday wishes. It means so much to hear from all of you!!!

Weight loss

When I was at home there was always an internal struggle to exercise, eat low fat, eat light products, watch the amount of carbs I ate, etc, etc, etc. And I think everyone should exercise to feel better, and keep themselves healthy. And just because I am in India that hasn't changed. But it's different. I don't think about it- AT ALL!

I eat whatever I want, in moderation. Such as I only allow myself rice twice a week. The stuff is the devil to me, and it is white, glutenous and delicious. It's a staple in the Indian diet, and most people eat it 3 times day. My body will not accept this! It will rebel. I've managed to be able to stick with the 2 times a week rule. However, I allow myself roti everyday, but it is made with whole wheat flour and water. I also exercise at least 3 days a week, I run about 5k and do about 20-25 minutes of weight training. When I want chocolate, I eat it, when I want ice cream I eat it, when I want a regular coke instead of diet, I drink it. When the Indian dish in the cafeteria looks like an oil well, I still eat it. And I do this with absolutely NO GUILT!! But I also eat small portions. The reason for this is because I am not eating low fat tasteless food, I need much much less food to satisfy me. Plus the spices used in Indian food are so savory and delicious they tend to satiate the palate much more so than other cuisines.

The best part, is the weight is melting off me. It's mostly a good thing, but now my clothes are noticeably bigger, and I need belts for many of my pants. I'm not complaining. But I love that when you don't think about every little thing you put into your mouth, you tend to enjoy life so much more, and manage to lose weight along with it.

There are some noticeable things I am not doing which is probably helping with the weight loss:

• I only drink alcohol moderately. (In Korea it was a sport for the foreigners, but many of my Indian friends don't drink)
• I don't eat fast food (I've had pizza twice since arriving in India) if I want pizza I'll have it though. I just haven't craved it.
  
• I don't eat junk food-other than chocolate. I have fallen in love with the Cadbury's Fruit and Nut bar. And I only eat that once in a while
  
• Portion sizes in restaurants are half the size than they are at home, and when eating with friends we share dishes
• I cook my own food 80% of the time- the cafeteria food at work is very greasy
• I don't worry too much about what I am eating and I don't feel guilty about it!!! I never deprive myself!

So the moral of the story is, yes if you want to lose weight, you need to make changes in your life, you need to exercises, or you will never keep the weight off. But you can do it slowly, and without giving up everything you love to eat. You just need to be smart. And people, you do not need to move to India to lose weight either. Sometimes all you need is just a different perspective.

On another note, I'm keeping up with the Olympics through the internet, and want to wish the Canadians the best of luck!! They need to start earning some medals soon though!! I mean India got it's first gold medal at a summer Games in like forever in shooting!! Which is awesome, and I am so happy for them. But come on we are Canada. We kick ass!!!

Hookah smoking and poutine

I'm sure you're confused by the title, but yes, I encountered both hookah smoking and poutine in the same night and at the same place!
On Saturday night a friend took me to a popular funky cafe called Mocha. Inside are couches and small tables, Arab style. You can also sit outside on a makeshift bed with a table. This place also has the best coffee in Hyderabad, and I chose Costa Rican coffee and we both ordered the Marrakesh hookah (this picture looks like the one we smoked). Now, how to describe the hookah (wikipedia can probably do a better job- so check out the link before continuing to read. It's very very mild, hence the reason I could smoke it and not cough up a lung. And it tastes fruity, I guess strawberry flavoured is the closest I can come to describing it. The flavoured tobacco is filtered through milk which is what makes it so mild. The amount of smoke you blow out after taking a long drag is massive and white, the cafe itself is filled with this sweet smelling smoke and it in no way resembles cigarette smoke. Non-smokers can enjoy this once and a while without any of the disgusting smells, tastes, coughing and hacking that cigarettes can give you.
So all in all hookah smoking was a good first experience, and I'd do it again. The cafe was playing some great music, it was chilled out and a great place to hang out on a rainy Saturday night.
Now to get to the poutine part, I was sifting through the menu and at the very back under specialties poutine was listed. It was the only thing listed and it described it as a "French-Canadian delicacy" (hardly a delicacy I think) and then it described it as "gooey, gross and utterly delicious." I didn't order it, because we were planning to go for Chinese food, but boy was I giddy and excited when I saw that. A piece of home so far away. Now before I get too excited I'll need to go back to this place and try the poutine, because the Indians could very well have butchered this Canadian treat. I will keep you all informed as to my poutine taste testing. It did put a big smile on my face though.....but in order the pass the test, the cheese has to make my teeth squeak, the true test of a good cheese curd!

The price of things....and curries

Today I decided to check out this outdoor fruit and vegetable market. The rain had decided to stay away today and it was sunny and a gorgeous 30 degrees, so I thought let's see what kind of prices I can get. Now in Indian cooking tomatoes and onions are an every day staple. They are used to make the masala's or curries. Now the curry powder from home does NOT exist here. The curries here are made using onions (usually ground into a paste with chili's and ginger) then tomatoes are added along with chili powder, turmeric, cumin, coriander and sometimes garam masala (which translates to hot or warm spice- which is a deep brown in colour and is a mix of spices including cinnamon and cloves. There are so many variants and you can also roast mustard seeds and coriander seeds to make some nice curries too, to add to the onion to make a paste.

So I drove a few km's to the outdoor market, and wow. I will have a hard time going to an actual grocery store to buy my fruit and vegetables now. Although the prices there are still good, this was almost ridiculous. Plus buying straight from the farmer, you get much fresher produce and you are skipping the middle man, so essentially it helps the Indian farmers.

The list and prices:
1/2 kilo of onions (approx 8)- 7 rupees ($.16)
1/2 kilo potatoes (about 5)- 10 rupees
3 medium apples- 20 rupees ($.48)
1 pineapple-20 rupees
bunch of bananas (10 rupees)
2 bunches of spinach-5 rupees ($.07)
1/2 kilo tomatoes (approx 8 small ones) 5 rupees
2 handfuls green chilies (3 rupees)

Total cost: 80 rupees ($1.91CDN)

Yes, the standard of living is different here, but my point is, that you can save a lot of money, buy fresher things, support the local farmer for a much lower cost than going to a grocery store. I would pay triple that amount at the local grocery store.
If you have the chance try and do this at home too. I know Ottawa has some amazing fresh markets, so take some time out of your day drive, walk, bike, or blade to a local farmers market every once in a while and have fun buying fresh things while supporting your local farmer. Sometimes it's just worth the time, and you'll feel good about it and taste the difference in your food.

Random gibberish

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, things have just been really busy. Between jetting around on my scooter, hand making roti's (an Indian flat bread), hand washing my laundry, working and hanging out with fun people on the weekends, I just haven't had as much time to write. Oh another reason is last week we had many power outages, a few days there was no power for 4 or 5 hours. It would go back on right before I would go to work, so writing was impossible.

Things are good though, been really busy with work and have worked a few 12 hour days. But I have been moved to a Canadian portfolio, and I can't go into too much detail here, but basically I am dealing with Canadian customers, and I have to train the agents on Canadian culture. Which is so much more fun than American culture. But there is really nothing done on Canadian culture so I basically get to develop all the material from scratch, which has been fun but exhausting.

Been hanging out at a few pubs more often, and although they close at midnight here, they are quite fun and reminiscent of the pubs at home (minus the live music). After the pub we head to our favourite restaurant (OK that is a lie, it's the only place open after midnight) for a buffet Indian dinner. Yum! We all load up on chicken and mutton byriani, yummy veg curries and then Indian dessert. Because most of us work the graveyard shift we all stay up until 4 or 5 am anyway.

I've also been cooking a lot, and have now experimented with coconut prawn curry, fish curry, beef curry (i found beef at Q-mart) which is mostly a place to buy many foreign items. I found ground beef, which is difficult to come by in India. many of my friends eat beef, since they aren't Hindu but Christians. Although I have only eaten it a couple of times since I have been here, and don't really miss it all that much, it is still nice to have once in a while.

Well that is about it for now, I will be posting pictures soon of our last weekend adventure. Hope all is well back home and everyone had a great Canada Day.

Bananas, mangoes, and jackfruit oh my!

Everyone who knows me knows I prefer fruit to vegetables, heck I prefer sweet to anything salty any day of the week. And India has some of the nicest fruit, especially bananas and mangoes. Wow, I have never tasted a banana likes the ones I have eaten here, and they come in all kinds of sizes and vary in sweetness.
And Mangoes, well you have never really savoured a mango unless you have eaten one just plucked off the tree. Yes, we have mangoes at home but they definitely have a different taste after being transported thousands of miles. You can buy mangoes on the side of the street, or in the markets. And they are pretty cheap too. i guess you can get about 5 or 6 of them for under a dollar. Actually I just finished eating a juicy mango with my cereal for breakfast. Pure, pure heaven.
Now the jackfruit, I have never tried a jackfruit before, and they just look plain scary at first, kind of like a medieval torture device. I was riding on the back of my friends Christopher's bike, when we passed a stand with this odd looking fruit. I asked him what it was, and he looked surprised that I have never tried let alone have seen a jackfruit before. I then asked him if he ever saw a real blueberry? Of course he hadn't. I rest my case.
So Christopher stopped and while sitting on the motorcycle I savoured my first piece of jackfruit. HEAVEN! Not too sweet, not too sour. Just perfect! Now I am addicted. I am constantly looking for the sweet Indian man selling jackfruit on the side of the street. I'd buy one myself but cutting the damn thing is nearly impossible and I'd probably need a sword to slice that baby open.. Each piece has a large seed and you can fry them in oil and eat them, apparently they have the same taste and texture as almonds. I might try it sometime.
** click on the links to see pictures (this is for the computer challenged) :)

In other news.....I'm moved in, have Internet, and a gas stove and am well on my way to harmony. But that is another post. This post is about fruit!