Ooh that smile

Last night we watched a movie at home thanks to good old Netflix. We both love watching movies. Last night we saw Déjà vu, a sifi thriller. The movie is about a terror attack and how an ATF agent, Denzel Washington travels back in time to  save a woman and prevent a terrorist bombing disaster. The movie a quite interesting and keeps you guessing till the end plus you get to see Denzel for some 2 hours ;-). I am a big fan of his style and smile.

Woodlands experience

Sada Dosa

Woodlands is our favorite restaurant in Orlando...every single person working there know us very well now. As soon as they see us walking in they know of at least one item that we are definitely going to order. My American born 6 year old daughter loves 'sada dosa + vada' and orders it every time we go there.

The highlights of the 'Woodlands experience' as one of my colleague puts it, is their fresh home made style food. Simple authentic south Indian food is their recipe to success. I have never been a fan of dosa and sambhar but woodlands really made me a fan of sambhar so much that I can just drink 4-5 bowls of sambhar in a sitting... 

Dishes like 'upma' which I thought I'll never have in my favorite list are now in because of woodlands buffet experience. This special 'upma' is cooked in coconut milk and has small pieces of coconut and literally melts in your mouth and proves how simple taste and flavors can blow you off completely....

Its is small restaurant which will definitely remind you of any south Indian restaurant in India. Nothing about its interiors is fancy to even give it a score of 5/10 in ambiance. Yet each time we go there, we see people of all race/background enjoying south Indian vegetarian food. Of course they don't know what goes with what, for example I have seen people eating dessert 'payasam' with 'paratha' etc, but they seem to enjoy the food and the 'Woodlands experience'. Hardcore non-vegetarians won't agree with me but vegetarians I am sure will agree with the 'Woodlands experiance' in reasonable $$.

Chana Bhatura

Some of the items that are listed in their specials are really good as they advertise i.e. 'chana bhatura'. We both have found our favorites in the restaurant and usually order things that we like. Jee usually orders 'chana bhatura' and is always 100% satisfied with it and I usually go for 'matar paneer' or 'malai kofta' and am equally satisfied every time. The gujju waiter even sums up our order as one 'matar paneer picy' meaning spicy, one of the perks of being a regular ;-). 

If you are planning to visit Orlando for the 'Disney/Universal/Sea world/Other Theme parks experience' you might enjoy the 'Woodlands Experience' .... highly recommended by the Jacob family. 

Birthday Update

I was thinking about writing an update on the b'day details but it got delayed due to my busy deployment madness at work, but boy am I glad I waited 3 days before writing this. The most pleasant surprise came y'day in the shape of a gift basket. Yeah I knew there is something of this sort planned before itself, when Jacob(Sweety) asked me for our home address and said it is not for the vacation houseboat booking. I knew 'daal mein kuch kala hai'. My doubt was confirmed when he asked again last weekend if the address I gave him was right.

Jee called me y'day from work saying that there is a gift basket waiting for us at home and it is sent by Tara, Kevin and Yohan. So I am really glad that I am writing the update today as I can add the most important event of all. A wonderful gift basket for the birthday boy. This post wouldn't have been complete without a picture of it. It really felt nice to receive it and thank you guys for the lovely gift.

We spent most of the day in a mall, lunch at California pizza kitchen and finally got our brand new prescription sunglasses before heading home. Ride back home wearing the sunglasses and smiling proudly 'coz we can finally wear sunglasses and can also see clearly.

Back home 'Ada Prathaman' didn't come out well as expected on my first attempt following the Maria's Menu website instructions.  I didn't give up and tried making it the second time and this time it was better, although there is room for improvement. Koi baat nahi there is always a next time !!!!!

I miss you IMac

It's been just 6+ months since I left my cool work station IMac, and I am MISSING working in it a lot. There has been huge difference in the working style and also lots of new experiences like I didn't know about the "blue screen of death" before I joined this work. Working in Microsoft c#.net technology I have to put up with Windows and the sweet "blue screen of death" is part and parcel of this package. One of my first client webex (web conference) meeting went down the drain when my computer suffered this "blue screen of death" syndrome with me and my colleague, Andrew staring at a limp blue screen. We promptly apologized to the client for the technical failure and promised to  be back in the meeting in 15 minutes. Luckily, everything went on fine from there and we used Andrew's computer to finish the meeting.

I was given a another computer as soon as I reported the blue screen problem. After almost 6 months I am here again in the conference room ready for another client side deployment and my colleague, Susanna who works from New Jersey pinged me in the chat saying her computer did the "blue screen of death" thing on her. We somehow finished the first part when the client side deployment contact, Gary announced that there is some virus in his computer and he needs to restart his computer. All is well the blame is on Windows again...I can move on to my lunch break cursing windows with Gary.

****Some of the incidents and characters mentioned are pure works of imagination. Readers may sometimes find associating themselves or their acquaintances to a couple of situations. In those cases I  hope they would enjoy the journey through...

Dilemma

Six months after our daughter was born, Father's day coincided with my hubby's birthday and that was very special to him. Six years down the lane, Father's day is again on his birthday. As usual I wanted to surprise him with something nice as it is a milestone b'day for him this year.

At work, I asked my colleagues if they had any good ideas on what I should gift him. Smith who is the oldest among us said a tablet will be a good gift. My response was, he already has it and I cannot think of a single gadget that I can gift him as he is very tech savvy and will immediately buy it for himself or pretend that he is buying it for family or our little girl if he wants something. So gifting him any gadgets is out of question. To this Ashish, an Indian who sits across from my table said "anyways the rule is please don't buy any gadgets for a man as he would love to do the shopping himself ". Luis, a Columbian who sits across from my table peeked out from behind his work station saying a vacation to a nice place might be a good idea. Since we have already planned a vacation in August, I ruled it out. Ashish who was now deep in some thought finally made a suggestion with a naughty wink "buy him a Glenlivet, single malt whiskey or a blue label". This was a good suggestion but I knew my husband usually re-fills his bar section himself and I wouldn't know where to go and what to buy.

In our 10 years of marriage, we have never formally gifted each other anything as such. When we go out shopping, he might pick something for me and say "this will be good for you" and I might do the same for him and eventually buy it. So it is really hard for either one of us to pick something for each other when the other half is not around. All these years, I usually used to cook something special for him on his b'day and he used to be very happy.

Ada Prathaman

One of his favorite dessert is  'Ada Prathaman', an authentic from kerala cuisine. Jee's mother is an expert in making this dish. Seeing me smile Smith asked me on msn chat (we use msn chat extensively at work to communicate with each other), Riji, I am sure you thought of something that you want to gift your husband as I can see you smiling.  I know it is weird but sometimes we use chat to talk to each other so that we don't disturb others. In reply I wrote, yeah Smith I have actually found something that I can gift and I am pretty sure he'll enjoy it with a smiley. I am planning to make his most favorite dessert.

Jaggery Blocks

Rice flakes (Ada)

Usually work has been very hectic for me since I joined this new job, but that day I was in standby as the application was in testing phase. So as there was nothing much for me to do at work I was passing my time by reading the blogs that I follow and news. Now that I had finalized the gift I needed to start planning. I knew that we had the ingredients as we bought 'sharkara' (jaggery) and 'ada'(rice wafers) from a famous Mallu store in Atlanta called Cherian's, with Jee saying. I remembered with a smile that Jee had said 'Chal yaar bana ke khilana' when I was picking it. After browsing for an hour or so I found this site, which interestingly has most of the Mallu recipes and with very simple steps, Marias Menu.  First thing I noticed as soon as I saw this site is a lot of my friends are ardently following this site and even adding comments. That made me confident and I decided to follow Maria's recipe for making 'Ada Prathaman'.

Spending most of the Saturday afternoon styling and designing my blog to give it a more pleasing look, I am all set to make the dessert. This reminds me of a promise I made to a very dear friend, a very talented Bengali girl, Shomdatta. I had once suggested her to write blogs after she showed me some of her poems and short stories, that I'll help her design her blog site some 2 years back. Shom, I have learned about how to design the blog site now so am all set to help you anytime! ;-)

Jee's B'day, 2006

Coming back to the B'day topic, of course our US born little six year old won't understand the authenticity of preparing a delicious 'nadan' meal for Daddy's day and B'day, so I'll have to sneak out of home to buy a small cake for a family b'day party.

****Some of the incidents and characters mentioned are pure works of imagination. Readers may sometimes find associating themselves or their acquaintances to a couple of situations. In those cases I  hope they would enjoy the journey through...

The much anticipated vacation to India in August 2011.

Living in America, we have come to accept the fact that we won't be able to take vacations as often as NRIs residing in Singapore or Gulf. It was so convenient when we were in Singapore. Although not as convenient as anyone whose flight ends in one of the Metros or other big cities. Being a small town family, we need another one hour flight to Raipur and an hour drive from Raipur to Bhilai, our hometown.

As both our parents are settled in Bhilai, most of our vacation time has been in Bhilai itself all this time. Back in 2007, we went to Bhilai for a month and it was the most amazing and relaxing vacation of all. It was also Jee's first after we moved to America. Our daily routine included, roaming around Bhilai and shopping. Our 3 year daughter enjoyed this trip more than us as she didn't even complain once when we went on our trips down memory lane without her. She enjoyed so much playing as well as fighting with Jee's nephew, Sebin. Its amazing how she remembers the minute details from that vacation even now.

This coming vacation is really special for me as we have decided to visit my Brother who lives in Hyderabad. This will be our first visit to the City of Pearls. I have heard so much about Hyderabad since my brother joined Osmania University for his MCA. A second cousin of ours als

o moved to Hyderabad for a job and so lots of folks from my Mom's side have visited Hyderabad from time to time. The common thing I have heard about this place from all of them is of-course, the Hyderabadi Biriyani and Haleeem.

Having the best biriyani and haleem in the city will be one of my first things that I want to do when I am there. My brother also welcomed a new addition to his family in Feb this year. Sweet little Jiya, we have seen her a couple of times in Skype but I bet holding her in my arms when I see her will be a special feeling. Looking forward to that.....

Our 3rd stop is Kerala, God's Own Country. It will be my visit to Kerala after 11 long years. Although we have a lots of things to do while we are there, canceled some of them just to meet our friends. We'll be angering a lot of relatives but I am sure we'll have great fun with our friends. We'll come back to Kerala again to butter(maska) our relatives and make up for the visits we owed them this time. The highlight of the Kerala trip will be the house boat ride we are planning with Jee's best friend and namesake, who is also vacationing around the same time with his family.

I am also looking forward to the long train ride from Kerala to Mumbai in Konkan railways with Sweety and family. I know Rhea will love that train ride, her idea for

train is the little red train that she gets to ride when we visit the malls. It will also be a walk down memory lane for us, reviving all those train journeys we used to go on before.

In all our skype sessions Jee and Sweety(Jacob) have been planning all those things we are going to do when we meet. Mumbai has been set aside for all the fun and get-togethers. Since this is the last destination of our trip we are spending some time for shopping also. I am relying heavily on Sweety's knowledge of Mumbai's best places to shop. There is another half baked plan of meeting close friends of mine from TKM in Mumbai, Pavana and Prema. Girls get ready to party...

All in all a fun filled vacation that we all are looking forward to. :-)