LA Trip

We took a road trip to LA with L's parents. The itinerary included the standard desi spots such as Disney Land (day 1), Sea World (day 2), Beverly Hills/Santa Barbara (day 3) and Solvang (day 4).

The kids had a blast in Disney Land.



All of us were completely dehydrated in Sea World, thanks to an extremely hot day. Vish was particularly tired and really gave us a tough time :-)



Things heated up further the next day in Santa Barbara downtown with daddy picking a wrong spot to eat lunch and Vish deciding to calm down after getting to the beach finally at 3.30pm.



All of us enjoyed our time in Solvang, even though it wasn't long enough

Can't drive-in anymore in Chennai

Read here

Rice to the occassion

Looks like we need to "rice" to the occassion

Bhakshanam

L, obviously relaxed after her recently acquired LEED AP certification, spent the day making some delicious goodies (aka Bhakshanam) for us over the weekend. The plan was to have these for our upcoming LA trip. But all of them - thenkuzhal, chakli, omapudi, were all so nice and tasty, that we finished most of them by late afternoon.

So L has to make some more for the trip and we hope that she stashes them away some place safe so that we can actually have it during the trip :-)

LEED AP Certified

L, having worked really hard for the 2 months, has successfully completed her LEED AP certification. Congrats L!!

Whose problem is it anyway?

The main problem with me is that I treat everyone's problem like my own problem. If I don't treat it like my own, I blame myself for being insensitive to the other person's problem. So I usually try to treat it like my own problem.

If I treat it like my own problem, I try to solve the problem in my way and this might not be liked by the other person and hence causing more problems :-)

I still don't have a clue as to how to draw a fine line to solve the above problem. Any ideas?? No problem if you don't have any ideas :-)

Vegetarian Lasagna, Parmigiano/Romano rolls and Brownies

The culinary experiment for this week comprised the above menu based on the recipes that I saw here, here and here.

Since I started pretty late in the evening and almost all of these recipes involved some serious baking, I could only do the lasagna and the rolls for dinner. I made brownies the following day. I followed these recipes very religiously and it took me almost 3.5 hours to get these 2 items done. The only subsitution that I made was that I used Parmigiano-Romano for the rolls as my local grocer didn't carry Parmigiano-Reggiano.

This was a new experience for all of us. The lasagna came out really well and all of us enjoyed it a lot. L and her mom liked the rolls a lot as well, whereas L's dad didn't enjoy them very much. He felt that the cheese taste was not up to his liking.

The brownies were chocaliciously good and infectious and saw both my darling sons eating it with and without my knowledge :-) This recipe will be a regular in our kitchen from now on

I really wish I had taken some pics of the lasagna/rolls/brownies to post them here. However it was comforting to note that they turned out quite similar to the ones that I saw here, here and here.

Puthandu Nal Vazhthukkal 2008

Our best wishes for a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year for one & all

Only in India

What the #$%^

Temper tantrums....or WWE

Vishruth, our little one, is really hot-headed for his young age of 21 months. Most notable incident among his recent outbursts was the one that happened yesterday after we came, running, from the park. Since the weather was very good yesterday (ah..finally), L and I took the kids to the park. Vidyuth and Vishruth had all the fun that they could playing in the slide, swing, mud etc. When it was time to leave, Vishruth, started crying and I just grabbed him and sprinted towards home which, thankfully, is right opposite the park. Running 500m with a crying 31lb toddler was not what I had planned as a relaxation last evening.

Once we reached home, to my utter shock and disbelief, Vishruth jumped up and landed on his rear, much like what we are used to seeing (or avoiding) in WWE-type fights. He did this at least 4-5 times to vent out his anger/frustration that we didn't let him stay in the park for as long as he wanted to. I have not watched WWE all my life and I'm quite certain that I have ensured that my kids haven't either, at least so far. I'm really clueless as to where he picked up this action/anger from. After a few mins of ignoring him (and I'm sure his rear hurt by now), he finally stopped and transformed into an angel that he usually is

Happy 6th Wedding Anniversary

It was this day, 6 years ago, that L & I entered into wedlock. Over the past 6 years, based on the all the experiences, both good and bad, that we have had together, has helped us both realize the love that we have for each other. The strength of our bonds of matrimony, which has matured slowly but steadily, has helped us understand each other and accepting each other for who we are.

I want to mention a beautiful quote that I read somewhere a while back. Since I don't remember where I read it, I'm unable to credit the source.

"The ultimate test of relationship is to hold hands even during a disagreement!!"

6 years and going strong

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary. Happy anniversary to US:)

Tearful farewell to my friend Balaji

One of my close friends from college, CD Balaji Sankar - fondly called "CaDaBS" passed into the ages today at 12:55pm (IST). He had been battling, very bravely, the second attack of brain tumor for the past 6 months. The doctors who were attending to him gave up all possible hope and all of us were only praying for a miracle. He successfully fought the same battle for the first time 4.5 years ago. He is survived by his elderly parents, his wife and his 2 young girls. I really hope and pray that God gives his family all the strength and courage during this tough time

He was one of my closest friends in college. He was a quiet, kind-hearted, simpleton from Dindigul (a city in southern Tamil Nadu). Though he had no previous exposure to computers before coming to Pilani, he never gave up during all those challenging programming assignments. He worked really hard and came out with flying colors and got a job thru campus interview with TCS with whom he worked until he breathed his last

CaDaBS...you will be missed!!

Cash....ew!!! Pakoda

Based on the recipe that I saw here, I tried to make them at home last weekend for our Saturday night wine-beer session. The recipe yielded about 16 medium sized pakodas. The recipe is actually very simple and healthy and the pakodas came out reasonably well for a maiden attempt. L's parents, for whom I actually made these, enjoyed it a lot. This actually was a very good side dish for our Chianti and Heineken

I personally felt that the pakodas lacked crispiness and so if I were to make this again, I would probably increase the oil by another teaspoon or so to get them to be crispy.

PS: The pakodas didn't stay on the plate long enough for me to take pics :-)