My Travel and Living

The last one year, has been quite eventful. From moving into a new city, to getting into a new job, from meeting new people, to living a new and a different sort of life. A beautifully strange year, it has been. . The Bombay Struggle wasn't really a struggle again in the conventional Bombay way, but yeah, its been a struggle all right. Except for the house hunt. That was the stinker. Literally. But this interesting year will be cherished. A Sweet Pain of some sorts.

During all this "the struggle", I have had the luxury of the conventional escape. The elaborate  - Travel and Living.

In this one year I have travelled to over 13 different villages in Western Maharashtra, atleast 9 cities in India and 3 different countries. I also had a chance to travel to Spain, but that's another story. The chance will strike back again sometime :D planning. Saving. Ok, just planning.

Dubai was my latest. Two of my closest friends live there. Hence this was a blessing in disguise. A break after horrible two months. It was blissful to chill with them. I was taken out for the sight seeing, for dinner, for drives on the fantastic Dubai Flyover, shopping (gee) -  packed 3-4 days with no sleep- my forever gracious hostess, indebted to her always :)

View from "At the Top" Khalifa.



Visit to Singapore in Feb. Stayed at Sentosa hence was close to all the touristy stuff. My good luck had a close friend again come over to Singapore at the same time. The sad lonely trip became awesome :)

The Merlion ofcourse at One Fullerton.

Udaipur staying at UdaiVillas.  The most beautiful place ever. It was a dream. Partied at Jal Mandir till late. The folk dances, the food and everything, that is royal and exotic. One must try the Thai Massage at the Spa there. Its heavenly. And MUST meet the Oberoi Chef, Gaurav. I had the most exotic and awesomest icecream in the world as a part of the chef's experiment.We were the last of the guests in the season. I had a mushroom olive oil and truffle icecream  :) Yes weird but effing awesome. And oh! His awesomest basil dosa. Oh my god. Slurrrpp.

  

Must take these pics when you are in Rajasthan :)

My favourite location, of all the places, was Vietnam. Hanoi and Ha Long Bay were absolutely gorgeous. The food was brilliant, the city was beautiful, visited some local homes there which was supremely interesting. A fantastic holiday spot.  However, I went there for work. Not complaining. 

 

 Ha Long Bay

 A floating fishing village

My favourite food experience at Hanoi were these restaurants - The Tamarind, Quan An Ngon, and Wine Vine Boutique Bar and Restaurant. While Tamarind is all vegeterian (we had a lot of vegetarians in our group), Wine Vine served the best french food ever. The risotto there was the best  I have ever had apart from the usual frenchie stuff. Quan An Ngon was a perfect place to try out the local Vietnamese food. Ordered frog legs that they ran out of . Must try the pork spring rolls. The Vietnamese know how to cook. Tamarind was a good place for the weak hearted. Its totally safe for vegetarians.  But I dig the meat and the sea food. Brilliant. Mussels, Crabs, Pork, weird fish preps which i cant pronounce, baked oysters, and all that jazz.


The most exciting of them all were my visits to the Maharashtran Villages. The customary milky chai (which i am not very fond of) in every household. The highway food with different preparation of the star marathi dishes, the ghauti chicken with some local indian bread in Ahmednagar, shopping reallly cheap plants in miles and miles of nurseries on the pune highway, well one and half months was spent in just mad village hopping. The most beautiful ones were Ranjangaon, Talegaon(not a village anymore), and Karjat (popular farmhouse destination for bollywood)

This is from Daund, my most frequently visited village.

 Local nothings :) 

 A place where I would like to buy my farmhouse. From Pune to Talegaon :)

Ranjangaon. A village surrounded by hills from all sides. 

 My 300 bucks plant shopping

 :) a must

 Karjat Gaon, Right after the rains

                                                                                                                                  The famous missal pav

 Local Flavours

Garlic Coriander Prawns with Thai Chillies and Onions

Like any usual day, I went to the supermarket to buy my groceries and pick up some chicken breasts for the Independence lunch, day after. I am patriotic in a many ways. Very passionate too. I dont have to be an army officer for that. I help by contributing to the GDP of my country (eyes roll). The food treat is also to celebrate a midweek holiday :)

As I go to the shelf to pick up some meat, I see some yummy seafood, which I would order only at a restaurant or wait for my awesome cook of a mommy to turn it out of her pan. And in one of those "what the fuck" moments, I pick up some prawns to satisfy my chef "keeda". I dont know how to clean them. I dont know how to cook them. The prawns, I mean. However, I know that coconut milk would go perfectly well with it. Nope. No Luck.Out of Stock.

I got back home at 9 and decided to just quickly read up online on how to clean the thingie and how much time does it take to cook it in a pan. However, I decided to stick to my cooking instincts for the recipe (an arrogant sniff). I love you mom, Jamie Oliver and Masterchef Australia for that :)

Serves 2 helpings
Ingredients
175 gms of Prawns, deveined and cleaned
3 tbsp Olive Oil4-5 Thai chillies, sliced diagonally
6 cloves of Garlic, crushed and chopped
1/2 a Lemon
1/4 tsp of Lemon Zest
1 Onion, finely chopped
a few stems of Coriander leaves, finely chopped
1/2 tbsp Ginger,finely chopped
1/2 tbsp Sugar. ( I would have liked to use palm sugar but I was out of stock)
1/4 tsp Black Pepper, crushed
1 tbsp Butter

Salt to taste

Marinate:
Mix the prawns with 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt, garlic, lemon, lemon zest, salt and chillies in a bowl. Rest it for 30 minutes.

Cooking:
Heat a pan with the rest of the oil. Add ginger and onions. Stir till slightly brown and add the prawns with the marinate. Cook each side of the prawn for about 45 seconds. Add pepper,sugar and coriander. Mix well. Finish it off with the butter.


And thats my lunch for tomorrow at work. Hope I dont ruin my chutti with food poisoning.The only problem with the dish was that it wasnt as dry as I had imagined it to be. The prawns and the onions left a lot of water. Didnt want to over cook my prawns, so I just let it be. It is yummy though :)

PS: Note to me: SAVE UP for your own Canon DSLR 650D :).Phone pics are gross and dated.

Food Marriage Tips:
1) Seafood needs lemon and salt. Always marinate/dress/serve with lemon. Seafood also start to cook in lemon juice. Hence depending on how long you have marinated it, you may have to reduce the cooking time (on fire).

For the love of Muzzhic

No I have not, not been listening to good stuff these days. However, joining back work after 2 months (phbhbhbtt not a cool thing this time), did leave a mammothian backlog to which my Boss said today, "3 Mahine me ho jaayega. Manage kar le". His faith is yes inspiring but mostly scary. In retrospect - There goes my raise :D. So while I was seemingly away (snicker, like I am a regular Blogger and snicker snicker, like I have followers),  but yeah, these few songs and artists have taken my breath away.

This particular one is rather disturbing but very haunting. I likes not a martyr sort of way, but still. Never knew someone would write a song on accidental babies.

Once the sad one is done: the happier ones are kick ass

And finally no discovery but just for old times sake. The best of Massive Attack.. This is the full album. Get a highstream bandwidth and have fun. Lot of background scores for many films and TV series was picked up from this album. House MD, Matrix, The Jackal, etc

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1039315/

There were more. But I have lost them in my playlist. Will post them later.