Shiva Vishnu Temple and their Yummmm Ladoos!

Today after a long time, my husband and me decided to visit the Shiva Vishnu temple at Livermore,the one place that resembles a temple in the bay area with all others looking more like houses converted into make-shift temples. As always after our Darshan, we went for our prasad, which apparently is a full time weekend Lunch/Meal to most of the Bachelors residing in the Bay area, with most of them going for seconds, there was hardly anything left for us or anyone standing after us in the line. We grabbed what little we could and headed to buy our treat...the lovely Ladoos, from the main office. These Ladoos are the closest thing to the Tirupathi Ladoos in terms of the taste, so i asked the lady and guess what, she told me that s because they now have the Tirupathi Cook prepare Ladoos at the temple here...WOW!!!...of all the temples in the US he had to land up in Livermore...THANK GOD for that. So for all of you who are right about now craving for these lovely ladoos...drive down to Livermore...and they only cost $3 a Ladoo. Enjoy!!!

When you invite your guests over for dinner.....

I am sure most of the women would agree with me on this one-the amount of thought we put into "What do i prepare for my guests". Cooking itself is not half as tiring as coming up with a menu tailored specifically for your guests. I have come up with this one simple formula(which does not necessary always apply or work for you ;))...I am a South Indian,,If your guests are from the north of India..chances are they would love to taste your South Indian specialities,however if you want to prepare North Indian food then you better be very good at it(better than them) or be ready to subject your food to Critics' comments. On the other hand if your guests are from the South, they do not necessarily always prefer North Indian Cuisine over South Indian . Now things get interesting, being an Indian, I think it is unfair to divide the cuisine to South/North, as every region has its own specialities, which gives us more options, so let your guests try out something specific to your hometown/native region, I am sure they will appreciate the effort and ask you for the recipe;)...translation-your dish is a HIT!!!!!

Yesterday night i had a couple of friends and their parents over for dinner. Most of them are Originally from Rajhasthan. My menu was simple but had three elements to it (South, Regional and common)....Idli and Sambhar, which is a well known and loved 'SOUTH' Indian food even among the North Indians......Bisibelebath (Curried Lentil and rice) which is specific to the Bangalore/Mysore region...and Udina Vade ( Lentil fritters in Karnataka) also known as Mendhu Vada in the north, this was my safe bet as it is prepared both in the North and the South. My guests enjoyed the dinner, my menu was a success, I am a happy person.

When I am the guest, I relish my Friends' Rajasthani/Gujrati/Andhra/Madras cuisine...thats the best part about being an Indian...the variety of food is amazing!...a get-together always ends up in exchanging recipe notes over the dinner table:)

of passions and hobbies

this time when i was vacationing in india, i told myself there were a lot of things i wanted to do once i got back, basically, dance lessons, Volunteering so on and so forth....so once i got back and started my search, i stumbled upon these belly dance classes that are being held at the san mateo community college close to home, perfectttt!....but guess what, i already missed 3 out of the total 7 classes in a session and now the next session starts only in sept....i am very passionate about dancing, so i must admit i am a little disappointed... then i found these bollywood dance lessons at PJCC, foster city...even better...but these classes are ongoing too and the next session starts in june...so much for that....then there is the volunteering , yes and i found the ultiamte job online ,dog training assistant at the peninsula humane society,for a dog lover like me there can be no better job, so i applied as soon as i got back from india, only to find out that there is a long list of volunteers to fill the job and my first orientation is in june, should have guessed, this country has too many dog lovers...hmmmm...i am very passionate about animals too, so double disappointment. Huh, a month of misses!....atleast i have things lined up for me starting this june....in the meantime, back to vegetating!

House

ok, so i admit...im an addict now. When my husband started watching House on tv i did everything in my capacity to distract him, to persuade him not to watch the 'BORING' serial with the horribly inhumane,self conceited doctor who treats every one of his patient like a lab rat...only to realise that now im so hooked to it, that i have to have my daily dose of house...sometimes more than one...and now the same doctor seems remarkably human, strikingly attractive and terribly emotional (my husband is wondering if House's blue eyes has anything to do with all of this)...may be maybe not...but all in all, the tv serial is definitely gripping, the plots are very interesting...and i will surely be seeing more of it.....

well, i just started blogging and am already enjoying the pleasures of mindless rambling!