Organic snobs

Sunday dawned a beautiful spring day, beautiful enough to drive V and me out of bed to get out and soak in some sun. We drove up to the farmers' market in Palo Alto, hoping to kill the two birds of grocery shopping and "outside during spring" with a single stone.
Once there, we found ourselves drawn to a stall selling all sorts of plants - flowers, herbs, veggies...you name it! Utter novices that we are at gardening, my first instinct was to admire the foliage but to keep walking. However, enticed by the prospect of no grocery shopping in the future via the "grow your own garden" route, we walked in.
As would be the case in any nursery, everything inside was growing in little pots. While I understand why a nursery would need to do so, we weren't really sure if it'd be a sustainable idea to be growing broccoli and brinjal (uh, eggplant - always thought that was a funny name) in them. V took it upon himself to find out. He caught hold of (well, not literally) the lady who looked like she was in-charge, meaning to ask her if the vegetables need to be replanted into the ground. So, he points towards a pot full of pearl onions - bestowing upon them the singular honour of representing vegetable-kind in general- and begins to ask his question, "So, these veggies...". Poor V, though. Those are the only three words he had managed to say before the lady (?) interrupted and cattily informed him - Those are not veggies, they are called onions.
Thirty seconds (which felt more like an eon) of stunned silence followed. I mean, really? First of all, he meant veggies in general. Not just onions. Secondly, even if you thought that we were a couple of morons who mistook onions to be vegetables (which is not a mistake, by the way), I am sure there are politer ways of suggesting as much? Thirdly, you are the one who needs to sell stuff here. Fourthly, even if you didn't need to / don't care, can we still have some politeness just for the sake of civility? I am sure I could even find 'fifthlies' and 'sixthlies' on how her behaviour was offensive... However, just then I decided to return to the present and rescue my poor husband who was valiantly battling with the simultaneous urges to stay quiet, walk out, smash a few pots and I suspect a few others, which he hasn't mentioned to me. So, I quietly told her, "He meant veggies in general." (It always bothers me that I can never respond to snootiness with snootiness. For example, why couldn't I say something like: They are called onions and they *are* veggies? Anyhow, let me not digress). So, anyway, no apology followed. The rest of the conversation happened in a haze and we walked out, needless to say, without buying anything.
Once outside the stall of horrors, we cheered up a bit - the day was still bright and beautiful, the breeze was still a caress and everything around us was still a riot of colours. Thus emboldened by our surroundings, we decided to try our luck elsewhere. We bought some freshly baked bread and our find of finds - mangoes! And then, like moths attracted to a flame, our legs carried us to the 'Santa Cruz Pasta Factory' stall. They had a lot of varieties of (uncooked) pasta, 4-5 kinds of sauces, a few types of raviolis - everything looked really good. Without much dilly-dallying, I told the lady behind the counter that I'd buy. I picked out a packet of spaghetti, a box of pesto sauce and then, I spied a sign advertising a special price on buying pasta, sauce and ravioli together. Since I already had the first two, it made sense to buy some ravioli too and asked the lady for her recommendation. She started pointing to the various boxes on the table and explaining, "The butternut squash is really nice and flavorful, the roasted asparagus is my favorite and (face pinched into an expression of disgust now), if you eat animals then people tell me that the ham and gouda cheese is excellent too." I couldn't believe it! What is your point, exactly? Who are you to sit in judgment over meat-eaters when you, yourself are selling it? If you really really want to take a stand against it, then may I suggest not selling it? None of this, however, came out of my mouth. V promptly came to my rescue and since we were already in the middle of a transaction, told her that we'll take the roasted asparagus, paid and both of us walked out (damn! we are both so meek :( Can we at least inherit the earth, please?).
Once outside, we both had a good laugh about their smug and superior attitude. However, I'd be lying if I said that it doesn't take away from the shopping experience. I understand and respect the organic movement and vegetarianism. I can even understand that in these parts of the world, it is a little hip to subscribe to these philosophies. What I don't get is how can people, especially those out to sell their wares, give you needless attitude?
When I go out to a farmers' market to shop, all I am looking for is some fresh, chemical-free food purchased in a pleasnt setting. I really do not want unadulterated snobbery in the bargain.

P.S. Cooked the raviolis for dinner last night. They didn't even taste that good.

When your head becomes the neck (of the bottle)

Yes, I did it! I further legitimized my claim to being a full-fledged member of the bloggers' club by going and getting myself a "blogger's block".
I started writing the previous post, the one on upbringing, on Thursday, March 26 at 5:13 PM (which is what the time-stamp on the post says). I didn't get around to posting it till about 15 minutes ago - which makes it just after 4 PM on Friday, March 27. The intervening 24 hours were a really hard struggle to put 2 (or for that matter, even 1!) coherent sentences together. It was like I had been asked to write in Spanish! My only solace during this time was that my google search on "bloggers block" yielded 142,000 results - clearly, I am not alone in this state of "all engines are firing, but nothing is moving".
Hopefully, the weekend will help me unclutter my mind. A few glasses of wine always do the trick :)

Btw, what do you do when you want to blog but the mind goes blah?

Bringing up upbringing

Since the time I decided to marry V and knew that I'd be moving to America, I have maintained that I want to move back to India because, more than anything else, I do not want to bring my kids up over here. I do not know what factors in my subconscious make me think of India as a better place to raise children. Consciously, my decision was based on my yearning to keep my children close to their roots.
And then, last weekend happened. As I mentioned 2 posts ago, V's boss and his family came over for dinner. Now, these guys are expatriate Indians - the couple moved here some 15-odd years ago and their kids (ages 12, 10 and 6) were born and raised here. The amazing thing is, looking at those kids, you can barely tell - they speak accent-less Hindi, which incidentally is not stilted due to a limited vocabulary; the younger ones address the older ones as didi (both the older ones are girls); they eat their food, including rice, with their fingers and not forks; they brought their palms together and did a Sai-Pranam before starting dinner. What is even more amazing is that all of this was completely effortless - these were not kids brought up by overbearing parents who had disciplined the crap out of them. They were smart, funny, spontaneous; and very very rooted, more so than a lot of kids I know back in India.
It's been almost a week now since they visited and I still haven't stopped marveling about that family. During this time, I have wondered that maybe it was because it is no longer that tough to hold on to your Indian-ness, especially in these parts of America. I have also considered the possibility that maybe it's the sheltered lives those kids have had so far that the questions of identity are yet to raise their hydra-head. Or maybe, just maybe, those guys were the lucky few who actually do own the map to good parenting.
Fotunately, I still have a long way to go before parenthood happens. Hopefully, by then, I will have more wisdom and a magic wand.

Dot(com)ing Couple

Today is our first engagement anniversary!
Strangely, the moment I said that, I was reminded of Sonali Kulkarni's timetable boyfriend from Dil Chahta Hai - the one who buys her a heart-shaped balloon for every occasion. Given, though, that knowing your engagement anniversary is far more legitimate than knowing your first ice-cream anniversary and since I am certainly not buying V any balloons, I shall let this random thought *finally* pass.
So, like I said, today is our first engagement anniversary. V and I met through...hold your breath...shaadi.com. Yes, that's right. There is, it seems, some truth to the statistics of a gazillion matches on their website.
I got on to the shaadi (.com) bandwagon after it dawned on me that I was 27, still hadn't found anybody on my own and my parents' efforts to get me hooked up were leading from one disaster to another (from the creepy guy who quickly latched on to my feminist views and told me that he was looking for a family of one husband and one wife, not two husbands or two wives; to the (doctor) guy whose first question to me was if I was suffering from any medical illnesses. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had fished out his stethoscope if I had said that I did. Damn, maybe I should have!).
Anyhow, so after a dozen or so such disasters, I decided to get over my reservations regarding matrimonial websites ("they are only for losers!", "the kind of guy I am looking for will *never* put his profile on a matrimonial website" etc. etc.) and give shaadi a try.
V, on the other hand, was smarter. He realized quickly that since he hadn't bumped into his soul-mate on a railway platform (or, in his case, a research lab), getting online was his best bet.
After months and months of mostly junk responses, which deserve a separate post all to themselves , we (read V :)) finally hit the jackpot. V was absolutely smitten the first time we talked on the phone (ha!). I took longer (am slow on the uptake) but finally concurred with him and we too, became a shaadi.com statistic.
And here we are today, celebrating our first engagement anniversary. Here's to many more!

P.S. V's profile on shaadi was called V(name)29. Imagine my delight then, to be stopped at a red light behind this vehicle during our honeymoon:

On seasons and seasoning

The spring has officially started. My backyard already has one purple flower, two reds and a teeny-tiny lime. The birds are chirping, the sky is a deep, deep blue and the breeze feels lovely against my skin.
Thus prodded by the weather, I couldn't help humming that song from the Dell commercial: "I am green today. I chirp with joy at the cricket song". These being all the lyrics I knew, Google came to the rescue (Spring is making me rhyme too!). Not only did I find the ad in question, I also found the original song from which the clip in the ad has been taken. You can watch it here.
The video isn't much, but I like the lyrics.

Morning has given way to afternoon and I still have this song stuck in my head. While the music has stayed the same, the lyrics have now changed to: "I am cooking today - tadka daal and paalak paneer. I am cooking today".
The reason I am cooking such a spread is that V's boss and his family are coming over for dinner. While I am not a bad cook at all, this is still quite a big step for us - from having just couples over, for whom pretty much anything goes (wine and pizza is a party), to having a family over (couple + 3 kids) who are used to eating a good meal at home on a daily basis.
Hopefully, things won't be a complete disaster. In case they actually turn out to be good, a big measure of thanks will be due to Meena, Manisha, Nandita and all the wonderful women out there in the foodie blogosphere who have, unknown to themselves, taught me how to cook.
In fact, they and their fabulous food blogs deserve a separate post of their own which I shall soon do. In the meantime, let me figure out how to hold this ladle while keeping my fingers crossed!

A night of miracles

I suspected all along and it's finally confirmed - I suffer from delusions of grandeur. How else do you explain the fact that it's been less than a week since I started blogging, have written all of 3 posts, but am already beginning to get disappointed that nobody is following, or even commenting upon my blog? So, just in case you (yes, YOU!) happen to read this, do leave a comment :)

Moving on to other things. V (= hubby) and I were invited to a "miracle fruit tasting party" last week. For the uninitiated, the miracle fruit is a native of Africa and consuming this fruit causes sour food to taste sweet for the next 30-odd minutes. A miracle fruit tasting party, then, is essentially about having lemons for dessert. The guests at the said party took this a step further by also having vinegar as port. Needless to say, I had a lot of fun. I also had the sweetest grapefruit of my life!

Now, if only my blog were to get some followers. How would that be for a miracle?

A slice of pi?

Living in the Silicon Valley is not without its side effects. Take, for instance, the fact that I happen to *know* that today is pi day (pi as in the number 22/7 or 3.1415xxxx...) because today's date is March 14 (3.14).
Now, the piles upon piles of useless trivia in my head are feeling extremely uncomfortable sharing neighborly space with this pearl of information which has the word 'geeky' written all over it.
Anyhow, the tradition apparently is to smash some pies to mark the occasion. Loath to the idea of wasting good food, especially dessert, but still wanting to uphold the spirit of things, hubby and I have decided to eat pie and get smashed ourselves, instead.
Might even be appropriate to sing: Thodi si jo pi li hai...
Happy pi day!

Jinxed? No Way!

I just realized that I have jinxed myself right at the outset by choosing to do the much delayed 'ribbon-cutting' of this blog on Friday, the 13th.
My eyes, which seem to have a very different perspective of this dark cloud from behind their silver-tinted glasses, try to calm the rest of me : Look at it this way, you are doing your second post of the day *because* it is Friday, the 13th. That can't be a bad omen! Having failed to refute this water-tight argument, I am nodding sagely. Plus, I am thinking, these western superstitions don't apply to us desis. As long as a kali billi did not kato my rasta, I should be safe.
What makes me really smug, though, is the thought that if this blog gets neglected/abandoned due to busyness (read laziness), we all know who to blame! :)

We'll see where this goes...

Can't believe I am finally doing it - my first post!
I created this blog, or rather, this account on blogger more than a year ago. Blame it partly on laziness and partly on, well, feelings of insufficiency after reading other people's blogs (who knew that the line dividing a blog and an agony aunt letter was a fine one!) that I never got down to actually posting something here.
So, here I am... finally trying to make room on the back burner for other stuff. We will see for how long this new-found motivation sticks.