Dinner party

We had invited G's friends for dinner last thursday, I wanted to make Thair vada (Dahi vada) for a long time... So called mom and got the recipe

2 cups of Urad dal
1-2 tablespoon of rice (I put a fist of rice)
Salt
Black pepper (whole or powder)
Oil for frying
Curd/ Yogurt

Soak the urad dal and rice together for 1-2 hrs

Then grind it to a thick paste (more the water content, more oil its soaks while frying)



Heat the oil in a pan/kadhai (anything which can be used for deep frying)
once the oil is sufficiently hot, put small portions of the batter in the oil



Once the vadas are golden brown take them out of the oil into a tissue to soak out excess oil.



Keep a vessel of hot water ready, put these fried vadas into hot water. Let it soak for a few mins



Now take these out of water, squeeze out the water, and soak these vadas into thick curd. Leave it for sometime, now the vadas are ready to be served



Of course, use grated carrots, coriander leaves for garnishing.

Once these were done, made some raitha (cucumber, onion and tomatoes), then pulav (with cauliflower, beans carrots, lima beans and peas), fruit salad, cucumber salad, curd rice and then finally ice cream....











The dinner time was fun. I hope eveybody liked the food... I thoroughly enjoyed myself... Maybe we should do this more often :)

Just Thinking!!!

I just saw Swades.. ya ya I know its not a new one and is one of the movies which shouldnt be missed. But then, it so happens that I couldnt watch it earlier... I must say. SRK's not overacted and he is good in this movie :)

There is a scene where Mohan (SRK's character) and the villagers are discussing about how India is and how America is, and then one of them says India is the best country coz of the sanskar & parampara. This is when Mohan disagress and says that people in the US too have their own traditions and just coz Indians dont know. it doesnt mean they dont have any. I kind of agree with that.

Years before, much before I came to US, I also had the same thinking like many of us Indians about the country America and the people who stay here. I wouldnt say Americans coz people who stay here include so many other nationals too. Most of it, derived from the Hindi movies and also the very few English movies I had seen. The most important thing I had thought was, there was no family concept in Us, people dint respect each other, people dint care for other people and also that Indians who come to US forget their family back in India and all those things which were shown on our Silver screen.

When I landed in US, I dint know what to expect. Slowly, I started observing people. One by one all the inhibitions just broke... I met people who cared for family so much... met moms who cared for kids, as my mom would do. Saw wives who cared for their husbands, saw daughters/sons who cared for their parents. I got to know about a lot of traditions too. And yes, if you respected them, you would get that back too. And ofcourse, the Indians here dont forget their family or the traditions or anything of that sort. There are all kinds of people in this world, so if somebody changes its not the country, its just that the situation was such that people changes. Are people in India not changing?? So why do we have this hesitance to accept that US also is a good country.

Somehow I have been lucky to stay in both the countries, I think I can see most of the things in both the countries and also realize whats good and bad.
Its time all of us realize that we might be good rather great, but that doesnt mean the rest of them are horrible!!!