Shelby

Actually there are several traditional "pastas" in India. My theory is that every culture has some noodle or pasta type dishes. Some examples from India are: *Sevai. This thin, vermicelli type noodle is used a lot in desserts. Also in South India it is made into upma. This is a sort of dry dish with spices and vegetables, one picture is here. Other savoury dishes include sevai in spiced yoghurt, with tamarind, etc. just like a number of rice dishes. These noodles are mostly made of wheat, but there is a rice sevai too. *Idiyappam. This is steamed fresh rice noodles, from South India. They are steamed in little nest shapes or flat discs, example here. Delicious when eaten with veg kurma, veg stew (not a western dish btw but veg in delicately spiced coconut milk) or sweetened coconut milk. *Kadhi sometimes contains noodle-like things. Strips of (non-fried) pappad, little noodles made of chickpea flour, etc. *Gujurat has a dish called dal dhokli which is bits of wheat "noodle" cooked in dal. These "noodles" are basically made from uncooked chapati dough, often cut into diamond shapes. Very delicious! *Khandvi (pictured previously in the blog) are somewhat pasta like, though very different in style of consumption and so on. Other vaguely noodle-y snacks are deepfried, such as sev. I am sure there are loads more, these are just some examples. Also "Chinese" food is really popular here, with all sorts of noodle dishes being eaten. Imagine something similar to the Westernised Chinese food found in America and UK, but spicy! Italian is taking off more here too and you can buy all sorts of Italian pasta in shops. Thank you, Jenni. This looks delicious! Right up my alley. I must make this. This looks good, too!

I'm strapped in and ready to go

Percyn, I know it's not a typical food, but is any sort of pasta ever eaten there?

Happy Diwali and Happy New Year to you! Here are some fireworks we lit last night. For those who may not be familiar, Diwali is a major festival in India (kind of a combination of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year) and is widely celebrated. Most schools and business are shut for a few days if not a week or more. While not technically a Parsi holiday, in true form we never turn down an opportunity to celebrate, often with much gusto. What? Today is Wed? There must be some reason to party I remember first hearing about Diwali from an episode of The Office The celebration that you had looks SO fun!!! I'm really enjoying being introduced to all of these new (to me) foods.

Jenni, Streets are filled with vendors decorating their stalls with bright shiny lights. Traffic in Mumbai is crazier than usual. I am now convinced that India is a country of faith - not just religious faith, but also faith that there is an invisible shield of protection that covers the vehicle you operate as it comes hurling onto incoming traffic and pedestrians play a real life version of the game Frogger. Yes, you are correct that meat consumption is limited by income, but I am surprised to see that only 30%-50% of Indians are vegetarians. Jenni, may I request you to be the resident Indian expert and keep me honest through the blog? ETA: I must have read your mind as I had excellent Vada Pau in Pune yesterday. Will post the pics shortly. You describe what you're living so perfectly. You must be a writer of novels. I laughed out loud with the Frogger comparison!

I really enjoyed your week I am now craving cheese and pork cheek.

Interesting. I have never heard of this. However, after learning what it was, my husband does a sort of gleaning while I'm canning tomatoes. After I'm done peeling, cutting out bad chunks etc. He goes back through my "leavings" and picks out even smaller bits that I don't take the time to carve out and he then runs them through the juicer to make tomato juice.

Can't wait for this week! I LOVE Braunschweiger.......seeing this reminds me that I don't buy it nearly as often as I should.

O M G I love this!

Shelby, I hate raw tomatoes, I never eat salsa( unless its mango salsa) so tell your hubby you dont have to have salsa with fish. Can you get corn tortillas where you live? A fish and chips shop opened on the corner in my former town in Ontario. I bought some of the fried halibut, brought it home and made fish tacos out of it( with corn tortillas that I brought back on a previous visit to Cali). I brought one up to the shop so the owner could try it, but he just didnt get it at all. LOL. I couldnt even buy corn tortillas in Exeter, I think most ppl who dont know about them or havent been exposed to them, prefer flour. We have quite a few Mexican markets here that make their own tortillas, I could eat them warm out of the package and be very happy. My catering days are long over. I only did it in Ontario out of necessity. I have psoriatic arthritis and its really hard on my joints to be cooking non-stop. The arthritis is the reason I went back to college and law school, because I couldnt cook anymore. I do still bake a few times a month. For instance, I baked my aunt and uncle an anniversary cake last month, I baked a few things for Rosh Hashana and I'm going to bake a cake this week for a "cakewalk". Anyone ever make a "boob" cake? Whenever we go to my aunts for dinner or to a potluck, I always bring a few things. I belong to a few foodie groups and I'm throwing a big retirement party for Julie next month. She's also in the airforce reserves and she is retiring from that after 27yrs. All those things satisfy my cooking needs. Oh, I also bake stuff for Julie's work a lot. Cops will eat anything, as long as they know where it came from. LOL. I can't get the "good" kind of corn tortillas, but I can get them. I'm definitely going to make these...I just won't tell hubby what he's actually eating LOL. I'm sorry about your "Arthur" as I call it. I have a tiny bit in my hands already, but nothing as severe as yours....I can imagine how hard it is to cook. I've never made a boob cake, but I've eaten pasta shaped like boobs before...

Enjoying your blog, Randi! Do you think you'll ever get back into catering or anything like that? Do you miss it? I'm pretty sure you don't miss the Senior Center stuff, though lol. I've never had a fish taco. They are something I've always wanted to try, but I haven't because my husband turns his nose up at them. He has it in his head that they are like a regular taco and he hates anything tomato (like salsa) with fish. Sigh. I need to show him a picture of yours.

Hi Cali!!! I feel like I haven't seen you in forever!!!

Oh that burger and oh those clams. Great looking.

Kay, this is amazing. That would make me skip horse racing...and that takes a lot lol.

Thanks so much, Scotty, I know it's really hard to document all you've done. I really enjoyed reading and seeing your life.

Oh my! Thank you! I need to give them away. I keep eating them See if your local library has a copy of The Cake Mix Doctor. She starts with a box mix and adds different ingredients. My mom has this recipe book and loves it. Thanks! I'll check it out!

Ok, thanks. I love, love love the skin......hmmmmmmmm.....makes my mind wander to Scotty's chicken skin chips.... Thank you for the clarification. I lump them all into "rainbow" lol. Sounds nice, simple and good. Will the skin stick? Should I spray with Pam or use some butter? My step dad fly fishes too! I'm not skilled enough to go that route. I'd hook myself and flip over. Mmmmmm bacon....I hadn't thought of that, but YUM. I tend to start the same but then pan fry both sides until crisp and then bake until cooked. After removing the fish from the oven and then the pan, I make a sauce with shallots, butter and olive oil, white wine and lots of drained capers. finish with more butter. Pour on fish. One of the wife's fav dishes. I'm still working on not getting the skin to stick to the pan during the pan frying stage. I use a non-stick, I shake the pan a lot. I've tried a dusting of flour on the skin first. Most of the time it still sticks. See, I'm afraid of sticking, too and I don't want to waste of that skin 'cause I love it. Capers sound great. Such great ideas, everyone I thank you and keep 'em coming if you have 'em. I'm thinking I can trade some of our venison for more fish.

Those look really good, Shelby. I actually use cake mixes fairly often for yellow and white cakes (I haven't yet found a dependable 'go-to' recipe for those yet) - and when I get a surprise "We need a cake" request. While I prefer the taste of a scratch cake, I really love the texture of mixes. It looks like you got a nice crown on those. My cupcakes (even mixes) tend to flatten on me. They actually have big dents in the middle. Thank God for chocolate frosting. edited to add: I liked these....I guess in some of mixes I taste some sort of weird.....boxy...twang.... Maybe I'm just weird.

That sounds good. Do you de-bone first?

Maybe the others are different....brown trout perhaps? Speckled?

Mine do not if I use cherry tomatoes.

So, for some reason, I have a plethora of box cake mixes in the cupboard....it seems I have an obsession for them when they go on sale 10/$10. Anyway, the older I get, the less I like the taste of the mixes. So, I googled and found a few ways to make them taste less "boxed". Such as replacing the water with milk, oil with butter and separating the egg whites and beating them before folding them in. Oh, and adding vanilla. By the time I did all of this, I could have made these from scratch. Cupcakes made with yellow mix and dollop of peanut butter in the middle. Topped with chopped up Mr. Goodbars from the Halloween candy bowl.

My mom and step-dad gave us these beauties that they caught. Got any favorite recipes you'd like to share?

Interesting way of making stock. You're the chef, so, don't take my question like I'm "questioning" you lol, but around here, wings are really expensive. Do you save the wings from the whole chickens that you use? What do you do with the wing meat that falls off the bone?

I love the color. Almost too pretty to eat!