Shyam's Blog

It has been a hunting time in the recent past. If one is hunting for a 'girl', other, for a new job. Both are tricky and both require good prior preparation. One difference being, finding a partner is for life and job is a lesser commitment. Talking about my friend hunting a girl, it has to be said that it is tough to find the right match. Seeing all the hunts around my friends are doing, each one is doing in his/her own way with no two similar cases. Mostly, there are two cases - younger lot don't like the choices of their parents; and parents are too much into horoscope and whatever they pick is not liked by the prospects. With that being the case, other options open up - my friends trying to hunt on their own by putting their profiles on matrimonial websites. All these stories are there just because these people are in the US. I haven't seen such type of stories with my friends in India. They somehow find their match easily I believe! Coming to job hunt: I myself was...

It has been a month since we had 'curry leaves' in Salt Lake City. We had it once a month ago and the notice was, "Only 1 packet per purchase". Way back in 2006, price of 'toor daal' doubled because India stopped exporting daal and these daals now came from African countries. The recent scarcity of 'curry leaves' is told to be because of pests in the recent shipment from Florida. Because of this, all of that shipment has been discarded by the authorities. Next availability is when new crop comes up few months down the lane. Whatever is available in the market is said to be from the backyard farms of Indian community people in California. Don't know if news is true!

Here, one new guy has arrived from Bangalore for a short period. He is coming to US for the first time and is finding hard to cope with food here. Here is what I wrote for him. All I gave is a typical conversation he would have in a fast food restaurant. Subway Sandwich Store Guy (SG) : Hi, How may I help you? You: Hi, I would like to go for 6 inch Veggie sandwich. Bread = Italian Herbs and Cheese. Make it toasted. SG: Do you want cheese? You: No After toasting… SG: What all do you need? You: Put everything except mushrooms and olives. They will put, onions, green peppers, tomato, lettuce, and pickle. If you want it spicy, tell them, “add a bit of jalapeno also”. You: Put Chipotle sauce, mustard. Add salt and pepper also. SG: Do you want any drink with it? You: Cup for water is good. SG: Your total is 3:54. Taco Bell SG: What can I get for you today? You: I would go for “Baja (say as Baha) Chalupa” with no meat, instead beans. SG: Anything else? You: That’s it. SG: Your total comes upt...

Indian Premier League (IPL) has come to life with a big start. Its competitor ICL which ended few weeks ago surely looked less successful. Daily matches from 8pm (IST) has made this one of the most viewed programmes in the past one week. The concept looks good because the match span is less than 3 hours. Information is that, there are more girls and ladies watching Cricket now! One of the reasons for this is claimed to be involvement of Bollywood heroes in IPL. It has to be seen if IPL can hold on the fever for the full length. Daily live cricket at 8pm for 45+ days is something which could become monotonous. If drama at the center is really electrifying in most of the matches, IPL will be a real hit which could be eventually become an annual event!

This blog should be read by people who cook ;). Others, please avoid going any further. It has been almost 18 years since I made my debut in kitchen rolling Chapatis and making Dosa. That is surprising for me to see myself so old in kitchen! I don't know why I 'really really' started to make Chapatis at home. One reason could be, our maid who helped mom in kitchen was no longer with us. Other reason could be, I was really interested to cook! The best thing I enjoy making is Jamoon. This is one thing which hasn't gone wrong even once which makes me feel that this is the easiest thing to prepare! Dosa is also one of my favorite dishes to make and eat. There are lot of success stories when it comes to trying out something new. On the contrary, it is more worth mentioning stories of failures ;). My room-mate and I once planned to make jalebi! We brought the mix from the store; took a piece of cloth and made a small hole. We tried to put jalebi by loading that cloth - that w...

It has been long time since I wrote anything interesting. Lots of topics in mind and that means, it takes time to put it down. Let me write in bytes. SFO and San Diego visits: My wife and I had good visits to San Francisco and San Diego recently. SFO visit was also our first visit to our brother/bhabhi home and also introducing my wife to all the friends in the Bay Area. My brother took us to Golden Gate Bridge, Twin Peaks, Pier 39 and Lombard Street. My wife got the first glimpse of the "city look" in the US with lots of people in the downtown area and people enjoying to their limits. Our San Diego visit was an unexpected one - A job interview making us visit that area. Along with the interview trip which was fully paid by the host company, my wife and I planned to stay there longer and visit Disneyland and Sea World. Disneyland was worth the money even though we could cover only half of it. The rides were awesome. Fantasmic (the firework display) was fantastic. Our stay in ...