Yes, I still have things to say about India, though apparently I’ve gotten very off track in writing about it in any regular fashion. Oak and I recently decided we have a thing about visiting McDonalds in new places to see what the regional menu items are. In Hawaii, for example, we saw spam and noodles on the menu.
We encountered very few international chain restaurants in India (or rather, chain restaurants in general), but some of the big cities had them. Nirav’s cousins took us to McDonalds in Ahemdebad, though I am sure they thought we were nuts for wanting to go there. haha. This was near the end of our trip, so in many ways we were getting tired of thalis and idli and were ready to have some good ‘ol American junk food.
I’m quite proud to report that the french fries Indian McDonalds taste exactly the same as they do in the United States. They were so tasty after an extreme deficiency of fried potatoes for two weeks (who can live like that? seriously). However, the Indian McDonalds menu is completely lacking in any beef products. So, instead of a regular Big Mac, you have the Chicken Maharaja Mac:
It actually wasn’t too bad, but it was seriously like one of the only menu items that had meat in it. Nirav and Oak ordered some of the vegeterian items – the Paneer wrap and the Pizza McPuff:
The Pizza McPuff was interesting in that it was curiously in a similar container to the Hot Apple Pies that we get in the US. It was also shaped exactly the same, but was savory and had cheese, veggies and pizza sauce inside. Kind of like a giant Totino’s pizza roll. Not bad. Nirav was not impressed with his Paneer wrap, but he is quite a Paneer connesieur – one must remember that while at McDonalds you cannot expect the highest quality ingredients.
But, perhaps the best thing about McDonalds in India was that the “Happy price menu” (oh my, bad translation) was 20 rupees. This is basically an equivalent of our dollar menu; where you can get ice cream, a small french fry, etc. Based on the 40 rupees/$1 exchange rate we had during our trip, the value menu was only about 50 cents. Still relatively “expensive” in comparison with other food we ate in India, but exciting nonetheless.
So, this concludes my first international McDonalds report (well, besides Canada, where if I remember correctly, they actually serve Hot Dogs at McDonalds.. craziness). Stay tuned as we investigate other McDonalds around the world!
We had an exciting venture to western Virginia this past weekend. The main motivation for this trip was Edible Landscaping’s All About Fruit Day. Hoo ha! Well, Daniela and Oak were very excited. Belinda and I became somewhat interested when we heard you could eat fruit right off the trees at the nursery. Ding. So we chowed down on raspberries, cherries, mulberries, gooseberries (OK, I think mostly berries) on the “tour the garden” tour, and then snuck back later to chow down on some raspberries later on while Oak and Daniela were shopping. Don’t tell anyone! They were tasty. Of course, we did end up getting a few plants. Here’s Oak clutching his Kefir Lime plant. We also got a lingonberry bush so we can someday no longer have a need to purchase the preserves from Ikea (or something).
Of course, visiting a crazy landscaping place does not a weekend make. We discovered that this joint is nearby to Charlottesville, which seems to be the land of President’s homes. We chose Monticello, well, because that’s one you see on the back of your nickel. Surprisingly they schedule the “house tours” at 5 minute increments, and we had almost 2 hours until our scheduled time. So we took time to enjoy the grounds tours. Here’s Oak and Daniela internally mocking the garden tour guide, who apparently had no street cred. (YES, we know what kale is! Don’t insult our intelligence.) That did not stop several strolls through the vegetable gardens. Belinda and I secretly wished that Thomas Jefferson was into paper crafting instead of gardening. LOL.
So, you can see how exciting it was to get on the house tour. Besides not being allowed to take pictures inside, this was when my camera promptly decided to run out of battery juice for the rest of the weekend. Let’s just say that it’s much smaller than you would think it was after imagining it on the nickel all your life. There were some very clever features however, like a dumb waiter that brings wine up from the wine cellar, a fancy door to pass food from the kitchen to the dining room without anyone needing to go through the doorway, and a bed that divided two rooms. The entire house was something like 11,000 square feet (counting the basement areas), but it might be the division of rooms (sitting room, tea room, greeting room, etc etc) that made it seem smaller, along with the cattle-hearding effect. Oak really enjoyed that there was a separate beer cellar, though apparently Martha (his wife) oversaw the brewing processes. LOL. All in all though, it was an enjoyable experience. Did you know that Thomas Jefferson didn’t get married until he was 28? He must have been the equivalent of an old maid at that time. Then again, men are never “old maids”; they’re just “bachelors.” How unfair.
After Monticello, we ate at a crazy Mexican restaurant in Charlottesville and then headed up Skyline Drive and camped at Loft Mountain campground. On Sunday we did a 5 mile hike down (and the tough part – back up) to waterfalls – there were actually several sets that were very nice. The “slow hiking group” (I will leave it to your imagination who that included) took many pictures of butterflies, flora, and mushrooms. We found one that looked exactly like Mario’s toadstool, and were tempted to eat it so we’d get Super Powered for the remainder of the hike. Apparently the ticks wanted to accompany us home as a souvenir. Now every time I hear the word “tick” I get itchy everywhere. *Scratch*
Well, the picnic went swimmingly. We were completely exhausted the entire rest of the weekend. Oak from staying up all night on Friday, me from waking up too early and all the carrying around of things.. Anyway, the piggy was enjoyed by all. We also finally have the pignic pictures! Exciting. Notice how half of them are of Oak, the king of the pignic 
haha. And no, I don’t know all the people in the pictures. But that’s OK. We had 195 people (or something like that) show up. On a day when the heat index was 105 degrees.
Last weekend, we had a special new experience at the farmer’s market in Raleigh. After reading this story in the News and Observer about how to shop in the bulk section, we had to check it out. Daniela was in pursuit of lemons for her limoncello distillery. Anyway, it was like a trip into another country. Basically all of the wholesalers will sell you a huge box of anything from apples, cilantro, cucumbers, etc. Then they have these big tables set up in the center of the building where you can barter and/or sell shares of the box with other people.
Oak and Belinda ended up doing the bartering. Oak’s knowledge of food prices combined with Belinda’s bilingual abilities resulted in us getting a huge box of pickling cucumbers, a big bag of cherries, a huge bag of like 20 peaches for $1, tomatoes, and probably some other things I don’t remember. What an adventure. It was enough just walking through there to get the experience. haha. But, if you’re looking to make 800 pies, make preserves or pickles, or cater for 300 people, this is the place to go.
We ended up making a peach cobbler and peach slab pie from Martha’s Baking Handbook. Both came out fantastic. I really enjoyed the cobbler recipe, because it was so simple.. none of this rolling out dough nonsense, which I am definitely not very good at. Plus, we’ve decided to only trust Martha for any fruit-centric desserts (pies, tarts, crisps, and the like) because others never come out as well as hers. Go Martha!
Well, it’s a busy week. This coming weekend is the NextStep pig pickin’ – in which Oak roasts a 150-pound porker for consumption by 300 hungry IBMers. Needless to say, all of the purchasing and preparations are in high gear.
So, instead of leaving you hanging, I present you with some shots from our garden from a few weeks ago. We have a small but fruitful container garden on our back patio (OK, this effort is mostly Oak’s but I try not to kill the flowers). We also started growing some flowers and stuff in the front with cuttings that Oak’s dad gave us when we were up in NY. We also got a bunch of flowers on the cheap at Lowe’s last night for that area, but we still have to plant them. Pictures coming of that soon, if it gets very attractive looking at least!
This is the mammoth basil, from which we have already had a batch of pesto:
My variety garden box (from Ikea!):
A cute little gnome guards one of our thyme plants:
This hen and chicks pot has been multiplying like crazy. This all started with 1 plant last year:
Oak’s family got him an “early birthday gift” of this pig foot wiping thingy. It sits next to our front door. Oink!
This is a plant stand we got at Ikea last year. It’s holding the purple flowers, thyme, and crazy chives on the bottom:
Our rosemary plant survived the winter. Oak has recently learned you can make them reproduce with the cuttings… I feel more experimentation coming on:
The garden peas with some decorative marigolds in the same box for some color. Since this picture, we already have a few good size pea pods growing:
This is the ichiban eggplant, aka “Itchy”. He has since grown a large and attractive purple flower:
Since there’s a variety of things to get done in the next 3 days, this will most likely be my last post until the weekend of pigness begins. I will try to keep you updating on the porky goodness on twitter, if you are so inclined!! I’m a little weary because it’s supposed to be almost 100 degrees out on Saturday, and this whole thing is outside. I’ll be sweating.. like a pig. Oh dear, bad time to use that expression! Have a great week.
Well, it feels like all we post about is bacon lately. Oh well. Just looking at this picture is making my mouth water, so I have no option but to continue with this post. So, here’s another use for bacon – we made home made bacon egg and cheese sandwiches for dinner one night last week. I totally didn’t know that Oak had gotten some rolls from Rockland Bakery, so we could make these tasty treats at home! These sandwiches are super simple to make – just fry up your bacon and eggs, and then add the cheese on top of your eggs until it melts. Put it all on your sandwich with a squeeze of ketchup (sounds a little gross, I know, but it’s a necessary addition – just believe me!). They’re not just for breakfast anymore!
