Food: Coffee break to warm up

I could get used to all these breaks!

Food: More chai

De rigeur upon landing up, after all.

Food: Chai

Tea break en route to Shimla, somewhere near Dagshai.

Food: Spinach

I have a found an Indian spinach dish to love: Vinita-didi's palaak, which was very similar to soup. What a dinner!

And as an extra treat, we had Hershey Kisses for dessert -- some of Vinita-didi's stores from her last trip to the States. I've been missing my own stash, which I mistakenly left behind in Bombay, so these tasted extra good.

Snacks for drinks

I am so well taken care of here!

Dusk in Chandigarh

From my evening stroll.

Dehradun, land of sweets

"Land of Rain" might be a better nickname for Dehradun in the 28-odd hours since I arrived here -- but in memory, for me, it's the land of sweets made by Gita-taiji, wife to one of Pops' six brothers.

We arrived yesterday afternoon and have had something sweet at every meal thus far. We started off at lunch with Gita-taiji's homemade gajar halwa.

Gita-taiji's homemade gajar halwa, that delicious carrot pudding.

At tea, we had an entire array of sweets to choose from -- so, obviously, I took one of each.

An assortment of Gita-taiji's sweets, including (l-r): sesame seed ladoo, coconut  burfi and besan burfi, which is made with gram flour.

Finally, we finished off dinner with a bit of gazak (more on that soon in a #latergram food catch-up) and some soan papdi.

I've had soan papdi before and found it just fine -- but this one, packed up from Haldiram's, was especially melty, like a good piece of cotton candy. (Pardon the turmeric under my nails.)

As you can see, I might have been underestimating my sweet tooth when I told Anna R. that I hadn't quite yet developed a taste for Indian sweets. As it turns out, I've been diving into them at every turn on this trip.

At the moment, in fact, I'm being summoned for my cooking lesson. Perhaps I'll be making some of these myself soon in San Francisco.