Food: Kathi roll

At long last: Calcutta's finest snack.

Food: Fries and wine

Like being at home.

The journey to and around Madurai

Hello from Calcutta, where I've been resting a bit after an adventurous week with Kate across southern India. What a chaotic, exciting (and sometimes relaxing) trip it was!

On the road again -- our bus at the Kerala-Tamil Nada border crossing.

For something new, I've taken the last piece of our adventure -- Munnar into Madurai -- and turned it into a narrated flipbook of sorts. To read more about Bus Journey No. 2, more southern Indian food and, yes, Meenakshi temple, check out the photos and captions here:
https://plus.google.com/photos/116025665513023685677/albums/5851464684593644801

Food: A round-up (No. 2)

I've been losing track of what food I've posted and what I haven't, so I'm finally going to post this round-up from my time in the north.

I'll start with gazak, the sweet we ate all over the north:

Gazak, a sweet made with white sesame seeds -- said to keep one warm in winter.

On Wednesday, our first day in Chandigarh, we had a delicious lunch in the sun room:

Daal, roti and delicious chicken. (Pardon the green light -- it's from the sunroof overhead.) 

We finished the meal with Bengali sweets, including this chum chum. Yum! (Finally had one, Vivek.)

Tea that afternoon included snacks, of course:

Masala mix in front with a plate of biscuits, including sweet pistacio ones, behind. 

That night, we had chaat for dinner! And what the chaat counter it was:

Chaat, including panipuri, very light chana, aloo (potato) tikki and tiny potatoes in green chutney.

A close-up of the panipuri.

A close-up of the dahi vada.

On Thursday in Chandigarh, Vinita-didi made a Kashmiri tea preparation that included slivered almonds:

Kashmiri tea warming on the stove.

 On Thursday, we had a special meal for a festival celebrating the arrival of mustard flowers in the fields:

Yellow rice, sweet rice and pickle with yogurt on the side.

 As we've traveled around the north, we've been munching on delicious dried fruits and nuts.

'Dried fruits,' typically with sweet cashews, almonds, walnuts and golden raisins.

In the course of sightseeing yesterday, we ended up eating dosa at Sahastradhara:

Masala dosa with coconut chutney and sambar. I ate mine with fork and spoon, just like Pops.

Finally, my dessert following the dosa -- this time at Town Table in Dehradun:

Green tea (a bit of change) and a brownie with ice cream.

Look for another post on any missing southern foods soon.

More Munnar Photos

Find them here.

Tea fields on the hills of Munnar -- kind of reminded me of wine country.

We took the bus yesterday to Madurai and will be heading out to see Meenakshi temple today -- a long-held dream of mine. It's quite the change of pace from Kerala, so I'll have lots to post about soon!

Food: One more b'fast in Kerala

At our homestay in Munnar. I'll be back!

Just like home

In the cities of India, it's generally hard for me to imagine that anything here could be -- well, like anything but India. But I'm writing to you this morning from outside Munnar, on a road that reminds me very much of Pennsylvania, with its farmlands, and California, with its climate.

We're staying at The Shade, a homestay where I visited for just a night on my first trip to Munnar. It was happenstance that I ended up here -- quite lucky! My host in Kochi had arranged the trip, and the homestay he usually sends visitors to was full. The Shade had only been open for about a year at that point, so I was early guest. (And they remember me! They're so sweet.)

View from The Shade around sunset last night.

My initial visit was great, but Santhosh, the owner, has made renovations since -- expanding rooms, redoing bathrooms, adding wifi. It's pretty incredible! The house is partway down into a valley, with huge mountains left, right and center. The balcony behind my room looks down onto Santhosh's "garden" -- two and a half acres of cardamom and coffee plants, as well as cashew, jackfruit and mango trees, curry plants and so many varieties of flowers and it's a virtual kaleidoscope.

From our tour of the garden this morning -- cardamom and curry leaves. The cardamom has been a small crop for two years, so Santhosh is currently working on replacing his 800 plants -- what an undertaking!

The house is about 8 miles from the main town of Munnar. It's right on a road, but not the main one -- so you'll here a truck rumbling by every now and then, but it's mostly crickets chirping, cows mooing and birds calling for sound effects.

My photos don't do this place justice, but I'll try to post more later. For now we're off to see tea plantations and eat some yummy veg thali for lunch.