Hagueover

Hagueover or Hague-Over and not Hangover, a new term coined by one of my batchmate from Philippines, explaining in one word how much we miss the awfully windy yet lovely city, we called  home for 15 and half months.  The city I learned to love...now that ISS and Hague is over I have to admit that I do miss the city but  what I miss most about the city now when I look back is difficult to put in few words or in just one post.

I still remember the first day in Hague, it was bright, sunny and a perfect day, 'Perfect Day' was not what we thought back then, only now I can say, it was indeed a perfect day. When the Admin person, told us to go out and enjoy the sun, our reply was "Oh! we come from a HOTTTT country so we do not appreciate the sun so much" , only to realise that we would regret what we said the very next day. Hague is awfully windy and I am not joking, the wind can sometimes blow you away like literally, but despite all the wind and rains, Hague is a lovely city to live. It's weird when I think, why I never took pictures of Hague when I have over 1000 pictures in Paris, and another 1000 pictures in Rome alone. I never took any pictures standing in-front of the   Nordeinde Palace or even the famous Peace Palace, both located 5 mins walking from Dorus.

Missing Hague, friends, ISS and the community we build!

Globalisation and the food on my platter tonite

Imagine this, I am  sitting thousands of miles away from home, missing home, thinking of home and thinking of the food  cooked by mumma and the local Manipuri delicacies. But the same day for dinner I had Oukabi- Atouba, Kobi ga Nga ga thongba  & Yongchak ga Hawai maton singju, does that sounds like a really exotic Manipuri food platter, but how is it possible to be having all the manipuri delicacies sitting here in The Hague. Well the answer is rather very simple, global trade, Global free trade or in the most popular word 'Globalisation', we may not realize or thinking twice before picking something from the counter of a supermarket about the origin of the food we are buying, where does it come from, under what conditions it was grown/breed, how did it reached the counter and most importantly how much did the food growers earned. Globalisation makes import/export much easier compared to earlier days, Global trade has been happening since time immemorial but now the chances of me finding items from 20 different country in 1 single supermarket is really high compared to 10 or 15 years before. 

Today I was in a very good and positive mood, having made some progress in my RP I felt I needed to shop.....yeah shop but unlike a lot of people I shop for food when m happy....so I picked my bike and went to the best Chinese shop in town. While going through the frozen Fish/Meat/Sea food section I found a picket of Nga Oukabi , m not used to buying Oukabi which is packed well and imported from Vietnam, I picked up another packet of fish a 'Tinfoil barb' which is similar to small Karpu mach  imported again from Vietnam. I moved on to the vegetable section and found Fresh and well packed Haiwai-maton, I was rather excited to see it, I mean we don't get these things even in another part of India lets say Delhi or Bangalore but finding Hawai-maton in Hague sure triggered happiness in me. I also bought a packet of  green Yongchak Maru, I checked the origin of both the item and it was imported from Thailand. So there I was buying things from all over the world from 1 single counter. 

This makes me think how each of us are connected to someone unknown through the food we buy, the connection we hardly think or care about. At the end of the day all we care is the food on the platter. 

Shillong again

Living Tree root bridge @ Riwai Village

I was back to being a nomad for a whole month. The journey started with a 10 day trip to home (Manipur) for few days, followed by Tripura and I finally made Shillong happen to meet my BFF Dr. AN (Phd), AN received her doctorate degree few months back from one of the best University is India (Delhi) and I am so proud of her. 

Reaching Shillong was a long way from Agartala, the Spicejet flight from Agartala to Guwahati  was very turbulent because of heavy rain and the trip from Guwahati to Shillong took 4 long hours, the roads were murky and the taxi driver was blasting all kinds of music...Hindi, English and even Spanish. AN came to pick me up and  AN not to my surprise played the perfect host as always, feeding me the best food,  a well arranged picnic and she had already bought so many things for me, from her recent trip to Delhi and few other places. I on the other hand knowing how much she loves Ilish mach, had bought 2 kgs of really good quality  Ilish mach from Battala, fried it and took it for her all the way to Shillong. AN's house  was super awesome....as her husband is an Army officer her  house was huge and what was really cool about her house was the garden, her ground floor flat has a huge garden and she had planted so much of Manipur veggies that I was super impressed with the garden and her house managing skills. 

My 3 days in Shillong went so fast but we did enjoyed a lot, the highlight of the trip was visiting the Living tree root bridge, that was just so amazing. More updates about my trip will follow.

Back to Love, life and happiness...

After travelling for 11 hours, through many countries and 2 continent I am home. The moment the flight landed in Delhi , the air hostess  announced its 32 degree outside...it was half past mid-night but 32 degree. in my mind I thought 32 or 42 I don't care now....I am home after 10 months.  Me and my fren CT clapped ..yeah literally clapped (like kids hahaha). T3 being so huge, the flight did took some time to finally taxi...I think I was getting a bit impatient  as all I wanted to do was go home straight as quick as possible and eat....hahaha I am always thinking about food, lekin Kya Karen that's being me always. And images of all the food that I could dream of were flashing in my mind. Tandorri chicken, Biryani, Dosa, Chole Bhature, Pani Puri....food I missed for all this time yummmm. 

After passing the immigration hurdle ( the person at the counter thankfully didn't asked any question) CT and I proceeded to collect our bags and one huge difference I am sure everyone felt, once we landed in Delhi was the heat.  The cooling was fine inside the airport but I was feeling hot in my top and light sweater, this reminded me of the heat outside and the heat also reminded me that the tons of chocolates I  got must have melted by now  (which I discovered later was true, some of the super expensive chocolates melted first and turned into paste...esp. my Choco stick from Luxemburg were messed up too bad). Once we were out of the airport....I was so happy...despite the heat...dust and noise I was home, to eat all that I missed for so long, to be with my family and friends. Yes...I am back to Love, Life and Happiness. Welcome to India.......  

@ home finally

Will be Roaming in Rome....

January was Spain and Portugal, Feb. was Luxembourg and this month its Italy. Yeah I travel again and this time to Rome starting tomorrow for a week....and I  will be roaming in Rome ....wao it rhymes hahaha. I plan eat loads of Italian Pizza and also visit all the famous places in Rome and I will definitely stay within my budget. More updates will follow next week . 

Just for Laughs

Jokes from our week long holiday at Spain and Portugal...

CT: I can't believe it....kuch mahine pehle humne 'Zindagi na Milegi Dobara' dekhi thi aur aaj hum Barcelona mei holiday ke liyeh aayeh hai.
Me: Yeah...sahi bola. Ek kaam kar abhi agle filem "Ra.One" dekh le space jaruur pahunch jayegi.

Me, CT & SS couldn't stop laughing for 10 mins after that.

How about some fried chicken and Gluhwein tomm.

Fried Chicken with onion, garlic and Machal Apouba....very much my own invention

It's new year time again and as usual  m away from home and family but with my frens here and we plan and will try to make our new years eve celebration as much fun as possible. I am planning to make my fav. fried chicken...loved by my frens here and sisters favorite, another dish invented out of my love for cooking and desperation to have good food. The recipe is really simple and it's easy to cook....and to make our celebration more interesting  we will have Gluhwein, the traditional red wine with spices and orange which is served warm (popular during winter and esp. during Christmas in many parts of Europe)....n I've to admit it's the only alcoholic drink I like....the spices(cinnamon and black pepper) in Gluhwein makes its so non alcoholic  and the best is it doesn't smell like like alcohol at all (I don't really like the smell of alcohol). Happy celebrations to me and enjoy....

Flowers or veggies???

2nd bunch of tulips

After buying the 1st bunch of tulips few days back I ended up buying another one yesterday...as I've been trying to live in a students budget (which is not easy for me) buying flowers over veggies does effect my budget so  I've been trying to convince myself NOT to buy cut flowers every week. But..... the Tulips are really pretty, lasts for about a week, really brightens my room and fits in my budget perfectly (just 2 euros)....there I go...trapped in the flower vs veggies debate...at the end flowers wins and I am planning to buy all the possible colors of tulip while I am here in Netherlands.  Once I am back home in India next year  I know I will never buy tulips coz it will be unaffordable and also it'll not be available at the local florist...last time I bought  deep orange color and this time I bought the lovey red...next time maybe I'll buy the Pink tulips. 

Discovering Hague....

Before coming to Hague, I tried and read as much as possible about the city esp. about the supermarkets, restaurants, transport etc etc but after living here for almost a month I realize that read up about the city did help me to some extent, so all the wikitravel and google did help me to make this new city home till the time I am here. One of my most important agenda now is to travel around Netherlands and Europe....till now I've been to Delft (twice), Rotterdam, Kinderdijk, the beach at Scheveningen (10 mins by tram) and Haarlem. We are planning a trip to others cities and esp to Amsterdam but not before buying our Museum card, the card is really awesome for 45 Euro I can visit all the Museum anywhere in Netherlands for the whole year....I really think its an awesome deal, in Hague itself their are I don't know how many Museums....their is one right next to where I live and have seen couple of them on my way to the HS station. 

We discovered some really cool places here...like the "illys Cafe" at Oude Molstraat, they serve the best Cheese fingers in the city I think...at the Scheveningen Beach we had gone to one restaurant called "zinzabar" the food was very reasonably priced compared to few other restaurants we checked.  The open market is another place I really like...and I like it more because I get to my chillies from there I bought something which is similar to "O-morok" it tastes the same but a little less hot...the Open market is one huge market selling the freshest possible vegetables, meat and sea food and also their is one Indian Store there called "India Gate" which sells all the possible Indian food....dal, rice, masala, veggies etc etc

I will try and explore Hague as much as possible while I am here and I hope anybody wanting more info about the city will find it useful. 

This months and the month before- a Foodventurous Month....

I haven't written anything since a long time...I was busy settling down n setting the house. The previous month and this month I have had some of the best food one can ever eat...here in Bangalore I had "Thai Red Curry Chicken"- twice...Andhra Thali at Nando's which was really yum...lunch platter at UB city...Crab curry  at Coconut Grove all in Bangalore...Tender roasted duck at Nanking, Delhi...celebration for submission of Phd theses of my dear fren "AN"  she loves to have duck curry and this one was sure the yummest she ever had. 

The best vada-pav in Pune...all thanks to my husband and Pune is his city  n thankfully he knows all the awesome food joints...my husband very recently realized  that just like me he's a total foodie and along with me he's discovering the love/art of cooking. During my last trip to Pune....we had invited few people for dinner and I discovered that I can sure make really good Manipuri chicken curry...I invented it all by chance..the trick was to cook it on low flame and the only masala I used was the "Kangla- Machal Apouba" (I'll upload the recipe in another post).

Even if m from home I still got to eat my fav. Manipuri seasonal vegetables....all thanks to my mom, she sent Ou-soi, O-morok, Maroi-Nakuppi & Napakpi, Yendem, Loklei and Se-bott....for foodies like me..I know I'll always manage to have my fav. food...anywhere in the world...with my stock I made Ou-soi ooti, Ou-soi-kangsu, Yendem eromba, Maroi nakuppi kanghou, Ou-morok metpa with chicken liver....which m sure most manipuri's can die for...

This month and the month before....its been an foodventurous month for me....chicken has been specialty and I'll make sure my foodventurous continues.... 

Khao aur Khilao

Two weeks back my Facebook account was "temporarily suspended". I don't want to go into detail of why it was suspended but it was annoying, I could not access my account for 2 weeks and after trying...read writing several mails to FB team I gave up the hope of getting my account back....so I created a new account and decided to upload pics under three categories only 1) Manipur 2) Travel  & 3) Food, unlike my old FB id where I have uploaded a lot of pics over a period of 2 yrs....since food is a passion for me the first pics I uploaded were under the Food category....but the day I uploaded the food pics in the new id, I got a mail from Facebook Team saying my account has been unblocked....was I happy....yup I was really happy to get my account back. Uploading the food pics. in my new id inspired me to upload the same in my old id...so under the food category I uploaded the pics.

Pictures I had taken of almost everything  I have cooked till date, the album is titled "Khao aur Khilao- Food Pics" with a tag line "From my kitchen to Facebook". Mins within uploading the pics. alot of my frens commented, they food the pics. very tempting/mouthwatering and some of them wanted the recipes.

Well cooking is something I have always enjoyed and one of the reason I started this blog was to write about  my cooking...experimenting...innovations in food and about the need I felt to document my cooking, the comments in FB has inspired me to experiment more...cook some more yummy dishes and keep taking amazing food pics to upload in my blog and FB.

Twenty Eleven

Twenty Ten is over and its another brand new year Twenty Eleven....reflecting back, I feel Twenty Ten  passed so fast and it was a year full of activities in terms of my traveling, I went on some amazing and thrilling trips...visited beautiful places....went on a soul trip ( Bhutan)....a backpacking tour ( North East India)....free foreign trips( Thailand)....self discovery (Bhutan again)....surprised official trips (Arunachal and Rural Andhra) in short I traveled like a true wanderlust and enjoyed every moment....I remember starting Twenty Ten  with a trip to Imphal and ended the year with a trip to Bangalore. 

Its been nearly 3 years since I started to blog and I have stuck to topics I wanted to write about and I wrote for myself but starting from this year as few more people read my blog I will add few more things in my post :

1. I will add details of places I visited info like accommodation: Hotels/Guesthouse etc with contact details, best time to visit, must eat and buy  and also mention a "Clean Loo Guide" just like my fav. travel guide and Magazine "The Lonely Planet" .

2. Video's of my latest food/recipes and inventions/innovations will be uploaded.
3. Safety from point of travelling alone.
4. Approx Budget.

I was surprised to see that alot of people visit my blog (all thanks to google) and I wish that whoever reads my blog should feel happy about getting the right information. Twenty Eleven will be exciting as I plan to travel a lot more, learn Italian cooking, stay fit & healthy, lose weight (ah thats a priority) , blog more, stay happier, love myself a lil more and yeah I am getting married :) :). Happy New Year to me and I hope to have a Great 2011.

Field and food Trip

When we talk about Biryani is India theirs only one city we all associate Biryani with and thats Hyderabad.... the city of  Nizam, Pearls and Biryani's of course. I was on a four day tour to Hyderabad and this trip sure was one of the best field (read official trip) trip I've done on a long time. Despite the hectic schedule I still managed to shop (pearls), eat (biryani & many other AP special dish) and meet friends (AB and cutiepie her son). Talking about shopping I bought myself a really sexy pearl necklace and earings set, which is so beautiful that I fell in love with it the first time I saw, it looks so khandani that I was joking with my colleagues saying  that the Pearl set looks like "Rani Ki Beti ka haar" and I sure will look like Rani ki beti wearing that. Alot of people might not know but the pearls available in Hyderabad are mostly chinese pearl, I found out from Wikipedia that 80-90% of world's cultured pearls comes from China and m really not surprised with that...China wale kuch bhi bana sakte hai.

We had Biryani at the famous "Paradise" restaurant located in Paradise circle, Secundrabad...the biryani's of course were really good and what was really cool about the restaurant was the orders were taken not on a note pad or some piece of paper but mind you on a PDA...thats the first ever Indian Restaurant I have seen using PDA to take orders...it was damn cool...the PDA was connected with the computer in the kitchen and the order gets registered directly to the kitchen. The biryani was followed by "Khubani ka Meetha" and I must admit that was the best Khubani ka meetha I had ever had till now, it was not so sweet and the apricots just melted in my mouth....I am looking fwd to many more trips to Hyderabad to enjoy not just the biryani's but the whole lot of other yummy things the city has to offer.




Paradise Biryani @ Secunderabad



Khubani ka Meetha @ Paradise

                                               

Enjoying winter

Sitting near a "Meiphu" (Traditional Meitei heater) and having roasted peas and aloo is what I like best about winter, winter in Manipur can be real fun but very, very cold too.  Its that time of the year when sleeping for 5 more mins always feels good and sunday feels like the best day.

Well  winter is also the season when we have runny nose, cough & fever to top it all. But its also the time of the year when the best and fresh green leafy vegetables are available at throw away prices....I associate winter with Hanggam (Musterd leaves) , Kobi lei (Cauliflower), Hawai Maton (Tender Peas leaves)& hawai tharak (Peas)  and also the best time to have " Nga ren" & Hawai Tharak ooti...which is an all time fav. For  a total foodie like me winter is all about having the best possible Meitei dish which taste best only in winter. I am enjoying winter and looking forward to having everything best that I can.

Meiphu- Traditional Meitei Heater

AB, me and Iham

Baby Iham, my fren "AB's" cute 10 months old son.

My recent trip to Hyderabad "City of Pearls" was awesome. It was just a one day trip to meet an old fren "AB" and her son Iham. I have known AB since my Postgrads days, we did so many assignments together and over the years we have always kept in touch. Last time we met  was 4 yrs back, meeting her after so many years that too in her new avater  was funny....... new avatar of being the new age " Super Mommy" lol. The new "Super Mommy" role involves a demanding 24x7 on the call job, feeding the baby, entertaining the baby, cleaning, listening to nursery rhymes and not sleeping most of the time.The best part was we went shopping and she was carrying this huge bag...when asked why she said the bag has only "baby stuff: which was  baby's stuff..milk, diaper, cloth and what not, I started thinking how much motherhood can change a woman.

Coming to food...we went out for dinner at one of my fav. restaurants " Mainland China" the food was awesome, the dimsums, rice noodles and chicken. I enjoyed every bite of the meal and it was sure a day well spent with fren and baby.

More food and less travel

I haven't gone out of Tripura for almost two months now. The last time I was out was my trip to home (Imphal), it feels strange when I don't travel out of the state every month...aisa lagta hai jaise mei yahan sadiyoh se bahar nahi gayee.

Aisa nahi ke mujhe yahan accha nahi lagta but aadat se ho gayee hai travel karne ke har mahine. Since July I have been experimenting and trying to create something new in my cooking and thanfully I did managed to create some interesting recipes like a new type of Fried Chicken and Prawns with Corn flour fried in olive oil. The other day one of my cousin was going to Imphal from Agartala and mom asked me to send me fried prawns, I offered her to send some fried "Ilish Mach" also but her words " We are so bored of having Ilish" I was like okay really...maybe you are the only person bored of having Ilish.

Every year I discover something or the other in Agartala like this year I discovered "Nga-Napp" its really yummy as "Nga-nam" and I make "Nga-Nam" with a twist, I add crush garlic, thinly sliced onion and slit green chilles...the taste is heavenly. My fren "A" is so J abt the whole thing of me getting to have all kinds of yummy food wen she is subjected to eat the horrible hostel food. I am sure having a gala time in Tripura and will really miss my rendezvous with food in Tripura.

Twipra...Tripura

Neermahal @ Rudra Sagar Lake....Ujjayanta Palace...SANKAR HOTEL...Pilak..UnnaKOTI....Udaipur...MATABARI TEMPLE...ecoparks,Baramura...Tepania....Kalpania...Bamboo Handicrafts....Cane furniture.  Damcherra, Kanchanpur, Agartala...DHALAI....Jumpui Hills...Orange festival in December. PINEAPPLES...LICCHI....Sal and Teak wood....Highest FOREST cover in the country...Agartala..DHARMANAGAR...AMBASSA...SABROOM...Sheetal patti.....Kings of Tripura-The Manikya's....Ilish Mach, Chingri , Misti Doi, Chakoi.....DURGAPUJA....Kharchi PUJA...Ker Puja Communities: Bengalis Debbarma..Jamatia..Koloi...Hrangkhal..Chakma...REANGS ...Meitei's...Bisnupriya. Neighbours

Assam, Mizoram...BANGLADESH

My blog on Tripura will cover all the interesting things I have mentioned alove...m so excited to write about Tripura.

Why not on Tripura?

The other day I was wondering that since the time I started  blogging I've written about all the places I've travelled, all kinds of food and have uploaded pics. from every where but what is funny is, Why have I not written much on Tripura, this is where I've been living for the past 3 yrs, this is one place I know so well...aisa koi district nahi hai jahan mei nahi gayee North, South, West and Dhalai...I've been to Dammcherra, Kachanpur, Ganganagar which are like the back of the beyond of beyond. Tripura has many options and I could have written so much on Tripura but after analysing my blog I realized maine kuch kash likha nahi hai Tripura ke baare mei..jabke mujhe likhna chhayeh tha...but koi nahi..abhi bhi time hai and I have decided to start my travel n food series on Tripura.

I hope I can do my bit and make Tripura known to whoever reading my blog a lit bit more. 

Full on chilling

2010 will be good I guess in terms of travel and food for me. Iam chilling @ home and by chilling I mean nt just have a gd time but the chill at night n early morning. I am home for a week n I plan to enjoy this trip, I plan to visit the Chorus theatre n Kangla again if I find time I'll visit the floating island at Moirang n some bit of Paona bazar. This trip willl be less abt food n more abt travel. I look fwd to all the travel and real time chilling.

End of the most wonderful year

Today is the last day of this year 2009, looking back this was the most fulfilling year of my life a year which was full of adventure and excitement for me or I can also say that 2009 was THE YEAR of my life. I travelled like Anthony Bourdein, spent like a queen, tried some of the best food, worked liked never before and learned a great deal about myself. Travelling to Europe was one of the most exciting thing for me, I planned the whole trip overnight and I am really happy with myself that I did everything in my own, starting from the google/wiki searcing of the cities I wanted to visit to shopping, food and almost everything else.....the result...I enjoyed every moment of my trip to Europe but I did ended up spending like I had never done before. This was a year well spent and I hope the new year, 2010 brings as much adventure and excitement as 2009.