Indian girls

I realize my last 2 posts have nothing to do with food really but i sort of felt like venting. sorryyyyy

I think its beautiful how food has this unique way of making you happy. When i say this i truly mean it because i know I'm not a very joyous person but when i see or eat exciting food, i could swear i feel a slight twitch on the corners of my mouth.

I've never really been big on Sri Lankan food but when i ate my friend's grandmothers Sri Lankan food a week back it was happiness. It reminded me of home... it made me happy.

Yesterday Shameema, Kylie and I went shopping for sarees in Masjid India. Its hard to explain the feeling you get when you are there. All the tiny shops and the Indian people; you could swear you were on ruwi highstreet somewhere drinking lassis and buying textiles. I know alot of people hate going to town but its crazy how wierdly comforting this place is to me! The lack of perfection is divine! Its like how when i hear someone speak Arabic on the bus i smile to myself :D

For the few hours that we were there i felt like i was transported away from my monotonous life. The highlight of the day other than the fact that i fell in love with and bought a sari was that i ate at Sarvana Bhavan. It looked, smelt and felt just just the one in Oman! Seriously i sometimes think there is nothing better than north indian food. Now i know alot of you might wonder what I'm on about, but there is this feeling you get when you see something you know that is completely indescribable. I could swear my mouth was salivating from the time i entered that place. If you sat with your back to the entrance it was like i was in Oman eating dosas with my sister going on about how much she hates vegetarian food.
It was like we were home!

After months of eating tasteless rice i swear i wanted to eat everything on that menu!!!! Seriously give me poori or a dosa and id be a content girl!!!

Bad days

Ive been having a crappy week or two after i got back from Taiping. 1st i fell sick and then i had alot of work to do which really brought me down... although im taking food and culture this sem there isnt a single subject im taking that makes me excited. Everything seems like such a drag.
Plus i sort of missed doing nothing in Taiping.


Taiping really was incredible. 80% of the people i spoke to before i left told me it would be miserable, but i kept my mind open and i enjoyed it. The fact that we went there to eat just made me indulge in everything i could see. I discovered a new found liking for Teh Tarik with fresh milk and tiny spherical sweets made of jaggery and coconut! Who knew the Sri Lankan appam could be combined with sweetened coconut shaving or crushed peanuts to be ultimately DELICIOUS! But what i liked most of all about the trip was the fact that there was no itinerary and we did what ever we felt like doing whenever.

Having gotten back from Taiping i came to a horrible realization a week later; the pictures i had taken for my assignment were near unusable. I dont understand why i am so horrible at taking photographs. I have a camera that supposedly is good enough but i just have no eye for things beautiful so i just cant hold a camera straight it my hand. I am so upset i seriously feel like crying. Seeing everyone else's fancy DLSR pictures does not make it any better. I have half the mind to take a bus back to Taiping to take more PROPER pictures. EVER since that dreaded day i have been in such a weird mood. I have done everything i could possibly think of to ignore the fact that ive had work to do. Sometimes i dont think i understand myself.

I think i really miss home these days. I just wish i could get away from here for a while; just forget all the work i have to do, all the responsibilities.. sigh.

Mango Burger

I've seen this burger at Nandos often but ive never thought of trying it out. If i find something i like i have the tendency to keep going back to eat the same thing. However with all the masterchef I've been watching, i was suddenly feeling very adventurous and i decided to try the burger out.
So the burger really is a chicken breast with mango on top. Truthfully the whole thing was exciting to eat! Im not a big fan of mixing sweet and spicy but that burger really was good! I was genuinely surprised so next time you are in Nandos TRY IT! u must!

Kid in a candy store

When i see new things at the grocery store i get super excited. This can go for a new cut of meat or even a new kind of pasta (The day i saw lamb shanks, i was happy for 2 days which is quite a big thing for me :)

So my dads alot like me, when he sees something new and exciting at the grocery store he has to buy it. Now you see i live in Oman and you dont get alot of exotic products or produce, so when my dad brought home these gorgeous vacuum packed gourmet mussels. Look at them!!!!! i cant get over how beautiful they are!
Anyway i didnt really know what to do with it because i didnt have the patience to leave them till i had a recipe that called for them. So i just made a salad

If you are in Oman you have to have to have to buy these!! They even have clams!!! Omg they are so good! I made paella with the same mussels and clams earlier this year and then i even made clam pizza with hooters sauce haha... I can't get over them!

CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE ...CAKE

The first time i made a cheesecake i didn't know what cheesecake was. I had never eaten a cheesecake or even seen one so when the recipe asked for 800g of cream cheese i thought i had written it down wrong. So i stupidly used a lot less. I guess the problem was the recipe was from a book that didnt have any pictures. It ended up being a biscuit :S it was rather embarrassing later when i saw the real cheesecake.

My 2nd attempt at a cheesecake really couldn't be counted. It was a no bake cheesecake that 2 of my friends and i made together. At least I finally knew what a cheesecake looked like. Ever since then i have been on the constant rampage to find and eat cheesecakes. I had never tried to make a cheesecake though;because its so complicated. It was like lasagna; loved to eat it just too complicated to make.

Later my friend Nuzha wanted to make cheesecake a few years ago, so we decided to get together and make a very basic baked cheesecake. Sadly it cracked right in the middle... a big gaping hole so we filled it in with a lot of betty crockers frosting. Everyone at home loved it, they just dint know what a failure it was. Ive made the same cheesecake a few times after and Ive continuously had problems with it. It would either crack as soon as i took it out of the oven or just collapse. It didnt't really have to look perfect for my brother. He would demolish it either way.

SO FINALLY one fine day in September 2010 i decided to attempt to make a proper cheesecake! I did tonnes of research on the proper way it had to be done and turns out the biggest mistake i was making was taking the cake right out of the oven and placing it on the counter. I thought that was what people did normally??!Im always impatient to ice a cake once im done baking it. So i would take the cake straight of the oven and place it on an exceptionally cold counter assuming that it would help cool down the cake faster.




I wasn't even supposed to open the door during the process of baking as it would reduce the baking temperature! What i apparently had to do was switch off the oven once it was done baking and leave the cake inside the oven so that it would cool to room temperature after which i could take the cake out! Who knew....




I know it isnt the most beautiful thing on earth but there is no way to describe how excited i was when i saw this. I was on top of the world!!!

:D:D:D:D:D:D

Homemade frapps and mini cakes