36 Hours & a Moment

I just enjoyed a two months vacation in India !! (No im not an American bragging about that, but sadly I am an Indian staying in America from the past one and half year! So yes kind of bragging.. ) N it was time to come back to the US.. Apart from the fact that it is the emotionally worst situation to leave your country (2nd time cause the first time its exciting!) and go to the other end of the world it is also the worst thought of travelling almost 24 hours to get there. So here is the account of my journey which was not almost, but all the more than, 24 hours.

I live in Pune city (which has international airport but you will have to have really rich parents if you want to land in Pune from America or just be stupid! ) so I have to land and take off from the Mumbai International airport. My flight was at 1:45 AM on 1st March, Thursday. The journey from Pune to Mumbai, thanks to the amazing expressway, is just 3 hours but considering the traffic and terrific roads of the city (and not to forget the 'must stop on expressway food stop' "Datta Snacks" for their absolutely delicious sabudana wada n khichdi ! ;)) it might take 5 hours, so we(me, Mom and Dad) left around 5:30 on Wednesday evening. We reached airport at 10:30-11. I was done with my immigration n security at arnd 12 n was waiting near the gate for 2 hours !!! If that was not enough our flight was delayed by half an hour or so, so more wait !!! :( :( n remember there are mosquitoes at the mumbai airport (even at the amsterdam airport, to my surprise!! i almost thought they travelled with us from mumbai.. ;) ) !!! I was so tired and sleepy that I din even realise when the flight took off. I just woke up to see we were reaching Amsterdam! 

So my first layover was at Amsterdam n there it was just 1 and half hour or 2 hours of wait or so (which was quite needed after sitting in the flight for 9 hours).. The flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis, my second layover and the port of entry, was around 8 hours too!! I finally watched RA-One in the that flight. Which I don't regret, not because I liked it but because I was as is gonna see it some day( Y? because I like SRK even if he has acted and produced such a stupid movie) so might as well see it on the flight.. Ok moving on, my next and last flight to Dayton was in 40 minutes at 1:40 PM on Thursday afternoon. I knew I just had a 40 mins of layover time on the Minneapolis airport when I had booked the ticket so I knew that it was almost impossible to clear immigration, customs and security in such a short time but I was kind of trying my luck hard.. Believe me I tried very hard!  I finished the immigration, within 10 mins (which was great!!) but then, customs (those a*******!!). I had 'gulachi-poli' with me n Pooja(my roommate) had told me to declare all the items I have, so I wrote sweet "bread" for that.. When they saw the word "bread" on the customs form they made all my luggage go through their stupid scanner n that officer opened my check-in bag which did NOT have the 'gulachi-poli' !!!!!! I was like 'U guys r nuts', obviously I cudnt say it loud.. So another 15 mins gone there.. 

Then I almost ran through security and I LITERALLY ran to the gate which was at the other end of the HUGE and absolutely unorganized airport !! I mean I have been at the Atlanta Airport which is the biggest Airport but it has a fixed train to go to concourses(A,B,C etc..) but here I had to run half a mile to see a concourse and another half to see that a train exists!! I had to miss first train because I somehow (n literally I wonder how!) I figured that its going in the opposite direction, so I walked + ran some more distance to catch the right train. By now I had ran on the sliding walks, escalators, caught a train and finally reached my gate at 1:39 or exact 1:40 !!!! phew.. it's not over.. not a happy ending yet.. 

So I reach the gate on time n the guy coldly tells me that the flight has left !! I was feeling frustrated, defeated, angry everything... n i was on the verge of crying when he told me that the next flight is at 7:30 in the eve !!! 6 hours !!!! Then after digesting that, I cried !! I was so frustrated with all this ( u guys know me na.. :( ) I cudnt cheer up myself to face my friends who were coming to pick me up at the Dayton Airport.. I knew it would not be right to face them with this frustration but somehow I failed to even calm myself. I was drained out of all the energy, feeling bad, not feeling like talking on phone with anyone(sorry Pooja if I was rude).. hmm.. I was feeling kind of demented.. And how destiny can be cruel sometime, the 7:30 flight left at 7:45 but my 1:40 flight could not even leave at 1:45 !! Anyway everything happens for a (good) reason, which we come to know later. 

So I finally sat in the flight to Dayton. And then it was almost miraculous, an old lady came to sit besides me in the plane n she said "you will have to excuse me if I snore" (yes, her pretty much exact words!).. N I was like "huh  err ok".. But somehow at that moment I forgot that I was frustrated for some reason (you might be thinking I am stupid but it really happened).. N then she was talking to me very random stuff but it somehow worked !! i completely forgot my unnecessary frustration, anger n I even felt less tired !! I swear I managed to smile when I saw my friends, nicely chit-chatted with them (which an hour ago seemed very difficult) !! :) 

I think God has his own ways of saying "everything is going to be fine"!!  :) :)

I reached home at arnd 11.. had dinner n slept off.. :) n im sleeping too much after that.. ;) 

Excited & Anxious!

Pre-Script: Anyone who knows me would be able to relate the title with my situation before starting anything new!

I was introduced to writing blog by my friend (Anagha Mahajan), yes I am a bit illiterate in all these aspects, n so I also wanted to write something. But what? Nothing different was coming to my mind so I left the idea there itself for about 2-3 years. Only recently I saw this movie “Julie & Julia” (awesome movie, must watch! Meryl Streep is soooo good and so is Amy Adams..)  ok so my point here is I am not copying Julie Powell’s idea of blogging about what she likes to do most but.. (oh wtf I am copying her idea.. let there be just one raju hirani not giving credit to stolen ideas!! All credit for the idea behind this blog goes to Julie Powell but the words, however good or bad, are mine..) .. Ok enough of prefacing.. So here it goes..

I am Mrudula Lele and I am here to express my views and ideas, about any random good stuff I come across, to anyone reading!

The things I like.. Cooking, Watching Movies, Eating, “reading” Harry Potter over n over (not a fan of HP movies though, but Daniel Radcliff.. J yes !!) other kinds of books too (I am not at all an extensive reader but I don’t put a book down if I start on one, obviously it has to be interesting), travelling (ok I claim I love to travel but I haven’t had enough opportunities to make someone believe I do.. :P). So pretty much I like to do everything which passes time without anything productive out of it (except when I cook and it turns out good).. But everyone around here is trying to do something creative, something meaningful. So here comes the point where I see the movie and steal Julie Powell’s idea.. To make something productive out of my likings.. (By the way, I am doing my Masters in Industrial and Human Factors Engineering just so you don’t think I absolutely don’t do anything in life .. J)

Today I want to share something about cooking. I just love it. I watch a LOT of cooking videos of all kinds of cuisines, the recipe may be of a housewife or a master chef, kee farak painda hai, if they make you imagine that you are eating that wonderful dish! I DO NOT claim to be a good cook!! I have made horrible pulavs, burnt lasagna, 5 failed attempts of baking cake n don’t know how many more to come!! But still I like it. N I will continue to experiment.

Just yesterday I tried this recipe “Spaghetti Aglio e Olio” (for those who are wondering how to pronounce the words after ‘spaghetti’ please click on the following link.. But I do hope you guys will come back n read further cause I am not done. L) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjmYkPkjnVo (I am not sure if you can click on the link, else just copy paste it in your browser)

So did you watch the video? Easy na ? Absolutely! I love chef John.. J His version is very good and very “authentic”. But I am going to tell you how I made it.  I did not do a lot different than him but different, yes. See there’s a reason why I did this authentic Italian dish in my way.. I am an Indian and my taste buds are very very VERY Indian, so they do not like a ‘hint’ of pepper or spice but a spoonful of it.. (Absolutely NO offense to the other cuisines, I love them too. This is just my weakness. Yes I call it a weakness to not appreciate/like the authentic recipe as is).

My first tip.. Do not even think of using anything other than Olive oil. If you don’t have it, I know we don’t use it for daily Indian cooking but still, get it. It comes in very handy if you want to try something different.

My second tip.. And a VERY important one!! He does not tell you, because he might be assuming it but still, ADD ENOUGH SALT WHILE MAKING SPAGHETTI!! Taste the spaghetti in between if you want to know that salt is sufficient or not because after the spaghetti is fully cooked I think it will be difficult to season it with salt!! May be I am wrong but I think its better that the spaghetti has enough salt before it is mixed with the oil.

What I did different:

I took more garlic for the amount of olive oil used, cause I love garlic. I heated the Olive oil and garlic the same way he said but after he tells you to slow down the flame I added green chilies (sliced) in the oil! Let the oil get the beautiful flavor of garlic and the punch of the green chilies (you can add as per the spice level you want. The chilies which I had used had a pungent taste so the flavor was nice. You might know this, but if someone is new to cooking, please remember to cut and smell the chili before using. It gives you the idea of how hot it will be and how much you have to add).

Also I did not have parsley so I din use it. Doesn’t matter, tastes good even without it. I did one mistake, I used mozzarella cheese instead of parmesan cause I did not have parmesan cheese either. Please DO NOT do that! It sticks to the pasta and ruins the texture (and even the taste to some extent). It is OK if you do not add cheese, the flavor of Olive oil, garlic (and chilies if you add) in itself is super amazing! Cheese is just an additional seasoning. Also add crushed black pepper (as per your taste! I like it a lot) after mixing the oil in the pasta. I did not add crushed red peppers.

Hope it was not confusing. I try to tell a lot of stuff so it gets messed up some time. Anyway my version of this recipe turned out pretty good for me and my friend. I really hope you will try the recipe (and if you try the modified version of mine, please do let me know how it turns out! J And if you did something of your own new version I would be happy to hear that too.. J)

So this is it. A very different yet simple dish. I am definitely going to try something new very soon and come up with a new blog. Wow I feel so good after writing all this (I hope you did not feel much bad after reading it.. :P).. i promise to keep the next post short, at least not as long as this one!! J