Global Christmas Baking

The kids and I always spend a day making gingerbread cookies before Christmas. Shortbread and a white chocolate, candy cane treat are also favorites. Shortbread is easy, no problem finding the ingredients. But nowhere have I seen candy canes or smarties in Bangalore. White chocolate can be found but is very expensive. I haven't seen brown sugar but others have found it. Mollases? Not sure about that one. In other words I would have to hunt all over town for these things.

So when Michael went to Boston one week and Singapore the next, there was one strange list of items to get. But success! He found the candy canes in Boston and smarties at the airport in London. In Singapore he picked up the white chocolate, brown sugar and mollases.

The kids finished school on Thursday and we started baking on Friday. I don't have my usual gingerbread recipe so I chose one off the internet. The dough turned out bland and crumbly so then I went to another recipe and added eggs, more butter and spices. Left it in the fridge to harden overnight.

I also didn't bring my cookie cutters so Craig made some paper cutouts of gingerbread men, a candy cane and a christmas tree. I roled out half the dough and tried cutting out some festive shapes. Far too time comsuming so switched to simple round cookie cutters.

The cookies came out of my "easy bake oven" looking sad and bland. Added more spices to the rest of the dough and continued on, rather frustrated. Meanwhile Alanna made the shortbread which turned out pretty good. Then we made the candy which you can't really go wrong with unless you burn the chocolate while trying to melt it, "Mom is it supposed to turn brown?"  Luckily we had enough chocolate to make a second batch.

We figured we could salvage the gingerbread cookies by decorating them with lots of icing and smarties. The icing was pretty liquidy even after all the icing sugar was used up. So I just kind of drizzled it over the cookies and Alanna applied the smarties. It looked like a couple of three years olds had made the cookies.

I got the kitchen cleaned up just in time as we were having two couples and their children over for dinner. Even though I wasn't thrilled with how the baking turned out I served them anyway. The candy was a hit - neither the Danes, nor the Americans had tried that before. And to my surprise none of them new what smarties were. Apparently in the States, smarties are sour candies. Everyone liked the shortbread (Mom's recipe) and in fact, everything was eaten.

Christmas Decorations

Click here for the most recent post Christmas Decorations

Went shopping for Christmas decorations today. Heard through the OWC grapevine that Safina Plaza, near Commercial Street, is the place to go. Apparently we were too early - "next month." We found one shop selling a few Kashmir baubles, bells and balls to hang from the tree.

Next we went one street down from Commercial Street where we came upon tiny stores that had transformed into Christmas stores. Most of which were piled high with garlands of every bright color, plastic Santa decorations and boxes of Christmas balls and stars. We perused and bought a few tree decorations.

Most of these little stores are Muslim owned and usually sell plastic flowers or party favours. The store in this photo: "Dealers in Ayurvedic Drugs, Chemicals Decorative Disposable Houskeeping Items." Well, not for the next month I guess.

A lady in a sari came into one asking for a Santa suit. She explained it was for the Children's Christmas party at her church. As we walked on we noticed more and more shops taking down their usual stock and putting up Christmas decorations. Nothing fancy here though.

Stopped at a store called Eka on the way home. Highly recommended. A lovely store with tasteful decorations, candles, and angels as well as a few quality pieces of furniture, art and jewellery.

Picked up a few things and between all three stops I'd have to say I have enough to decorate a small tree. Hmm, yes there's still the tree to think about isn't there? Well, it's a start.

Bargaining on Commercial Street

Had some fun bargaining down on Commercial Street today. OK, I'm sure I got ripped off. I kind of screwed up on the exchange rate. $1Can=40Rp. I paid 800Rp for an Indian wall hanging for Alanna's room but messed up thinking I was getting a good price at $10. Of course it was really $20. Easy math but in the midst of bargaining I wasn't thinking. Still, he was asking 1,600Rp so for me 800Rp seemed a good price. For him, probably a fortune.

Commercial Street is narrow with many, many little shops selling clothing (Indian and Western), handicrafts, carpets, jewellery and all sorts of interesting things. It's a bustling street, littered with billboards on the tops of buildings and hawkers on the sidewalks selling everything from books to popcorn to maps of India.

The woman selling maps of India followed us for quite some time trying to get me to buy one. I had no desire to buy one but I offered her 10Rp (25cents) - she called me cheap. I laughed. She said 400Rp. I said 10Rp. She came down to 100Rp, I went up to 20Rp. And that was it, she finally left us alone.

The original reason for going to Commercial Street was to get the children measured for their school uniforms at Neha Uniforms. Addresses can be a little confusing:

Neha Uniforms,
#323, 1st Floor, Narayana Pillai Street,
Opp. City Centre, 3rd Cross,
Commercial Street,

Turned out to be on Narayana Pillai Street which is the "3rd cross street" to Commercial Street. And the 1st Floor is one up from the ground floor. In this case we saw the sign for Neha Uniforms from the street but had to follow a narrow path between the buildings to the back where there were a number of tailor shops, up two flights of garbage strewn stairs to - voila! - the shop we were looking for.

This shop, no more than 300 sq. ft, housed the reception area where the children were measured within minutes, six tailors busily sewing uniform after uniform and three people sitting on the floor packing them all up. Quite the little place, I hope they are paid well (probably not), but at least it wasn't a sweat shop. The sewing machines were basic but in good condition and each sewer had a fan blasting in their faces and looked relatively well dressed.

We spent close to two hours on Commercial Street and covered merely half of it, not to mention all the side streets that await our next visit. Bartering is fun when you have time for it. Which is why for the big furniture items we will stick to the fixed price stores. But for accessories - the things we don't need right away - it's fun to chat with the people in the shops, have every bedcover or wall hanging strewn over the floor for viewing, and leave (with or without goods) having enjoyed each others company.

A Week in India

It's hard to believe we've been here just over one week. Have we found chaos or serenity in our new world? Both of course - it is India, after all! The chaos is mostly in the form of traffic. The serenity comes in many forms: the culture, the colors, the tastes and even a soothing spa.
Our mornings start off relaxing. Breakfast is included, so we start each day with a nice big plate of fresh fruit - papaya, mango, banana - and usually an Indian breakfast of dosa's or potato paratha and sometime omeletes. Right after breakfast the kids and I play tennis or badminton for an hour. We are all improving.
On Monday we all had to go to the FRO office to apply for Residential Permits. It was a typical drab government office requiring you to line up to show ID, get something signed and then go to another office and do the same thing over and over. Luckily we had someone from Michael's office come with us who stood in line and got all the paperwork done for us. He told us where to sign and where to go next. Made things alot easier.
Wed. Michael went back to the FRO office to pick up the permits. He got there at noon, only to find out that they were closed for lunch until 2:30. When he got home I noticed that his permit is good for as long as our visas (April 2010), but mine and the kids are only good til Dec. 2009. We'll have to get someone to look into it.
The kids and I went out looking for furniture on Tuesday. Four places were recommended all in different areas of the city. Valu, our driver is pretty fast and knows all the back roads. He is able to skirt around the heavy traffic at times which can be good. But on Tues. he seemed to take the bumpiest, little windy roads and the kids and I ended up quite nauseated and frazzled.
Not much luck with the furniture. I was really excited to decorate an entire house with a bit of Indian flare but most of the furniture is "big box store stuff" at western prices. First we went to At Home which has four floors of furniture, kitchenware etc. Next we went to Modern World for electronics where I did purchase some small appliances at the same price as in Canada.
Five minutes after leaving Modern World I got a phone call that I had left my receipt there, so I asked Valu to go back. We turned around but after about ten minutes I asked if we were going back and he said we would go to the next furniture store first and then go back. By this time I'd given both kids some gravol and was feeling nauseated myself. He took narrow, bumpy streets at a fast pace and seemed to take forever to get there.
Lifestyle International is four stories with the first three being clothing and cosmetics. Lots of namebrands and trendy items. The furniture was cheaper in quality and price. Nothing really caught my eye. Relaxed in the food court until we felt better and then off again.
We stopped by the electronics store to get the receipt at 3:30 and the store was closed. Then we were off to the back roads, dodging cows and tuk tuks again. Glad to be home after that busy day.
As far as food goes, breakfast is included as I mentioned and then we make grilled cheese or go out for lunch. Food is so cheap in restaurants that I don't think we would ever make Indian food at home ourselves. We had a delicious meal across the street at a little restaurant for only $6 for the four of us. There is a Coffee Day chain that has good coffee, samosas, desserts, and milkshakes all at reasonable prices.
Last night I made "tacos" with fresh roti. I guess it was more like a wrap. But when I think about the time it took to go to the store, buy everything, wash the vegetables in filtered water, dry them well, make dinner and then clean up - it's not really worth it considering we can eat a whole meal for $6 across the street. The worst is we don't have a dishwasher and we have to clean up right away (don't want to attract bugs). The fridges are small so there isn't much room for groceries or leftovers. And there is no oven (common not to have one) so cooking is limited to stove top or microwave.
Another great find on one of the side streets across from our apartment was a Balinese Spa - "Ahvataras, The Spa." We found it on Father's Day. From the outside it looked like any other run down building but when we went up to the third floor past statues of Ganesh with offerings of flower petals and garlands we found a little oasis. Incense and soothing gamelan music immediately calmed our senses and we knew we didn't want to leave.
Since it was Father's Day, Michael got a treat with a Balinese head and shoulder massage with all sorts of nice creams and oils. Craig decided he should get a hair cut and so the two of them enjoyed their 45 minutes of relaxation while Alanna and I watched and sipped green tea.
Turns out the owner is from Singapore and moved here a year ago to open the spa. The decor and treatments are Balinese but the staff is Indian. Excellent people. The total bill? $7 with tip. Don't worry, Alanna and I will plan to get in on the fun tomorrow, my birthday. We are both going for a manicure and pedicure. Cost? No more than $15 each!