Friday, January 21, 2011

Deceiving Samosas

Once upon a time, in our suburban Philly area, there was only one Indian grocery store. But today within a driving distance of 5 miles, we can find at least 5 or 6 Indian stores.

These stores mostly keep Samosas next to the front counter. This is a difficult temptation for me to resist. If you give me the choice of a chocolate cake and a samosa, I will pick samosas any day. Spicy tangy items win over stupid sweet dishes. Except for cheesecake - the only non-desi dessert to which I cannot say No. I am digressing.

This fried item (fried in how many days old oil...hmm..we should not go that route) is more tempting when I am hungry and happened to enter the shop in such a state. Last week was one such occasion and a fresh tray of samosas arrived just then. I asked the shop keeper - "fresh hai kya" and he said "yes, madam". I said - "Pack 2 of those" considering the fact that B hates samosas and I have only been criticized for showing so much love buying extra ones for him.

After putting all purchased groceries in the trunk of the car, I carefully took out the samosa packet from the lot and put it on the passenger seat. I drove to the next stop which was an American grocery store , parked there and decided to eat one samosa. After all they should be savored when they are hot!

One bite and I almost broke the teeth. The samosa was super cold. It looked like the world's most beautiful samosa, but the outer coating was very hard. It was obviously taken out of a fridge just now. When I saw the tray of samosas being delivered in front of my eyes, I assumed they will be hot. I should have learnt my lesson from my previous such experiences.

How many ever shops they may open, the samosas are always cold. The filling is never great. When a mass order of samosas is catered, it is again disappointing to see the poor quality. This post is dedicated to Poor me who still forgets these lessons and keeps buying them with hope!

Friday, January 7, 2011

Snow and hours of phone chatter

Instead of drafting huge pages in my mind and never writing them out - why not, wrote about just TODAY!

We woke up today morning to see snow and the phone rang over and over.
"Is the school closing today? Is there a 2 hour delay? When are they going to make the call or email to us?"

Moms in our neighborhood called each other and said the same thing.

Schools did not make an announcement. B went early to office. I stayed home with Nithin, thanks to my neighbor/friend who offered drop the older one to school.

I made a call to my friend and we ended up talking for 3 hours. We spoke about everything under the sun - a much needed talk for both of us. I have always seen that I rediscover myself or understand my emotions more clearly when I talk to FRIENDS. I hope to have been a help to her also - but it has been months and months since I had that kind of talk with anyone.

I must also admit that talking to a girl friend is a totally different kind of pleasure than talking to guys. There is something totally different with the way girls connect, right! It is not that we have to be talking about nail polish or make up. It is our emotions which make total sense to each other - it would take a lot of explaining to make a man understand them!

I did let my younger one go wild on his computer games as I was chatting away. I felt a little guilty about it. It felt very much like a holiday with not having to drive him to school. I did spend time with him reading and helping him write a Kumon workbook.

In the afternoon, I cuddled up with him and laughed some more. I pretended that I am going away for 2 days and enjoyed him say: 'No, Amma, don't go!' . These little games we play!