November in the East...

famous old delhi sweet shop
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Ah....November in Delhi.....gorgeous, cool, days and cold, crisp, nights. We still have divine sunshine everyday, which I love about winter here. There are a lot of things I miss about home, but the cloudy gloom of winter is not one of them.

Of course, one big thing I did miss from home lately is Thanksgiving. Being a strictly American holiday, very few people even knew it was coming up. However, thanks to some very generous and lovely families at the American Embassy, I didn’t miss it completely. In fact, the only thing really missing from my Thanksgiving was my own family. Other than that, we had the turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and even pumpkin pie. I like pumpkin pie as much as the next guy, but I never thought I could be that giddy about a pie. (They even gave me the left overs to share with fellow Americans and pie-lovers at JNU.)

jalebi wala
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I had planned to have my own Thanksgiving with friends at JNU. Since I do a lot of the cooking each year at home, I didn’t think it would be that difficult. But, like many other things in India, I was naive in my assumptions. For one thing, many of my friends do not have apartments, and therefore have no access to a kitchen. The ones who have kitchens often have very small ones, and very few kitchens here have ovens anyways. Even if someone has an oven, having one large enough to accommodate a turkey is a whole other issue. A fellow American was storing a turkey in his freezer and said his maid probably thought he’d killed a small ostrich.

mobile vendor
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My ever considerate mother tried to make things a little easier for me by shipping some items like stuffing and corn bread mix. Even this was more complicated than it sounds. The package arrived but was “too heavy” to send directly to my hostel so they held it at a post office off campus for a week before informing me that it was there. Even then, they told a friend of mine to tell me that it was there. So, after playing telephone with my friend, I took my bike on the Indian roads and peddled my little self over to get my package. Upon arriving they said I would need the postal slip I never received before they could give it to me. Let’s just say I explained to the gentlemen that after a week of waiting and riding my bike over there, I was not leaving without it. So, a week after thanksgiving I finally had what I needed. Who knows...maybe by January I’ll figure out how to pull-off Thanksgiving in Delhi.

This is one of the dried fruit and nut stands of Old Delhi. I was told most of this is shipped in from Afghanistan.
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On to more easy-going areas of life... Delhi continues to unfold with new surprises whenever I can make time to go out and search for her secrets. My friend Andrew, from the U.S. embassy, has helped in this quest for the learning about the city by inviting me on some educational tours. The one we went on this last week seemed to be created for me. It was a culinary tour of the old city. We started in the morning and ate our way through it’s tiny, winding, and crowded streets until a respectably late lunch. Our guide said that it is common for any big Indian meal to start with sweets to get the mouth going, so honor tradition we did.

Ahhhh....Azzurro.....my favorite restaurant. This is their tower of roasted veggies is layers of pesto.
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Our menu for the day began with jalebi....similar to an American funnel cake only crispier and gooier. The simple batter is funneled into a mixture of hot oil and sugar locking the rich, sweet syrup into the center of the intertwining rings. Our next course was yet another sweet, or mithai (pronounced mi-tie.) The shop we stopped at is a Delhi institution, the Ghantewala Mithai Shop, and has been producing sweets in the same, small shop since 1790. They have all of the gulab jamun’s, ras malai’s, ladu’s, and barfi’s that you would expect and some other speciality items.

I actually saw this sign in a hospital. Pan, a common thing similar to chewing tobacoo, causes people to spit bright orange. And they do....everywhere.
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Some of the more most unique food features of Old Delhi are the spice markets and the Mughali restaurants around the mosque. The spice market is huge and legendary. The vendors have their wares of yellow tumeric, brown cumin, cinnamon, blood-red chiles, and other frangrant grinds piled high in their bags like dunes in a dessert. You can smell the market blocks before you every see it. In fact, if you get lost, just follow your nose.

The Mughali restaurants near the mosque are not to be missed. Now that the underground is working, you can actually take the metro right to the mosque. All of these restaurants are within a one-block walking distance. Kareem’s is definatley the most famous. I’ve written about it before so I won’t repeat myself. But, it is still amazing. Like most treasures of life, each time you revisit you’ll find something new. This time “Kareem’s vegetabes” were the hidden treasure. The name may not be exciting, and this dish will certainly not appeal to your healthful sensibilities....but it tastes amazing. The vegetable part of the dish is spinach that I’m sure is added purely for color and the sake of having a veg dish on the menu (though the dal is also very good, so vegetarians be not discouraged.) Besides the spinach, the dish is mainly composed of ghee, cream, cheese, ground almonds, dried fruits and spices. It’s an unsuspecting looking creamy white-green color but will be like a rainbow for your pallet.

Eiad and I now have a standard menu for you syrian dinners at his apartment....hummus, pita bread, mutabal (eggplant dip), syrian's salad (cucumbers, tomatoe, lemon, oil, salt, and mint), and roasted chicken.
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Sometimes, food filled days flow into magical nights. Every woman, at some point in her life, dreams of a magical Cinderalla ball to sweep her away in an atmosphere of magic and charm. This month, I had one of those nights at the Austrian Embassy’s Viennese Ball. My Rotary host, Mr. Shahani, handed me the invitation in the car on the way there that contained the cd of classical Austrian music. When we arrived, we walked through the white columns and lighted golden floral arrangements, on the red carpet of course, into the large garden. The garden was covered by a tent of gold fabric draped into a 50ft point above the middle of the scene. At the front of the room was the Viennese chamber orchestra that flew in just for the evening. In front of the orchestra was the dance floor where several Indian couples preformed traditional Viennese dances. I must mention the food...of course. There were two buffets, one of Indian food and one of European food. It was all amazing though. So, I watched the concert, talked with some amazing people, had some drinks and wonderful food, and a dance. It was a really magical evening that I’m sure I will never forget.

boy spitting
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Unfortunately, I did not take my camera to the Viennese Ball. Actually, the one thing I have been very bad about lately is taking photos. I have some random views of my daily life, and meals of course, but for the most part in this entries I am going to feature the pictures of a friend of mine from Poland. Hororata and her husband, Alexander, are back in the cold North now, but while he was here Alexander did a fantastic job of capturing the spirit of Delhi with his camera. So, you get to enjoy a variety of his images this time.