...in Transit once again...

Its 7AM at Hong Kong airport and I am sitting here quite alone (literally!) at my gate waiting for my 1015AM flight. How long have I been waiting - oh abt 2 hours! Thank goodness for free Wi-Fi!! C is right - all things worth having should always be free.. love Google for that! - ok that was going on tangent... back at the Cathay Pacific gate watching the light come up over Hong Kong. I see shadows that may possibly be mountains or just buildings hidden under fog. I am absolutely starving! I could go wandering through the airport to find some eats but - just too lazy. Figure I will just distract myself being online talking to Sheetz and writing on blog or listening to Proust. C downloaded How Proust Can Change Your Life in my Nano - so instead of reading a book, I am to improve my listening skills and learn about Proust through a book on tape. I am looking forward to it - the experience - I realized I am not too good of a listener. My mind tends to wander if I am involved in topics I have no interest in - its really terrible - I hear but not really register or listen. So, most of the time I must have a vacant glazed look or something around people! I now see the advantage of having a good partner and balanced relationship where we help each other become better as people or improve our selves.

Apologies for another tangent. Back in Hong Kong airport... the shadows have turned out to be or at least look like from where I am - a hill/mountain of some sort - probably at some distance off. I think i will go hunt for some grub after all...next stop following a 16+hr journey - JFK aitport, NY.

wait - I actually glimpsed the bright orange ball lighting the morning sky light tangerine - Its playing a fun game of hide-n-seek with those marshmallow clouds!

Creating new blog...

I am debating on creating a whole new blog on just cooking ideas, recipes and experiments. It will host only food related blogs. Let's see what happens. Right now I have a hard enough time coming up with writing anything at all! But I am always whipping something up in the kitchen...

Fruit Desserts

For Eid I ended up making 3 fruit dishes. Why? I over estimated and had a surplus of fruits so had to do something with it.

Main - Leche de Fruit (ok - i made it up-- have a better idea?)

Combination of soft and hard fruits cut to bite size pieces.
I used: red apples, bananas, starfruit, guava, pineapple

fresh grated coconut shavings
Can of sweetened condensed milk

In a large decorative platter make a thin layer of coconut shavings. Dunk all the fruit in the condensed milk and make layers of fruits and top it all with coconut shavings. The starfruits looked so pretty that I had small toothpicks inserted and the pieces standing like stars around the dish. The kids loved it =)

Fruits 2:

Mix of fruits sprinkled with sugar, garam masala and black salt. I had put it inside a emptied watermelon turned into a bowl.

Fruits 3:

Mix of fruits with salt and kasondi. Kasondi is a mustard seed concoction. It was a nice kick of spicy and and sweet. Kasondi is like a preserve so it keeps if fresh hard fruits.

Eid in Dhaka

Eid in Dhaka and with C and his family was completely a different experience for me. I haven't celebrated Eid in its true sense in many years. This year – we started the festivities off with a Mendhi Night with all the women in the family. C hired two mendhi artists so that everyone could relax and enjoy. I made food to keep all full. It was a hit. Everyone had the hands adorned with mendhi for Eid. Games were played and general good time. Our first “party” was a success. I have always wanted to have such a party and in Dhaka it was possible. The food was a spread of Indian, western and Bangladeshi food – a lil something unique for the palate – a welcome change from the month of pakoras and haleem of Ramadaan. Maybe it will become a tradition for us?!

Food:
Fresh fruit with condensed milk and fresh coconut
Fresh fruit with mustard dressing (served in decorative watermelon)
Fresh fruit chaat w/ black salt (also served in decorative watermelon)
Deviled Eggs
Fresh chutney sandwich
Ground beef kababs
Potato Tikkis (kababs)
Chips with homemade salsa
Fresh watermelon juice cocktail

Yes - a lot of fruit - just ended up overestimating and had to do something with the surplus!

Recipes and Pics are going to be posted soon.