Shopping and Cuisine

Even though shopping and cuisine are lagging in the poll right now, I thought I'd write a bit about them since the kids will have to blog about school and I'd rather leave the history for Tim. I have included a slide show of a fraction of the various shops in our village. You can see that the produce is beautiful and abundant. We have been enjoying many vegetables and learning what they are called in Hindi: aloo (potato), gobi (califlower), palak (spinach), bhindi (okra), capsicum (green pepper), mutter (peas), etc. For the most part, we have avoided meat. When you walk down the street and see chickens and goats (I spared you photos of them hanging in the shops, skinned), you have a suppressed desire to eat them!

Typically, the kids and I eat cereal or toast with peanut butter for breakfast. We have the milk delivered daily (cost is about $0.25 per L) which then needs to be boiled. Tim often eats leftovers from the night before. He claims that a spicy breakfast is key to weight loss (it seems to be working for him) and thinks I should write a booked called "The Spicy Breakfast Diet". The kids' school doesn't provide lunch so I pack it for them. It is pretty typical of what they would bring at home. Some days, Thomas and Grace bring leftovers. Mark sticks more to peanut butter and jelly, but he seems to prefer it on chappathi instead of bread. I bought Grace a tiffin-box to carry her rice and dal.

Regarding the food, most Americans mistakenly believe that Indian food contains an abundance of curry powder. Curry, in Indian cooking, is a broad term referring to almost any spiced, sauce-based dish. The spices commonly used include, garlic, ginger, onion, green chilies, mustard seeds (rai), cumin (jeera), funugreek, (methi), cardamon (elaichi), red chili powder, tumeric powder (haldi), asofoetida (hind), coriander (dhania), and garam masala. We eat more of these spices in 1 week than we did in a whole year at home. We have chappathi and rice every night. We usually also have dal (lentils) and another dish like chana (chickpeas) masala, palak (spinach) or kaju (cashew) paneer (cottage cheese), sambar or spicy cabbage, califlower or eggplant. Occasionally we have dosa, paratha, poori, or idli and wonderful fresh coconut chutney or raita. For some easy to follow Indian recipes, go to http://www.showmethecurry.com/

Produce is incredibly inexpensive here. Today I bought 10 small lemons (to make lemonade) for $0.75. I can buy 2 big bunches of spinach for less than a dollar. Bananas are about $0.05 each, while apples cost about the same as we pay in the US (which makes sense because most of them are imported from Washington State). Juice, peanut butter, cereal, spaghetti sauce, and paper products are all relatively expensive. A jar of Skippy or Ragu, or a box of Honey Bunches of Oats (Mark's favorite cereal) costs about $6.00. We have been buying an Indian made peanut butter (more natural and way less expensive), making our own spaghetti sauce, and sticking to plain cereals like Corn Flakes and Wheat Flakes. Without an oven, it is a challenge to fix some things. I am able to buy flat bread and have been making the kids "pizza" by grilling the bread on a fry pan, sprinkling on Italian herbs and adding mozzarella cheese. It seems to do the trick. Thomas likes his pizza with tomatoes so I grill those up too. It is even possible to cook garlic bread on a fry pan. My mom brought us 6 boxes of Mac-n-cheese and 5 boxes of granola bars. They finished them before she left! I guess they miss some of their favorite foods.

Regarding other types of shopping, we can buy shoes and clothes in our village. Although the price is right, the quality is poor. There is a fairly big mall about 5 km away (The Esteem Mall) with a mix of both Indian and Western clothes. It has a Nike and an Adidas store, but the prices on most things are even higher than in the US. Downtown Bangalore has several very nice malls and many craft emporiums. There are lots of people trying to sell things on the street from books, to socks, to sunglasses. They are always ready to make a deal. My mom found several "deals" that were too good to pass up. Even after emptying her suitcase of the food she brought us, she still didn't have room and we have to mail a box of stuff back to the US.

On a side note, while I was typing this, the man who irons clothes in our apartment complex returned 8 items that I brought to him this morning. The cost was $0.60 for the lot of them!