1. Mashallah Baby A is doing great. She is extremely smiley and has a great personality. Big Girl D has thus far been very loving with her little sister, although she did give Baby A a whack in the head a few times. But the sibling rivalry hasn’t been as bad as some people had warned me it would be. Big Girl D has gotten use to me being with Baby A most of the time, and if I come into the room without her, she makes a concerned face and says “Where is Baby A?”
2. I sold my car. After a lot of drama with a couple of buyers, finally someone took the darn thing. He was a short little guy with nervous manners. A day after he bought the car, he called and said “Something is wrong with the engine, a light has come on in the dashboard.” My husband asked what the light looked like. “It is in the shape of a petrol pump,” He said. My husband said, “That means you have to put gas in the tank.” Isn’t that crazy? Poor little guy. I shouldn’t laugh, I am a slow person myself. For the longest time, I actually thought the CD/DVD ROM drive on my laptop was a cup holder. Okay, not really. But I have a lot of slow moments.
3. I have signed up for a cooking class once per week. The instructor gives lessons to a small group of women in her home kitchen. A new group is starting this week. The group decides what type of cuisine they would like to focus on each week. But the instructor has selected the first week’s cuisine: Mexican. She said the dishes she will teach are sour cream, enchiladas, salsa, and fajitas. I am envisioning some bad Indianized Tex-Mex inspired stuff. She said fajitas like this” faadjtaass. I was definately put off by this. Tex-Mex is one of the signature cuisines of my state…and BAH to all food snobs who snub Nortenyo and Tex-Mex. Tex-Mex and barbacue are home to me. But I have had really atrocious Tex-Mex in Dubai. Depressing Tex-Mex. I am envisioning gobs of gloppy cheese and so forth. Also, I am not sure why she considers sour cream to be a dish. Anyway, I guess I cook a bunch of Thai stuff and other stuff that I can’t pronounce from various cuisines, and if I think I can cook Thai or whatever, why do I presume that she can’t cook Tex-Mex? Just because she’s Indian? I need to put my judgements aside and not knock it until I’ve tried it. I am sure she is really good. Let’s see how it goes.
4. My post baby weight loss has been going well, too. I started dieting about 5 weeks ago. It will probably take another 2-3 months before I feel good about my weight because I seem to be going at a rate of about .5 to 1 lb per week. Sigh. Sometimes I look at really lanky skinny guys who could use a little poundage and I wish I could zap my excess weight on them. Too bad I don’t have magic powers. Anyway, Inshallah I can keep up the good work.
5. My husband sometimes says weird things—at least they seem weird to me—about when certain foods are appropriate. For example, pakoras are for when it is raining, and never for hot days. He also says stuff like “People eat more in winter, in the summer no one feels like eating.” I told him I think this is desi soch, I have never heard of this before. He was like, no, it is common knowledge. (I feel like eating a lot all of the time, not just in the winter!) I think common American foods had become so processed for such a long time, that aside from some cultural seasonal favorites, we had lost touch with when many foods were in season and what seasonal based eating is like. I don’t know. I think with the American foodie culture on the rise, and a sort of re-invention of what American cuisine is (death of boxed meat helpers?!?!), perhaps we will revive some of our food/season associations.
6. I’d better stop writing because all I can think about is food. So that’s all for now!
January 6, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Thanks. You made me hungry LOL!!
January 7, 2009 at 9:32 am
I have the same idea as your husband – in the summer I don’t feel like eating. Winter my stomach is an endless pit! HA HA.
January 7, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I agree with your husband some what. It also reminded me that my grandma used to say about honeydew melons (and some one said the same thing about guavas)that if you eat them in the morning it’s gold, in the afternoon it’s silver, and at night it’s dirt. I dont know how much truth is in it or just a indo/pak culture.
January 7, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Think no a/c. When you’re too hot to think you don’t feel like eating. Drinking and sweating, sweating and drinking.
January 7, 2009 at 4:46 pm
In Spain we always say in summer you eat less hehe
January 7, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Good luck with the cooking class! Perhaps you could post some of the recipes on here, specially the Tex-Mex
January 7, 2009 at 5:38 pm
The Tex-Mex turned out to be Bombay-Tex- something or the other and involved ketchup and singles of cheese unwrapped from plastic sheaths, i.e. some generic brand of Kraft. It tasted good as food, and I ate it up. But it was definately not remotely Mexican or Texican.
January 7, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Pakoras definitely taste better when it’s raining
When I used to be out in the blistering heat without the luxury of constant air conditioning in Pakistan, I would hardly feel like eating (which is really saying something for me). Maybe the constant water/liquid intake had something to do with it.
January 8, 2009 at 2:41 am
Salaam Alaikum,
Glad everything is going well. Insha Allah, my little girl will be here soon. 13 days until my due date, but she’s fully engaged now, so she might make an appearance before then.
Any advice/things you wished someone had told you beforehand?
January 8, 2009 at 3:39 am
We do that too. In summer, with the heat, we always eat less. The heat and the humidity kills the hunger.
Certain foods are better at certain times. Selig, the Khaliji dish I believe, tastes much better when it is cold, cloudy and rainy.
Indianised Tex Mex? No thanks. LOL, reminds me of my wife’s Arabised “Spaghetti sauce” with cinnamon and other spices.