Happy New Year and some FL trip pics

Wish you a very happy, healthy and a prosperous new year !
Hope you are having a blast these holidays.I am still unable to believe that it is a decade since my undergrad (don't start guessing my age now!), 9 years since I came to the States, 2 1/2 since 'S' was born, and 6 mon since I started blogging but it all feels like yesterday.Time flies when you have fun!
I had my share of ups and downs in 2009 as anybody and not particularly eventful if I look back.As far as new year resolutions go, I used to do it until I had ''S' but I started to realize that they don't work for me. The enthusiasm lasts only for a few weeks, at the most a couple of months.And I am usually back to where I started.The resolutions used to be something like losing weight or cooking more in the house and eating out less,or studying better to get better grades but I haven't lost weight since 3 years and I am still eating out more often than I would want to.So if there is any new resolution for me, that is to not have one..
It has been quite busy during year end and so you can see the inactivity in blogging and blog hopping.Hopefully, I will be able to post more regularly, stay in touch with the blogger buddies and make some more new friends this year!So once again a very happy new year to you and your families!!
Some of my FL trip pics,mainly Key West!







This is the end of Hwy 1 which starts in Maine that runs through 14 states in Continental US.This is the southern most tip of HWY 1.The northern most point is in Fort Kent, Maine.







This reads 'The Southern most point of Continental US;90 MILES to CUBA'



Have a Great Year ahead!

Shri

New Hope

Hope you all had a fun Thanksgiving holidays!We have been planning to go to Florida for some time now.We have postponed until 'S' is a little grown up and watches Mickey and other Disney shows.Now that she is a big fan of Mickey, almost to an obsessive degree, we thought it will be a good idea to visit!I will be back after a week, but until then, I will leave you with the pics of a little charming town-New Hope!

New Hope is an hour away from Lehigh Valley.It is small and filled with antique shops, boutiques and bustling with energy.It is mainly a tourist town.I love to eat in some of the patisseries there which offer unique desserts.And there are a few shops that sell Indian dresses too!!

We went on a boat ride in the morning which is about half hour.An old world boat ride which my daughter thoroughly enjoyed!!



A rustic book store.The cycle in front of the bookstore reminded me of India.When you go to B&N or library, you don't get to see anything like this



And how often do you get to see people relaxing and reading a newspaper, OUTDOORS?



This train ride was wonderful!Again, my daughter who is a big fan of Thomas,The Tank Engine and trains in general was very excited!



This restaurant which has the water view when you sit on the Patio has such a lovely ambiance and great food.Best of all the ivy leaves!!



See you again on the 5th!!

Till then

Hugs

Outer Banks

Outer Banks, known as OBX(as much as it sounds like a ticker symbol on NYSE, it is not!) is a series of small islands (Bodie Island, Hatteras island, Roanoke & Ocracoke) along the North Carolina coast.The place is quite popular for the beaches and light houses.The most popular lighthouse, I believe is the Cape Hatteras.Not to mention, the Wright Brothers' memorial in Kitty Hawk!

Our trip to OBX is one of the many memorable trips, both good and bad.Good because we went with my parents,my brother and my Sister in law(future:P) ,and bad because we got a speeding ticket.Anyway, I will save the cries for some other time.

The day we went, we wanted to visit Cape Hatteras Lighthouse but we realized that it will take longer to go to Hatteras given the weather. The place was expecting Hurricane Danny at the time and the weather did not seem cooperative. So we were content with Bodie Lighthouse, which is very beautiful too.



You can recognize the light houses by the markings and the patterns on the light house. While the Cape Hatteras light house has spirals in black and white, the bodie island light house has horizontal bands.

Isn't this charming?It is romantic to just walk on this beautiful wooden structure.



This charming town has an outdoor theater , playing the longest running production-'The Lost Colony', a play written by Pulitzer prize winner Paul Green.Roanoke has some impressive history behind.It happens to be the first English Colony in America.



We strolled along a bike trail that runs along the waterfront.



Although the Wright brothers are from Ohio, they camped here in Kill Devil Hills to carry out their experiments of the first human flight which they were successful in 1903.



Awards

Padma has passed me these awards a few weeks back.Thank you very much and sorry for the delay,Padma!!





Raje has passed me these awards and there is a fun meme that goes along with it which needs to be answered in one word!Thanks Girl!It means a lot:)

1. Where is your cell phone? With me, on my lap
2. Your hair? Black
3. Your mother? The soul of my family, truly
4. Your father? S
5. Your favorite food? Italian
6. Your dream last night? No dreams
7. Your favorite drink? Pepsi
8. Your dream/goal? Well….
9. What room are you in? Family room
10. Your hobby? Reading
11. Your fear? Falling off of heights
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Preferably in a warm place!
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something you aren’t? Hypocrite
15. Muffins? Hard to limit myself to one or two!
16. Wish list item? To go to Italy, Spain and Greece in one trip
17. Where did you grow up? Hyd
18. Last thing you did? Phone call
19. What are you wearing? Sweat shirt and pant
20. Your TV? Playing Mickey Mouse
21. Your pets? None
22. Your friends? Really the best
23. Your life? Is good
24. Your mood? Alright
25. Missing someone? My Mom
26. Vehicle? Camry
27. Something you’re not wearing? Hair band
28. Your favorite store? Barnes and Noble
29. Your favorite color? Black
30. When was the last time you laughed? Last night
31. Last time you cried? Don’t remember
32. Your best friend? Pallavi
33. One place that I go over and over? The mall
34. One person who emails me regularly? None
35. Favorite place to eat? Bravo (Cucina Italiana!!)
These awards go to each and every reader of this blog..Feel free to pick 'em up and will be looking forward to each of your memes!

Hugs,
Shri

Bushkill Falls

Nestled in the beautiful Poconos, the Bushkill Falls,also known as the 'Niagara of Pennsylvania', is a series of 8 falls.It was first opened by Charles Peters in 1904 and is still owned by the Peters family.


The waters start at the Bushkill creek flowing toward Delaware river, forming 8 falls.The tallest, main falls forms as the stream falls off the edge of a 100 ft cliff.


The views of the embedded wooden bridges are scenic and spectacular.



This fall photo is from my hike in '06.



Honest Scrap!


Jyoti, Mythreyi, Sushma,Parita have passed me the honest scrap!Thanks a bunch, gals!

This award comes with the following rules:
I must thank the person who gave me the award and list their blog and link it
I must list 10 honest things about myself
I must put a copy of The Honest Scrap Logo on my blog.
I must select at least 7 other worthy bloggers and list their links
I must notify the bloggers of the award and hopefully they will follow the above three requirements also.

Here are 10 things about me:

-I love to watch cartoons and I follow the story of Dora or Diego or you name it! Every show that my daughter watches, although my favs have to be Tom and Jerry & Mickey. I find them very inspiring. I know its odd for my age!
-I am sentimental
-I am over protective of my daughter. I should change that and let go of her!
-I overreact to things/issues which are not worth the energy and time.
-I hate to use medicines for any problem that I have! I bear the pain through the night than take a Tylenol. My husband hates me for this :D :P
-I am known to be a secretive person among my friends as I don't open up easily
-I love collecting souvenirs, mostly magnets and I have one from every place/country I visited!
-When I fight with someone, I get itchy to patch up.
-I can cross stitch(Counted) for any no of hours
-I love ice skating....Oops..Watching!:D

Passing this onto:

Vaishali
Vani
Vrinda
Suparna
Sadhana and Muskaan
Rekha

Till next time,
Shri

Lebkuchen

I have not been around for the last 5 days or so as I was out of town.With Summer ending (although I am not quite ready yet), we planned a vacation to OBX and it was absolutely fantastic there. The weather scared us a bit initially with Hurricane Bill and later Danny near the islands. Luckily, the weather cooperated and we went around! I will post the pictures soon. I know I have to post the Bushkill falls trip pics as well. Once I ease back into my routine, I will post the pics and some pending recipes too! For now, I am posting some of my Germany trip pics.

Germany, A beautiful country famous for great musicians like Beethoven, for the black forest cuckoo clocks, for Volkswagen and Porsche, for the Autobahn, has a distinctive cuisine. When you think of German food, Sauerkraut and beer cross the mind.But, there is much more to it than just these!
The Germans have a tradition of five meals a day. The day starts with Frühstück (Breakfast), which is followed by a second breakfast, a few hours later –Zweites Frühstück.At midday is their dinner, Mittagessen which is usually a hot meal.In the afternoon, comes their snack time-Kaffee which is more than just coffee!The day concludes with a light supper called Abendrot.I wonder if they still follow this tradition!
When I was making Lebkuchen, I was recollecting my trip to Germany in ’04.My food there primarily consisted of French fries and ate Lebkuchen once. The cookies were very delicious. I have heard that the cookies do not contain ginger although the recipe that I used does contain a small quantity of powdered ginger.
Here are some of the pics of my trip. I would have loved to share more but the ‘Devil’ seems to be in almost all the pics: D. Thought will spare you some fright!

Heidelberg Castle



Castles you can see alongside Rhine.You have to excuse me for the picture quality.We took it while we were cruising.:)



This Cuckoo clock is the size of a small house.On the hour, the dolls (couples) come out dancing.
The partial head that you can see is of my DH's:D


Cologne Cathedral



Decoration is an important aspect in making Lebkuchen. The decorations were made with inscriptions, made into heart shapes cookies, or even Christmas cards with angels cooing!In the story written by Gottfried Keller, ‘Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe’ ( A Village Romeo and Juliet), the heroine gives her lover a Lebkuchen heart with an inscription “A sweet almond kernel is in this heart, but my love for you is sweeter than the almond”

Adapted from: Better homes and Gardens New baking Book

Makes 40 cookies; The recipe from the book yields 48 cookies. They used square cookie cutters.

1 egg
¾ cup light brown sugar
½ cup honey
½ cup molasses
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground cardamom
½ cup chopped almonds
½ cup mixed candied fruits and/or raisins
1 recipe lemon glaze



Beat the egg on high speed. To this, add brown sugar, by beating on med speed until fluffy. Add molasses and honey to it and mix well

Sift the dry ingredients-flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardamom. Combine the dry ingredients with the egg mixture. Combine well using hand. The dough will be stiff and tough to handle. Add almonds and the candies mix. Refrigerate the dough in a bowl covered for 8 hrs or until the dough is easy to handle.

Preheat the oven to 350F.Line a baking sheet with al foil and grease it.

Remove the dough from the bowl and divide the dough into 2 halves. Roll the dough into a 12X8 inch rectangle. Since I had the round cookie cutters, I made them into circles instead of squares.
Cut 2 inch circles. Place them carefully on the baking sheets.

Bake them in the oven for 10 min. Remove the cookies and cool them on the baking sheet for a minute or so.

While warm brush with lemon glaze and decorate with candied fruit. You can store it in an airtight container for up to 7 days for the flavors to mellow. It tastes better when stored for several days.

For the glaze:
1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar
1 tbsp butter, melted
1 tbsp lemon juice




Combine all of them by adding 3- 4 tsp of water such that it forms a drizzling consistency.

This goes to AWED German, guest hosted by Lakshmi Venkatesh, started by DK of Chef in You.

Jyoti, Sushma and Mythreyi passed me some wonderful award(s)/scrap again!Will post it in the next couple of days!

Have fun now:)
Shri

Lancaster Trip and Award(s)/Tag

I have been wanting to post these pictures ever since I visited Lancaster few weeks back.The past couple of weeks have been very hectic that I missed some of my favorite events too!I guess the season is also to blame to some extent, although there is not much Summer in the North east this year.Its always raining or cloudy!So we try and stick to close by attractions!

Lancaster County,also known as the Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is famous for its Amish people.This is a peaceful place where you can get away from the hustle, bustle of our every day lives, relax in a horse drawn carriage(Buggy) and enjoy the green endless farms.All I remember seeing in my 40 minute buggy ride was Green and blue colors.Seems so untouched and unpolluted!

Filled with 28 covered bridges, the place has dramatic views and a slow paced life style.

In their houses, the Amish speak Dutch, a dialect of German but are taught English when they begin to go to school.Kids go to school in a formal setting(one -room schools) until 8th Grade by teachers who had education until 8th grade themselves!Later on , the parents take up the responsibility of coaching them.I could not take a picture of the school, by the time I took the camera out, the school was far behind me.

We wanted to visit a few more places around Lancaster but with a kid, you can imagine what its like!We plan 101 things and end up visiting 1 or 2:).

We went to Strasburg rail road and I must say the ride and the train both reminded me of the unforgettable trains in India.There is a certain charm to the 'choo choo,Chug Chug' trains as my daughter calls it!


Award with a Tag






I have been passed awards from the lovely Ramya and Suparna .Thanks so much!I had fun doing this:D as much as I enjoy reading all your tags..

Here we go:

What is your current obsession?
Photography and Blogging, of course

What are you wearing today?
Capri and Black Top

What's for dinner?
Peas and Carrot Pulao

What’s the last thing you bought?
Organic Whole Milk

What are you listening to right now?
Watching CSI

What do you think about the person who tagged you?
Creative and Lovely bloggers!

If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Paris

What are your must-have pieces for summer?
Sun glasses and bottled water

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Vaishnodevi

Which language do you want to learn?
Tamil! My husband is from Madras and yet it’s a shame I couldn’t learn in almost 10 yrs of my stay with him :D

What’s your favourite quote?
Its hard to choose 1 quote among my favs but here are 2 that I like
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm. Abe Lincoln
A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. –Nelson Mandela

Who do you want to meet right now?
My Grandparents

What is your favourite colour?
Black

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own closet?
Lavender color Skirt

What is your dream job?
An architect ( To those of you who watch Seinfeld: No! I am not George and I don’t work for Vandalay Industries!)

What’s your favourite magazine?
National Geographic

If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?
On my daughter’s clothes/Toys.

What do you consider a fashion faux pas? (Faux pas mean error in etiquette.. )
Salwar and sneakers

Who are your style icons?
None

Describe your personal style?
Simple and Comfortable; Nothing too heavy and jazzy!

What are your favorite movies?
The list is huge-DDLJ, Godavari (Telugu),RainCoat, Shawshank Redemption. Usual Suspects..

What are three cosmetic/makeup/perfume products that you can't live without?
All I use are Lipstick, Perfumes and Eyeliner (I don’t use cosmetics all that much so I can live with out all the 3)

What inspires you?
Creativity and Courage

What do you try to cook when you have cooking blues (When you feel real lazy to cook some thing)"?
I usually order Pizza but if I have to cook, that will be rice and dal

Give us three styling tips that always work for you:
Being comfortable in what I wear

What do you do when you “have nothing to wear” (even though your closet’s packed)?
Interesting qn but I dot think I ever came across such a situation!

What Kitchen gadget would you like to own?
Food Processor

Which is the one gadget/utentsil without which you just can’t work?
Pressure Cooker, although I had a blast in my house in which I couldn’t hear for a couple of days:P.. No lesson learnt looks like.He he He

What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?
Play with my daughter or watch cartoons!

What is the meaning of your name?
Poetry:) It is easy to guess what my name is now!Can you ?And yes, the blog is under my daughter's name and not mine:D

Which other blogs you love visiting?
All of ‘em! Each one is so unique ..

Favorite Dessert/Sweet?
Chocolate in any form

Favorite Season ?
Fall

What is your funniest cooking disaster?
While there are many incidents, this happened recently so easy to remember-The recipe for crackers calls for All purpose flour and I tried to replace it with the whole wheat flour that I had in the house, which is more close to chapatti flour. I followed the instructions and made the dough. I made it into a cracker shaped pieces and put it in a 450 F oven and was happily waiting for the kneaded dough to become crispy and all nice like store bought crackers and .. there I was holding a soft, chewy, weird textured dough Oops..cracker! My parents were there at the time and we could not stop laughing at my so called “CRACKER”LOL

What is your comfort food?
Rasam and Rice

What is the one dish that you love to make over and again?
Bisibelabath

Who inspired you to start blog?
Initially my friend Siri and later, I think I got inspired by all you bloggers!

Respond and rework – answer the questions on your own blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention, and add one more question of your own. Then tag eight or ten other people.

I am replacing the Give us three styling tips that always work for you with:
Which 3 places do you like to visit/vacation?
My question: Which 2 blogger friends would you like to invite to your place and what would you like to cook for them?

I am passing this to these lovely bloggers:

Srilakshmi of Annapurna
EC of Simple Indian food
Pratibha of the The Chef and Her Kitchen
Vrinda of Sankeerthanam
Vani of Mysoorean
Aquadaze of Served with Love

For now,
Shri