planes, trains and elephants … adventures in India

So my apologies.  I’ve been a little out of touch as I just returned from nearly three weeks traveling in India and Nepal. I haven’t cooked much in the few days I’ve been back so I’m way behind on just about everything, including this blog.  But what a wonderful glorious couple of weeks it was.  Now it’s time to catch up.

Since I haven’t cooked, I don’t have much to post on at the moment but I have lots of ideas I want to try – the seafood curries of Goa, numerous dals and the endless varieties of breads that I need to experiment with. That will likely have to wait until after the New Year as I have 18 zillion cookies to bake, presents to wrap and send and the holidays to get through first.  So in the meantime, I thought I’d share a little about my travels.

the wonderful snack carts

Oh India – wonderful complete chaos.  I don’t know how else to describe it.  It’s loud, insane, noisy, dirty, smelly, riotously colorful and full full FULL of people.  People everywhere.  No rhyme or reason to anything.  If there are four marked traffic lanes, then there are SEVEN lanes of vehicles – a crazy mix of cars, trucks, tuk tuks, bicycles, horse carts, motorcycles and scooters – zig zagging every which way in one big wonderful mess.   To pass, a driver honks to let the driver in front know he’s coming.  Many many times.  Now picture what that sounds like when every one of the 1500 vehicles around you is doing it.  Loud loud LOUD – chaos I tell you.  It’s complete sensory overload and it made my head hurt.

chilies outside of Jaipur

Traffic. Of all the things we saw – and we saw A LOT – it was the one thing that really stuck with me.  Good god, I’ve never seen or heard anything quite like it.  Crossing the street is an exercise in modern day frogger.  Traffic lights?  You must be joking.  Here’s how it goes … you wait for a pause then dart out between the tuk tuks and cars, avoiding the motorcycles and ignoring the horns.  You run around the street urchins yelling “Madame!  Madame!  Only 100 rupees!” (FYI … none of you are getting that scary marionette they kept trying to sell me) and make a break for it.  You go forward, you zig, you back up, you zag, run around a tuk tuk with 14 people in/on it then with a quick dart, semi-gracefully leap over a pile of goat crap and up a dirty curb where 27 Indian dudes are staring at you.  It’s all rather disconcerting, pretty frightening and a little exhilarating.  In Jaipur, while waiting in the middle of the street to cross, I was goosed by a cow.  A COW.  I kid you not.  I have video to prove it.  It was nuts I tell you.

perhaps an umbrella, madame?

It was a fantastic journey and such a beautiful country.  And holy crap, was the food fantastic!  Everything – literally everything – I ate was delicious.  So much flavor – even the simplest of dishes were amazing.  The tandoori of the North, the subtle coconut based curries of the southern coast, the sizzling hot samosas off the street carts.  Deeeeelicious.

fantastic fruit stands

If you’re of the adventurous sort, I highly recommend booking a trip.  It will be unlike anything you’ve ever experienced and a wonderful memorable journey.  I’ll post more travel stories and recipes when I get a chance.  It was a truly remarkable time.  Pretty damn funny too.  But that’s no surprise.

indian version of after dinner mints