Time is flying!

Sole with Breadcrumbs
Lactose Free Strawberry Ice Cream
Prime Rib roast with a new great rub
Broccoli Quinoa Casserole
Cranberry Yogurt Flan

I can't believe that it is a month since I did my last food report.  Brenna arrived 5 days ago, so menu planning has changed a bit.  Lots of vegetarian options and lactose free cooking in the works.  We also hosted a dinner with Chris and Monica and the three girls on Friday and that was fun and the menu worked out well.

In regular cooking for Stewart and I before Brenna arrived, I have to say that it was more of the usual.  Stewart was busy with the launch of Prime Surprise Sweets so tried to stick to meals that we know.  I did use the steam roasted techniques from the fall Fine Cooking.  Always turns out very tasty! I did finally serve some fish to Stewart.  I made Sole with Sourdough Breadcrumbs from Market Recipes.  They had Petrale on sale and this was a recommended recipe.  I liked the cooking method and it worked well.  I loved the breadcrumbs, but it had too much garlic so that it over powered the fish.  I would omit the garlic and use more parsley and lemon for next time.

In preparation of Brenna arriving I found Green Valley Organics Lactose Free Dairy at Central Market.  Disappointed that they not make whipping cream, but they do yogurt, sour cream, cream cheese and Kefir.  They had an on line recipe for Strawberry Ice Cream using sour cream and Kefir.  Tried this and it worked out really well!  Brenna and I really like it.

For the dinner with Chris and Monica and family, I went with my standby rib roast, roasted vegetables and the snap peas all from A Matter of Taste, by Lucy Waverman.  The vegetables I did the recipe, but with the roasted veggies I did do the steam method. I cooked in the large oven and really it would have worked better on convection.  Must not be afraid of the convection for cooking large quantities.  I love the peas, but with the lemon juice it can turn them a weird shade of green. I should try just using lemon zest and not the juice and see if I can get the lemony result with out the colour problem.  I did regular scalloped potatoes from Canadian Living.  Did these early and in the small oven.  They were a big hit. For the roast I found some different rubs.  I tried one with salt, pepper, herbes de Provence and garlic.  Again the roast was done in the large oven and had to end up on convection.  Not sure what it is, the roasting pan or just the size of the oven.  The end result though was one of the best tasting roasts I have ever made. Will take that recipe to Jackson hole, that is for sure!

For a vegetarian option we made a Broccoli Quinoa Casserole from Eat Good 4 Life website.  I think the idea was good but way too much Quinoa.  Brenna is trying to figure out if she really can eat Quinoa!

For dessert I made the Cranberry Yogurt Flan, that Katja Gilmore first served to me years ago for my birthday.  I love this dessert it tastes and looks like cheesecake but is so much lighter!

I have started on some Christmas cookies but will do a small separate post on those selections for this year.

So up to date for now, though I think the next 3 weeks will be busy with lots of cooking and baking. Kaitlin will be arriving tomorrow night.  Off to make dinner of simple pork chops, broccolini, salad, roasted potatoes and Brenna is going to saute some tofu for herself.

Trying to get back to normal

Whole Grain Spaghetti with Wild mushrooms, Bacon and Rosemary
Steam Roasted Roots with Maple, Sriracha and Thyme
Tom Douglas Tomato Soup
Mincemeat!

 Sometime in the future I will look back at this blog and wonder why I wasn't cooking very much, particularly two weeks ago. Then I will remember the day that I wrote my last entry was Election Day and hopefully the emotions that I and may I say a good portion of Seattle felt with the result of this 2016 Presidential election will have faded.  I have pulled myself up and I can thank the Seattle Seahawks for starting it with a great game and win over the Patriots on the 13th and another win over the Eagles this past weekend.  Thanksgiving is tomorrow and I may just pull out some turkey from the freezer, but will have to let you know the result later

I did find some great recipes again in the October/November 2016 Fine Cooking to try.  They have a section called, Learn to Love Whole-Grain Pastas.  It totally made sense when they said, just using whole grain spaghetti with sauce..... "only to find the result, shall I say, underwhelming"  That says our experience in a nutshell.  We tried the spaghetti with wild mushrooms, bacon and rosemary, throwing in a bit of leftover steak to be absolutely delicious. Mixing the more assertive flavour and texture of the pasta with more earthy, bold flavours was brilliant.  I need to try a couple more!

Another section was about  steam roasted vegetables.  We were really happy with the cauliflower dish from the the previous post, that we tried the steam roasted roots with maple sriracha and thyme.  I used carrots and rutabaga.  Love it!  Maybe with turkey tomorrow we should try the butternut squash with crispy sage.

For lunch on Sunday, Stewart and I thought that we would like tomato soup.  No Campbells in the the cupboard, so pulled out  the Central Market recipe.  Stewart looked up Tom Douglas's version that we had at the Dahlia Lounge a few weeks back  So working from both recipes made a very nice soup.  I didn't have celery seed, but had celery salt.  I thought it ended up too salty but Stewart liked it very much.  All my notes are on Tom's soup recipe.

For a quick dinner I finally used the last of the Al Pastor marinade that kept really well in the fridge.  I used it first with pork, next with steak and finally used it up on BBQ chicken thighs.  It again was great and something that I will do all over again in the new year.  Another quick dinner was pork chops with Penzey's Bavarian spice and apples.  Simple and delicious. A couple of other standbys this past week.  Lamb Kebabs from the New York Times cook book, my stir fried bok choy with garlic, ginger and scallions from Fine Cooking and the Sunday morning favourite of whole wheat crepes.  

Talking with Sheila and Mom on my birthday I was inspired.  Sheila was in the process of making a new patch of mincemeat.  So looked up the recipe and got all her pointers and Stewart and I went shopping on Sunday to get all the special ingredients.  I started it last week and on Monday did the final cooking and was able to package 6 pie's worth.  That was half a batch of my Great, Great Grandmother Jordan's recipe.  Stewart is anxious for me to make some tarts so that he can take them to work.  They should be fine and I will make them just before Christmas.

Girls will be arriving in less than a month so I will have to start thinking about cookie baking, but not quite yet.

Christmas baking begins!

Pacific Northwest Christmas Cake
Traditional Christmas Pudding
Yellow Split Pea Soup
Pot Roast
Steam-roasted indian-spiced cauliflower
Low Carb Almond Flour waffles
Chocolate chunk and chip cookies
Pecan Sandies

Let us start with Christmas baking.  I made the Pacific Northwest Christmas Cake, by Paola Thomas. I discovered this gem in Edible Seattle magazine from November/ December, 2015.  I do change the hazelnuts for almonds and the walnuts for pecans.  I had also ordered the candied cherries from King Arthur this year.  They are imported from Italy and there is a real difference from buying them in the store. I also got the Plum pudding made. I use the Traditional Christmas Pudding from The Ultimate Christmas Cookbook that I have had for years.  This is a British Cookbook from 1999. It calls for Sultana raisins but I  can't find Sultana raisins here, and to be honest I don't think I actually ever found them in Ottawa.  Substituted a Chilean raisin.  I used orange juice this year.  The mixed peel came from King Arthur, and was again from Italy.  This is a huge improvement.  Nice to have both of these done and maturing in the garage.

To continue on the baking theme, I finally started to tackle my beautiful Bouchon Bakery cookbook that Stewart got me last year.  I tried the Pecan Sandies and I thought they turned out well.  I also did the Chocolate Chunk and chip cookies.  I started both with the "weigh ingredients" method that they recommend.  When doing the second type of cookies, it was evident that the scale was not working that well.  I switched to the measuring cup method.  This resulted in very flat and tasty puddles, but puddles non the less. I believe there was too much butter and this caused the cookie to basically melt into puddles.  We switched out the batteries on the scale this evening, hopefully that will make things more accurate.  The old batteries by the way were  from or good until December 1999!

For dinners I tried a couple of new recipes.  The first was Yellow Split Pea Soup with smoked ham hocks. This was developed at Central Market and I found it very tasty indeed.  The recipe called from 1 to 2 tablespoons of hot sauce, but I only used a little less than a 1/4 tsp of Dave's and it was plenty spicy.  Not overly hot but with a nice warmth. From the current Fine Cooking, October/ November I made the steam-roasted Indian- spiced cauliflower.  A wonderful and easy side dish good enough for company.  I also made Pot Roast with Parsnips, turnips and pearl onions from The Ultimate Cookbook, Recipes from the Canadian Living Test Kitchen..  Very good but Stewart would prefer to replace one of the turnips with a potato.  This made two nights worth of dinner and still some leftover vegetables for lunch.

That leaves us with Sunday Breakfast.  Stewart has been a waffle lover for years.  As they are one of the most carb rich breakfast options, we decided we need to find an alternatives.  We love our whole wheat crepes that we make instead of pancakes but waffles can be tricky.  We tried Almond Flour Yogurt Waffles, from alldayidreamaboutfood.com I changed the 2 tablespoons of  sweetener to a tablespoon of sugar, the whey powder to white whole wheat flour and joined the baking powder and baking soda into the double acting baking powder that I would like to use up.  Also used milk for Almond milk.  Those changes added only a total of 25g carb to the recipe so a 4 inch waffle is now 6.7 grams of carb.  They cooked fast and were best when the griddle was really hot, keeping their shape well.  We found them to be very good, a bit more chew than white flour, but what do you expect.  We will add them to the rotation of weekend breakfast.

Dinner adventures this week.

Pasta with Sausage and Kale
Grilled Skirt Steak with Adobo butter
Kafta, Tzatziki and Tabbouleh
Shrimp and Black Bean Quesadillas
Roasted Squash with ruby chard and green rice
Tacos Al Pastor

Looks like we are not keeping up with this family blog.  Stewart has suggested that I start using it to keep track of recipes that we would like to repeat. We have had two dinners this week from the October/November 2016 edition of Fine Cooking.
Yesterday we had, Pasta with sausage and kale.  This was very good and I served it with a salad.  I cut the kale and pasta in half but increased the amount of sausage just a bit and kept the cheese the same.  Quite simple to make and kale goes really well with pork.  Paired is with a Sangiovese type red wine from Italy.
Tonight we had Grilled skirt steak with adobo butter.  I had the adobo chipotles already open from the Mexican dinner on Saturday with Julia and Noah.  A great quick cooking steak.  Served with baby broccoli, bbq pineapple and baked potato that you can have more of the adobo butter on or I had guacamole and sour cream.  Very nice indeed!

Returning from Canada on Thursday last week, I brought home fresh Lebanese pita so indulged in Tabbouleh, Tzatziki, and Kafta dinner on Friday.  Stewart found the Kafta recipe on Allrecipes.  It was excellent, basically Lebanese hamburgers on a skewer, have to it make again.  The tzatziki was called Chef John's again from allrecipes.  The garlic needed to be cut in half otherwise very tasty.  The tabbouleh is so much work and was better the next day.  I found the parsley to be a bit tough at this time of year and I really needed to chop it finer.

Saturday night we had Julia and Noah for dinner.  Ted was working overtime.  I made a Mexican dinner from Jamie Oliver's Issue 71 of his magazine Jamie.
Started with Shrimp and black bean quesadillas, sans shrimp.  Used the fresh whole wheat tortillas from Central Market.  Noah ate his with just cheese and ate the whole thing.  I really liked the addition of smoked paprika to the shredded cheese, it gave it a nice kick.
I did roasted squash with ruby chard and green rice.  Loved the green rice and squash and the chard was okay but a bit plain.  Lastly did the Taco's al Pastor and that was also really good with pineapple salsa.  The pineapple was a bit unripe so BBQ'd it first and used half the pineapple.  After barbecuing the balance of the pineapple tonight, the salsa would have been much better if it was riper.

On Monday for dinner used the Mexican dinner in basically a burrito bowl, Lining a plate with salad greens and topping with the heated up rice, squash and pork.  Really yummy.
Afraid that I set the bar a bit high this past week!  Have to start planning for the weekend and maybe I will have to start taking pictures!    

Dinner adventures this week.

Pasta with Sausage and Kale
Grilled Skirt Steak with Adobo butter
Kafta, Tzatziki and Tabbouleh
Shrimp and Black Bean Quesadillas
Roasted Squash with ruby chard and green rice
Tacos Al Pastor

Looks like we are not keeping up with this family blog.  Stewart has suggested that I start using it to keep track of recipes that we would like to repeat. We have had two dinners this week from the October/November 2016 edition of Fine Cooking.
Yesterday we had, Pasta with sausage and kale.  This was very good and I served it with a salad.  I cut the kale and pasta in half but increased the amount of sausage just a bit and kept the cheese the same.  Quite simple to make and kale goes really well with pork.  Paired is with a Sangiovese type red wine from Italy.
Tonight we had Grilled skirt steak with adobo butter.  I had the adobo chipotles already open from the Mexican dinner on Saturday with Julia and Noah.  A great quick cooking steak.  Served with baby broccoli, bbq pineapple and baked potato that you can have more of the adobo butter on or I had guacamole and sour cream.  Very nice indeed!

Returning from Canada on Thursday last week, I brought home fresh Lebanese pita so indulged in Tabbouleh, Tzatziki, and Kafta dinner on Friday.  Stewart found the Kafta recipe on Allrecipes.  It was excellent, basically Lebanese hamburgers on a skewer, have to it make again.  The tzatziki was called Chef John's again from allrecipes.  The garlic needed to be cut in half otherwise very tasty.  The tabbouleh is so much work and was better the next day.  I found the parsley to be a bit tough at this time of year and I really needed to chop it finer.

Saturday night we had Julia and Noah for dinner.  Ted was working overtime.  I made a Mexican dinner from Jamie Oliver's Issue 71 of his magazine Jamie.
Started with Shrimp and black bean quesadillas, sans shrimp.  Used the fresh whole wheat tortillas from Central Market.  Noah ate his with just cheese and ate the whole thing.  I really liked the addition of smoked paprika to the shredded cheese, it gave it a nice kick.
I did roasted squash with ruby chard and green rice.  Loved the green rice and squash and the chard was okay but a bit plain.  Lastly did the Taco's al Pastor and that was also really good with pineapple salsa.  The pineapple was a bit unripe so BBQ'd it first and used half the pineapple.  After barbecuing the balance of the pineapple tonight, the salsa would have been much better if it was riper.

On Monday for dinner used the Mexican dinner in basically a burrito bowl, Lining a plate with salad greens and topping with the heated up rice, squash and pork.  Really yummy.
Afraid that I set the bar a bit high this past week!  Have to start planning for the weekend and maybe I will have to start taking pictures!    

Trip to the Golden Triangle

 Our flight to Delhi was uneventful. Our driver, who drove us for the entire trip, met us at the airport. He took us to our hotel and we went to bed. (It was pretty late for me)

The next day we toured Delhi, before driving to Agra. It was pretty busy! We started the morning by heading to Old Delhi and Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India. It was mostly outdoors, with only a small portion indoors. Our next stop was Raj Ghat, where Ghandi was cremated. It’s a beautiful park, with a hill surrounding the memorial. Next we headed out to New Delhi to the India Gate, which is a memorial for Indian Soldiers that died in World War I. Their names were carved all over the gate. While we were looking around I saw my first mongoose! Then we drove up to the Presidential Palace and were able to take a few pictures before hopping back in the car. They don’t really like you to loiter there. We had a lovely Indian lunch before heading to Qutub Minar, the tallest minaret of the world. It was absolutely stunning. It was in the midst of ruins of a religious college that was built at the same time. It was my favourite site that we visited that day. Before leaving Delhi we did a bit of shopping, where I bought a rug and stopped at the Lotus Temple. We didn’t go in, because the line up was insane, and the outside is the most interesting part. It is also in a lovely park. Afterwards we headed to Agra.

 

A lot of travel guidebooks for India talk about how Indian streets are dominated by men. In Pune, there are definitely more men out than women, and even less women at night, but I often see women walking alone. In Delhi, not so much. I don’t think I saw a single woman walking on her own, or even just with other women, in Delhi. It could be the areas we were in and the timing, but it was a strange feeling. This trip definitely taught me a lot about Pune, simply by being able to compare it to other Indian cities.

 

The original plan was to go see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. But we woke up at 5:15 to thunder and lightning. So we went back to bed and woke up at 8:15 to not a single cloud in the sky. It was a gorgeous day and the Taj Mahal was magnificent. We had a wonderful tour guide, who despite being there many times was still very enthusiastic. After the Taj he took us to a shop that sold jeweled tapestries. Despite them being out of my price range, I enjoyed looking at them and having someone on hand at all times to ask about the pieces. Next we went to Agra Fort. It was pretty impressive. It is made of red stone and it is quite large. Only a small portion is open to tourists as the army uses the rest of the complex. We had a nice lunch and then began driving to Jaipur. The drive was through the countryside making it pretty interesting. We passed lots of farms. I found it interesting that even when we felt like we were in the middle of nowhere there were still men loitering or walking down the road. About an hour into the drive we started driving into a thunderstorm. It was really intense. We arrived at our really nice hotel at around 20:30. I think our room got upgraded and it was definitely the nicest room we had the whole trip. The bathroom was the nicest bathroom I’ve seen in India.

The next day we toured Jaipur. We weren’t big fans of our tour guide but the places we went to were pretty nice. We started out by heading to Amber Fort. They have elephants that can take you up to the Fort. Our tour company assured us they are treated ethically, so we did ride one up. My motion sickness was not super thrilled with the ride. The fort was quite lovely, with beautiful views. It had an amazing Mirror Hall that was entirely covered with pieces of mirror. Afterwards we went to Jantar Matar, an observatory. It has the biggest stone sundial in the world. It was full of these amazing structures that were completed in 1738. We had a lovely lunch and then flew back to Pune. We were back at Sangam by 19:30.

Time Off Activities

I can’t believe how quickly October has flown by! There have been many interesting things that have happened over the last little while.

I discovered that UK tents are completely different from ours. We had a group of Bharat Scouts and Guides using our campground for a couple of nights, so a group of us was sent out to show them how to set up our tents. For starters, the different parts of the tent are called the inner and the outer. The inner is the tent bit and the outer is the fly. But you set up the outer first. All the poles go in the outer. Then you bring the inner into the outer and clip it up to the poles. This way you can keep the inner dry throughout the set up process! Watching someone set this up (as it quickly became apparent that I wasn’t really able to be helpful as even the terminology was confusing me) was absolutely mind blowing!

On one of my days off this month I climbed Dighi Hill. Emily, Catt and I went out in the late afternoon. It was a good climb, with a nice view. There is a temple and a musallah on top, so we spent a bit of time poking around the temple. The sun set while we were at the top, so we couldn’t stay too long, and ended up climbing down in the semi-dark. We got a bus and went out for dinner before heading home. The dinner wasn’t the best burger I’ve ever had, but they had a scrabble game, which we played, and kittens outside, so it was fun.

I had one day off with Mary-May this month. Mary-May is from Montreal, she’s been at Sangam since June and we knew each other before coming here. We spent our day off “shopping until we dropped”. We went out to Laxmi Road. I love Laxmi Road. It’s everything I expected India to be like. It’s busy, full of colour and there are so many shopping opportunities. This was my 3^rd time there and I feel like I am starting to really know the area well. I bought a few outfits and ended up buying 2 saris. I left them at the tailor’s, but I’m going to go pick them up today. I’m very excited to wear them! We had dinner at a nice Italian type place, and I had a great salad and pizza!

 

Yesterday was Dussehra! Traditionally on this day, Hindu’s bless the tools that they use in their daily lives. So we spent over an hour performing Puja all over Sangam. It was lots of fun, I got to see behind a lot of doors that are normally locked. We blessed the pool, the pool filter, the generator, the water tower, the server room, the men’s tools, the kitchen, and the vehicles. We also blessed everyone’s workspaces. Certain people’s desks got blessed, as did reception. Because the Puja is performed so many times in the morning, it is pretty relaxed. Liz and I were the only volunteers working, so we got to perform the puja to the program room. Outside of Sangam, I really enjoyed that many people had garlands on the front of their vehicles. Quite a few volunteers and tare are out traveling at the moment, so the few of us who were around last night walked over to the sweet shop, and then came back to watch The Devil Wears Prada.

On Monday the 26^th, Liz and I are going to Delhi. We are going to do a whirlwind tour and see the Taj Mahal and Jaipur as well.

49th Birthday Event

October 16^th, 2015 was Sangam’s 49^th Birthday! Our birthday event started on the 9^th. We had 12 participants, 7 from Wales and 5 from Australia.  They were a wonderful group of ladies and they got to do some really cool activities!

                                      

I had my first Welcome Ceremony as a staff member. I was wearing the staff sari, and for most of the evening I had the pleats in the skirt portion the wrong way. Fortunately, Sailee noticed and helped me fix them before we took photos, so there is no documented proof!

On October 11^th we celebrated International Day of the Girl Child with Maher. The participants had planned many activities to do with the children, but as such things go, we got there to find that Maher had plans for us. When we arrived the children gave us homemade lays and then some of the girls gave us a performance. There was a skit about being a girl and the discriminations they face. I think one of the most powerful lines was at the beginning when they where talking about aborting girls in utero, because they are girls. “Everyone loves their mother and wants a girlfriend and wife, so why do they not want a daughter?” After the skit there were a couple of dances.  After lunch the participants just had an hour to run activities with the children. They decided it was simpler to just lead the group in some songs. The kids loved it and in the loose structure many of us got to make friends. I made a friend with a girl named Nadina who is probably around 13 or 14. She didn’t speak much English, but she taught me some Marahti and introduced me to her sister. In the evening we played Who Wants to be a Sangam Millionaire? and my team won.

The next session I ran was a campfire a few evenings later. The local staff built the fire for us, and it was pretty tall, so it ended up feeling more like a bonfire. Although, we had trouble lighting it, as there wasn’t much kindling. About 40% of the songs we sang in the campfire weren’t in English. But everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. We sang a few French songs from Quebec and some songs in Swahili. When we were teaching the first French song (Rat sur mon toit), everyone was having a lot of trouble understanding us. The participants from Wales said that it didn’t sound like we were even speaking French. Then a staff member pointed out that we were speaking Canadian French, which doesn’t sound like their schoolgirl French. After we explained what the song meant, I think they were able to piece the song together better. They did a great job though!

The next day we trialed Passand, which means choice. We ran 4 sessions at Sangam, and offered 4 packages so the participants could go explore Pune and then let participants choose which activities they wanted to attend. Most of them went out. I ran a session around the World Thinking Day 2016 Theme (Connect!). I really like the activity package again this year. I would really recommend taking a peak at it. You could probably get the badge done in a 1.5 hour meeting.

It is traditional to go to Temple on your birthday here. So on the 16^th we all walked down the street to the Datta Temple. There were around 50 of us, so it was quite a group. A priest performed a small ceremony at the temple. Afterwards we returned and puja was performed to the foundation and opening stone. Jen (the World Centre Manager) got to break the coconut and she did it in one hit. Then she read Lady Olave Baden-Powell’s speech from the opening of Sangam.

In the evening we had our birthday party. We had around 150 people from the community come and we had a big party in the campground. I worked reception, so I greeted people as they arrived and sold raffle tickets. One of the girls I met from my visit to Indian families, was at the party and she was happy to see me. We talked a bit when she came in, and when we closed up reception I hung out with her at the party. She braided my hair again, and she did a great job!

The next day was incredibly exhausting as we had our Community Action Project (CAP) day at Sangam. We had children from 3 of our different community partners come in and the Tare ran programming for them. They did a fantastic job, the kids had a great time! We also had UPS employees volunteering and helping with translation. I think our ratio ended up being close to 1:1. I was in charge of photography, so mainly I wandered from station to station and took far too many photos!

Overall, the event was very busy, but tons of fun! We trialed several things for the 50^th birthday, which I think is going to be quite an experience!  

Food

It’s Canadian Thanksgiving at home. A time to be thankful for the opportunities and friends we have, and a time to be with family. Time with family always comes with wonderful food. I spent most of breakfast this morning describing a typical Thanksgiving dinner for us. I was lucky enough to skype in for the end of the Wiebe’s Thanksgiving evening.  I was specifically asked to blog about the food, so here I go.

The food at Sangam is cooked by absolutely amazing local ladies. They’re very friendly and helpful. A few days ago, my day was made by the head of the kitchen greeting me by name. I really like the ladies and am trying my best to get to know them.

Breakfasts: There is always toast, cereal, bananas, oatmeal and homemade peanut butter and jams available. We generally get two different types of fruit at breakfast. The fruit can be hit or miss, but when it’s good, it’s delicious! My favourite so far is the fantastic pineapple and pomegranates we’ve gotten. There’s usually an egg option served with every breakfast. Usually it’s different types of omelettes. I really enjoy the egg-in-a-hole.

Lunch: Our lunches are vegetarian and Indian. There’s some sort of rice almost every day, dal is pretty frequent and chapatis are a regular occurrence. Chapatis are essentially the Indian version of a tortilla. The food here isn’t served very spicy. There is always something plain being served. At lunch we have two homemade spices to add to the dishes. A garlic and spice mix and mango relish. I don’t find the mango relish spicy and regularly get teased for eating it by itself to finish lunch.

Dinner: Our dinners are more varied. Sometimes they are Indian dishes and sometimes they are international dishes. The international dishes never taste quite like they do at home. Locally, the food is either spicy or very sweet. So a lot of the international dishes end up sweeter than is typical. I don’t mind the dishes, but you can’t expect your spaghetti sauce to taste like spaghetti sauce.

Desserts: The Indian desserts are quite sweet, but usually quite good. The ladies make amazing carrot cake, and their chocolate cake is good too. I missed the apple crumble that was served a couple of days ago, but I heard it was quite good. The ice cream here has a very strong and particular flavour. Perfumy is the best way I’ve heard to describe it. It kinda tastes a little like you are eating flowers. Two Indian desserts stand out in my mind. We had modak a couple of weeks ago, as it is a traditional dessert only served during the Ghanesh festival. It was amazing! It was a ball of coconut covered flour and deep fried. I know the Wiebe family would like it!  Then there’s another dessert, whose name I forget. But basically it’s deep fried dough that is soaked in a very sweet syrup. Quite tasty!

Snacks: We have to snack times at Sangam. Morning Maitri and an afternoon Chai. There are biscuits (cookies and crackers), nuts, fruit and juice served. The Chai is incredibly sweet. It’s made by boiling tea in milk, and then sugar is added. At first it tasted as though they saturated the tea with sugar, but I’m getting used to it. I have been assured that the ladies actually put much more sugar in their own Chai, and they dial it back for us.

Vegan Mondays: In Sangam’s efforts to reduce our carbon footprint we have vegan Mondays. In India, vegetarians typically don’t eat eggs, so going from vegetarian to vegan Mondays just meant cutting out milk and yogurt.

First Event at Sangam

My first event was a group of 25 Australians and 1 New Zealander, doing a tour of all the World Centers. We were their last Center to visit, many of them already had visited Sangam and several of them are heavily linked to Sangam. (The lead had been the World Center Manager at Sangam for many years). They arrived at 4am on September 26^th. Ruth (the Guest Services Coordinator), Cate, Liz and I were in the greeting party. It took an hour to settle them into their rooms and then we headed back to bed. They had a sleep in breakfast, which I hosted. So I spent all morning in the dining room talking to whoever came in for breakfast. The event officially started just before lunch. In the afternoon Liz and I led a neighbourhood walk for the ladies who hadn’t been to Sangam before. It went quite well. 

At Ishwari

Typically the Welcome Ceremony happens the first night of the event. But two of the guests arrived a day late (due to visa trouble) so we shifted it to the evening of the 27^th.

The 27^th was the 10^th and final day of the Ghanesh Festival. On this day (although some families do it earlier) people carry the Ghanesh idols down to the river and immerse them into the river. I had the day off. In the afternoon a group of us went to a Puja’s at Sailee’s house. Her house is being heavily renovated, so she was very eager to show us the house. When we were there, they’d just finished painting the outside of the house, and still had to put in the plumbing and lighting. Afterwards we were invited to Padma’s (one of the local ladies who works in the kitchen) for her family’s Ghanesh Immersion. It started with a ceremony in the house and then the idol was carried out into the cab of a pick up truck. The boys were in the back with drums and we walked with the truck down to the river. There were lots of people at the river. The ceremony was performed again at the river, sweets were passed out and then the idol was passed to a swimmer who swam him out, dipped him in the water and then dropped him. While we were at the river, there were a lot of people who wanted to talk to us. But Padma’s sisters-in-law surrounded us and started telling people off. On the way back, one of Padma’s nieces I believe, told us that everyone was wondering how they knew us, and how we came to be with them today. I really enjoyed the whole experience! It was wonderful to be so included in the ceremony and well cared for by many people I hadn’t met before.

The welcome ceremony happened after dinner. It is very traditional, it has been the same since Sangam opened. Mina and Shubha (the head of the local ladies) performed Aarti (a blessing) to welcome us to India. Christa (Deputy World Center Manager of Operations) gave us garlands to welcome us to Sangam.

The next day started with Yoga. For lunch we ran an MDG lunch, in which participants are sorted into high income, middle income and low-income groups that are proportional to India. Then they eat appropriate meals. I was in the low-income or below poverty line group. We were the biggest group and had the least amount of food. We each got a character card, which had given us some small detail of our lives. It went over well with the participants, who got really into their characters. After Chai we went on a visit to an Indian Family. I went with two participants, one of whom was quite worried about rickshaws. The family we visited has two children, a girl who is 12 and a boy who is 6 or 7. The mother is a teacher, and the father is self-employed. The children didn’t speak much English, but the parents had great English. They live in a 2 bedroom apartment. We ate in the living room. They served lots of food, all of which was delicious. They were very concerned about it not being too spicy. The children had friends who were there for most of it, and their grandfather, uncle and cousins arrived at one point. I showed them a photo album with photos from home and the one they were most interested in was a photo of a Gingerbread house! The kids whipped out their phones and took pictures of it. The Australians I was with hadn’t seen one either actually. One of the ladies said she’d tried to make one once, but it didn’t work out. I just thought it was so funny. When asking the girls about school, one wanted to be a doctor and the other one wanted to be an engineer. They both loved math and science. Overall, it was a wonderful evening. The family was so gracious. It was also interesting to see how they were living. I gave them a can of Quebec Maple Syrup, and they didn’t seem to know what it was, but I explained it as very sweet. I hope they enjoy it! Before heading home, we met up with a bunch of other participants, so we could all get rickshaws back. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive, another family’s daughter asked if she could fishbraid my hair. She was just starting in guiding this year, and hadn’t had her first meeting yet. So we talked about that for a bit, while she did a good job on my hair. When we got back all the rickshaw drivers tried to team up and get us to pay them more than the agreed upon price. I was so proud of Liz and I for standing our ground. We sent the participants back to Sangam and at one point Liz almost walked away with one of the drivers money, because he wasn’t going to accept it. 

 

The next morning we took the participants out to one of our community partners; the Muslim Girls Orphanage for a tour. Muslim children are considered orphans if they don’t have a father. The MGO takes in girls and also runs three schools. They run a school in Urdu, a school in English and a polytechnic to teach young women skills that can be used to earn an income. The schools will take children from the community, although they have to pay to attend the polytechnic. It was a very large and beautiful campus. The children were very friendly and many of the older ones wanted to shake our hands.

In the afternoon I led the Laxmi Road tour. We had three groups that went out. The Laxmi Road tour is a tour of a historical and cultural market area. There are also lots of shopping opportunities for people who are interested. We always visit Kirti’s, the sari shop. I had a great afternoon, as my group was fantastic. The chaos of Ghanesh festival had subsided a bit, but I really enjoy Laxmi Road. It’s just so busy! Going out with a group is fun, because you get to negotiate traffic with a group of 10 ladies. I always find it really funny when the occasional shop that’s selling jeans (or other western pants) tries to sell me some. “Yeah, right. I’m dying of heat and stand out enough as it is. Good try though.”

Alandi

Alandi

One the 30^th we took the participants out on another whirlwind tour of the countryside. First we went to Alandi, which is a place on the river where there are many temples. Mina was leading the tour and I found it funny that at any time she had just as many rapt Indian listeners as our own participants. It was also nice going out with Mina as she was able to ask the children more complex questions for us. Such as, why aren’t you in school? (They had a half day) why? (Because it’s the last day of the month) is there a special reason for that? (No idea). Next we went to Jagriti School for Blind Girls and got a quick tour. They are building a new school and hostel, and all I can say is they look like they need it. Afterwards we went to Tulapor, another riverside temple spot. There were many children there as well, as they had been shipped in for a drawing exam. Finally, we had lunch at another community partner; Ishwari. Ishwari is a coop for rural women to learn new skills and to support their independence. We had a magnificent lunch there, before heading back to Sangam. In the evening we had a pool party with local staff and participants. It was fun, but I was getting sick and a tad homesick. I did play with several children, some in the pool and a couple outside of the pool. 

Tulapor

 

Ishwari

The next day my cold is at it’s peak. So I ended up spending the morning napping in A/C. In the afternoon we had Indian Afternoon, which I was determined to join in for. I got to wear my sari! I learned how to do rangoli, which is used often here, and absolutely stunning. Essentially they pour coloured chalk powder onto the ground or floor. Sometimes stencils are used. Outside a home it is a way to welcome people into the home. I learned a little bit about cricket from an enthusiastic Australian. I got Mehendi done on my left hand. I was a tad worn out so I ate dinner in my room, out of my sari, which is quite tight and a bit hot. I rejoined the group to watch the katak dancers who came in for the evening entertainment. Katak dancing is a little like tap dancing, except they have bare feet, and hundreds of bells on each ankle. The sounds they made with their feet were amazing! It’s also a very expressive dance form, and part of the performance is having the stories explained. The girls’ teacher was there, and she had such a lovely and expressive hands to assist in her story telling. Afterwards the event guests had their closing ceremony, but I went and got an early nights’ sleep. 

 

I was feeling better in the morning and was able to help say goodbye to the group as they headed out at 9am. As it was the end of a quarter, we had a stock take day. We pulled everything out of the shop and counted it before putting it back. We took a break to go over to Mina’s house for the event eval. Mina’s apartment is beautiful. She showed us around her kitchen, showing us her spices and other goods. We had delicious snacks there and then headed back to finish up stock take. For dinner we had a family dinner, where Liz and I were awarded our staff scarves, nametags and pins, as we officially ended orientation! Late in the evening, the name of the 5th Guiding World Center was announced; Kusafiri, which is Swahili for journey or travels. We were very excited despite the sound not working for most of the live broadcast.

That brings me to yesterday. In which we cleaned up from the event. Slowly starting to look at our next event, which is the Birthday Celebration, From Silver to Gold. I’m looking forward to my first event as a full Sangam Volunteer!