Weekend Stuff

Weekend Dog Blogging: A Day At The Dog Run

You know how other people walk their dogs? Well, our Dale walks his humans! Today, he is taking us to the dog run...


At the dog run, the normally placid and sleepy Dale runs around wildly...


...and plays with his friends...


...and then, he needs to cool off. Dale digs up the dirt the reveal the wet, cooler soil underneath the surface (bad dog!)...


...and gets some rest on the cool mud, thereby ruining the grooming efforts of the morning!


My parents are visiting from India for my convocation (I just got back from NYC) and that is the reason for my sluggish blogging (and delayed e-mail replies) these days...too busy traveling and having fun with them! Here is a lovely gift that my mother got for me: She knows a lady who is an expert at embroidery and patch-work, so my mother did a little collaborative project with her. She creatively drew out some designs and then this lady executed them in fabric, to make three unique custom-made kitchen aprons. The theme: the Indian kitchen!

Here is the first, depicting four scenes of home cooks engaged in traditional Indian kitchen tasks, in the days before the mixer and food processor took over! This is all elbow grease and muscle power, people!


Here is a look at the details: the first scene is that of food being cooked on a clay wood-fired chulha (Hindi) or shegdi (Marathi) or stove.


The second scene: a pata-varvanta (Marathi) or stone grinder: a stone roller is worked back and forth on a stone slab to make the most delicious pastes or chutneys!


The third scene: a large mortar and pestle (made of stone, usually) used to crush anything from chillies (to make fiery red chilli powder!) or other spices or dry spice mixtures.


The final scene: a manual grinder called the jaata (Marathi) consisting of two stone rings. The stuff to be ground is placed in between the two discs and one uses a wooden handle to rotate the upper ring, crushing the food to a fine powder, which spills out from the gap between the two stones. This method is used for making fresh flours, for instance.


The second apron is simple and classic:


It shows a beautiful display of the tools of the kitchen: clay pots on a multilayered shelf or katta (Marathi) which usually separated the washing area from the main kitchen. The bigger pots are at a higher level. The pots could be used for storing anything from pickles to water!




The third apron is my absolute FAVORITE and it is easy to see why!! My mother knows that the beautiful thali is the banner of this blog, so she designed a matching apron for me! Here it is, the One Hot Stove apron :)


The details: a feast in more ways than one...complete with all the delectable dishes that go into a festive Maharashtrian meal! See a description of these dishes in this post.


Many thanks to my baba for helping with this post. See you on Sunday with the T of Indian Vegetables! Entries are being accepted until tomorrow night. Enjoy your weekend!