Style Transformations

I promise to post more of these soon! I've been really bad about taking pictures...

Stressful weekend

So I'm looking forward to a relaxing week after a harrowing weekend. It started out well -- a long run on Saturday morning for the first time in weeks, lunch at Pink Taco at the mall, a movie (The Lincoln Lawyer - highly recommend), some shopping, and then hanging out at home with some episodes of The Office.

And then it went downhill. We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner -- La Botte. The reviews were positive and it got a Michelin star in 2009, the last year the LA restaurants were rated. So we expected something great. Instead, we had an awkward waiter who just stood there waiting for us to give us his drink, appetizer, and entree orders instead of asking what we wanted. And we were waiting forever for the waiter to take the order and then to bring the check. And the worst part was that the food just wasn't worth it. =(

Anyway, we were excited because after that we were going to a party hosted by one of my coworkers who lives down the street from us. It was going to be easy -- go there, hang out, have a few drinks, and walk back. Except that we locked ourselves out of the apartment. After calling a locksmith who failed to open the door (apparently we have a special un-pickable lock), we walked over to the party where the host was gracious enough to let us crash with him and then drive us to the management office to get a spare key in the morning.

On Sunday morning, we avoided the street closures from the LA marathon and drove through the rain to get our key and go home.

But unfortunately, after getting home and taking a nap and cooking dinner, we went back into crisis mode. A friend had relationship issues and the friend who let us crash with him needed a jump -- both at the same time. So after running around for a bit trying to help, we had a chance to take a deep breath and eat some semi-yummy Indian food for dinner. (It's always a risk when we make two new dishes for dinner but luckily they both turn out okay.)

And you may be wondering, why is this week relaxing? Well things are in good shape at work and my sister is coming into town on Wednesday night. It should be a good time =D

Recipe: Bitter Gourd with Tamarind

This is the bitter gourd recipe I mentioned in an earlier post. You can substitute the bitter gourd for okra if you prefer. The amounts are all approximations, and depend largely on your taste. I apologize for not having a more accurate recipe.

Ingredients:
2-3 medium size bitter gourd
1 tbsp tamarind paste
1 1/2 tbsp sambar (South Indian chili powder mix -- can substitute with plain chili powder)
1 tbsp salt (add as needed to get the spice on the front of your tongue and bring out the sourness)
1/2 tbsp brown sugar or jaggery
1/4 cup water
For popu:
1 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp hing/asofoetida
5-6 curry leaves
1 tbsp vegetable oil or sesame oil

1. Slice bitter gourd into 1/4 inch rounds.
   
2. Heat the oil in the saucepan until very hot. If you are using sesame oil, it will take longer for it to heat up. Add one mustard seed. If it starts to splutter, add the rest of the mustard seeds. If it doesn't, wait a few minutes and then try again.
3. After the mustard seeds splutter for a minute, add the hing and the curry leaves, and mix for 20-30 seconds. Try not to let the curry leaves burn.
4. Add the bitter gourd and cook until it starts to get dry and begins to brown. It's important to cook it enough to get some of the bitterness out.
5. Add the water and tamarind paste. Stir and mix well.
   
6. Add the sambar powder, salt, and brown sugar/jaggery. Stir and mix well.
7. While the gravy is still watery, taste and adjust as needed. If there is no flavor except maybe bitterness on the front of your tongue and the aftertaste is spicy, add salt. If you only get bitterness and no aftertaste, add more sambar powder. You may also need more salt but add the sambar powder first. If it's too spicy or sour, add some more brown sugar.
8. Serve hot with rice.

Hope this recipe helps!

Remember that celebrity...

Remember that celebrity I saw at Yogurtland after I just moved to LA? The guy that looked sort of Indian and older? (See post here)

Well I started watching Glee last night -- Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2 -- and I realized that the guy I saw is the principal on the show. Iqbal Theba. Not Indian -- Pakistani -- but still of South Asian descent. And he lives in LA so it all fits.

I'm glad that mystery is solved.

In other news, Glee is so awesome. I'm very excited to go home tonight and watch more episodes.

Target Dresses and Indian Food

So this weekend I had two accomplishments.
1. I went to Target the first day they had their Designer Collaboration re-release and I bought 4 dresses (of which I will keep 2-3). I'm very excited. I rarely buy stuff full price, but given that this is limited edition, I was willing to fork over the whole $40. I will probably write about the dresses in a later post.
2a. I cooked some good Indian food. Well, mostly good. I found some fresh okra at the Indian store and I was inspired to try a new recipe. I spent 20 minutes mincing onion really finely for a North Indian stuffed okra recipe, but by the time the okra actually cooked to an edible texture, the onions had burnt into a blackened mass on the bottom of the skillet. Sad. The okra was still good though.
2b. I also made bitter gourd with tamarind sauce. I absolutely love bitter gourd. It is, as its name suggests, really bitter, but with the right hot and sour sauce (the aforementioned tamarind plus chili powder plus other spices), the bitterness is tempered and you get a healthy bunch of goodness. Instead of using frozen bitter gourd as I usually do, I actually found some beautiful fresh bitter gourd at the Indian store, which results in a much crispier dish. Mmmmm looking forward to eating those leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

On another note, I had another celebrity sighting -- and this was one I sought/sighted/saw myself. We were walking out of a restaurant and I was looking around at all the people because I felt sorely underdressed. And then tucked away in a corner near the entrance I saw a familar face with blond hair and a weird nose. I did a double take and realized it was Owen Wilson. Not wanting the husband to miss out on the sighting (he missed the first one), I turned around and hissed "Hey, look, it's Owen Wilson to your right." Luckily, he was able to see him =) I'm pretty proud of myself for noticing a celebrity. I feel like I'm generally too oblivious to notice these things.

Lastly, to finish off this post revealing my true dorky sensibilities, I spent some time earlier today making a weight loss spreadsheet for my husband. I made graphs, I added a moving BMI counter, and I used index/match functions to link everything together. I'm pretty proud of myself actually. My husband, who's made his own share of Excel models, thought I'd downloaded the spreadsheet and didn't believe me when I told him I made it myself. So since it's not copyrighted or anything, let me know if you want the spreadsheet and I can send it to you. I'm hoping it will be useful and help him reach his goal.