Fiddlehead ferns

It's such an interesting name, and a very interesting taste too. In the U.S., fiddlehead ferns are mostly found in North-East and that too mostly in springtime. We saw them in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh also once, when we went there in May 2006.
Right now we have been able to find them often in the grocery store. But they'll go away in a few weeks. Since they have a very strong flavor of their own, I make them very simply, just salt and pepper. Wikipedia lists a slightly complicated process of making them. I clean the ferns by removing any black or brown parts and soaking them in water and changing the water atleast twice. Then simply saute them in salted butter (Amul butter). I mix a little bit of olive oil to prevent the butter from burning, add some more salt, and then add some water and cover it to let it cook. Once it's done I add pepper. And that's it. One thing I do like to make sure is that it is cooked in a single layer. Otherwise it'll not saute properly. Somehow we have never had any problems with food poisioning with the ferns, although I would not suggest feeding these to your child.

Mother's Day Dinner

I know it's a little late, but atleast it's still May :-) Rahul made this delicious and a bit time consuming dish for Mother's day. It was a lentil loaf. The recipe can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_33522,00.html

With the mixture, we managed to make two loafs, enough to feed us for dinner that day, and for our lunch the next day and a bit more for snacking. What was really nice was that Sameer enjoyed it too, from the first bite!

हमारे सेठ जी

यह देखो.... हमारा चूज़ा सेठ जी की तरह बैठा हैं.

Learning to recognize colors

These days I am working on getting our son Sameer to recognize some of the common colors. He likes to play with his nesting cups and stacking train. While is still trying to figure out how to stack them, it appears that he has understood which ones are yellow, red, green and blue. On asking, "समीर, blue block ले कर आओ" or "green cup ले कर आओ" he does bring the correct one most of the times.

Routines

I have heard from everyone again and again about the importance of following a routine with a child. I used to try my best, although it did not always work out that way. I wasn't even really sure how much it benefited him. However, I can now see the positive effects of following a set pattern with Sameer. I think he is more confident of himself, since he knows the whole routine. That confidence helps in other things too. He knows when we start saying "ninni", what happens next. So he'll automatically start going toward the bedroom. He knows that it means change of clothes, and unfortunately that means, a lot of struggle with mumma. In fact, he starts whining as soon as I put him on the bed and begin taking off his clothes. He knows that once he is ready it's time to say goodnight to papa. So he'll run over to Rahul to be picked up and get his good night kiss, hug and jhula. When I say diaper change, again he'll go toward his chaging table. And then of course, he'll rush on toward the phone, and giggle when I come running to pick him up.

He knows that if I seat him on the chair near our door, it means, he'll be putting on shoes. And that means he is going out! To the playground, Yay! Well, that's not how he says it but his expressions do. Once I get him off the chair, he'll walk over to the door and wait for me to open it. Once I had to go back inside to get something, and he kept looking at me quizzically, wondering why aren't we out yet!

That's the other development that we were so happy with. He knows the way to the playground now. Last week it rained almost continuously for three days. When it finally stopped raining, I took him out. But instead of going to the playground, I thought I'll take him for a walk instead. Well, he would have none of that. He just kept going in the direction of the playground. I stopped and called, "Sameer, we'll go to a different place today." He turned to look at me and then kept going. He paused in one place to look at some leaves and flowers as he usually does and then walked on, completely unconcerned as to whether I'm with him or not. I again called and then he realized that we're not going to the playground. Reluctantly he returned to me half way before changing his mind. I had to finally go pick him up and carry him for some time before he would resume our walk.

The talk of the playground

Now that spring is here and Sameer is walking, I take him to the local playground. We usually meet three other boys there, all between two to three and a half years old. Since he is so much younger than any of them, all of them get so excited on seeing him. They want to come play with him whenever we are there. They'll run around saying, "baby, baby" or "chhota baby." Sameer usually just stares at them with an open mouth and then goes on to playing on his own, climbing the steps to the slide or just checking out all the stuff at the playground. Once when we did not go there in the morning as usual, one of the boys missed him and his nanny asked us why we did not come. Its only been three weeks since we started going and already they are so friendly with him!
One thing that I'm really happy about is, Sameer seems to be getting used to meeting new people and seems a little less hesistant when he sees a new face. Both at his gym and at the playground, he will pause as always when he sees someone, but earlier I had to carry him, otherwise he would not budge. Now he pauses and then continues walking. Sometimes, he'll even smile at the people, something he used to rarely do until it was almost time for us to leave.
Another interesting thing I noticed was since the last ten days or so, he keeps repeating the sound baby. Sometimes he'll say baba or baaby or something similar. I think he is just repeating what he heard the boys at the playground say, although I doubt he understands the meaning. If it is true, he might just learn to talk more from his friends than from his parents!

पुट्टू

हमें नए नए व्यंजनों का बहुत शौक है। आज हमने brunch पर अपने एक दोस्त परिवार को बुलाया। वह अपने साथ साम्भर और पुट्टू ले कर आए। हम दोनों ने ही कभी इसका नाम नही सुना था। हम जब केरला गए थे कुछ साल पहले तब भी हमने यह कही नही देखा था। पर खाने में मज़ा आ गया। यह brown चावल के साथ भी बन सकता है। मुझे यह कुछ विधियाँ मिली गूगल पर:

• एक
• दो
• तीन

Newport, RI - Toddler friendly trip suggestion

We have a 13 month old. My wife and I love to travel. After our son was born we have curtailed our trips. We've been taking mostly day-trips or one-day trips. Now that he is over a year old and the weather in Northeast USA is beautiful, we decided to go to Newport, RI. To our surprise we found a few kid-friendly activities there. So if you have a toddler and want to spend a couple days in Newport, here are some suggestions:

• Take a drive along scenic Ocean Drive. As soon as you drive into Newport, you will see various signs that will lead you to Ocean Drive. You should take a brief stopover in Brenton Point State Park. Its an appropriate spot for a picnic. We saw many people flying kites. You will definitely get a good view of the ocean here as well. Its usually very breezy there, so make sure you dress your little one(s) properly.
  

• On your way back into town from Ocean Drive take Bellevue Street and visit the International Tennis Hall of Fame. It has one of the few tennis grass courts left in the world.

• Visit the Mansions. No trip to Newport is complete without visiting at least one mansion. We visited the Breakers and Marble House. While Breakers is the most famous mansion there, we had an interesting time with our toddler. None of the Newport mansions allow strollers. So we had to carry our son in our arms. Since Breakers has a guided tour, you have to visit the entire mansion at the tour's pace. But with a toddler its not that easy. After a few minutes our son wanted to get down, but we had to restrain him. However, we had a better time at the Marble House. They have self-guided audio tours. That means you can visit the rooms without any restraint. This worked out very well.
• Take a side trip to the Blithewold Mansion in Bristol, RI. Blithewold is about a 30 minute drive from Newport. We did not visit the mansion -- we figured it would be very similar to the other mansions in Newport. However, we found that after 3PM the ticket costs just $5 per head. We were pleasantly surprised with its gardens. It has flowers all year round. Daffodils were in full bloom in April.