INDIAN CUISINE

I begin. Indian cooking. I am going about it methodically rather than my usual willy-nilly approach to new ideas.

The little slideshow above shows my new spice racks and spice jars and my newly reorganized spice/herb cabinet beside the stove.

Yesterday, thanks to my dear friend Mary (Hi Mare!!!), we went shopping. We tried to go to that West India shop I told you about recently, but it was not even there anymore. Remnants of it were there, like the actual building and the sign but the guts of it were gone. Mary inquired of some local vendors nearby and was told that the building was being renovated, that it belongs to the National Park system, and that maybe they'd be back in the summertime but not sure.

So we had to move to plan B. Find another store that sells the Indian spices that I will need to make the recipes. Mary thought of Whole Foods right away, and there is one not far from Crow Cottage, so back through Salem she drove and up to our end of the city and into Whole Foods we went.

You probably know I don't do shopping anymore since I can't walk well at all. It was an experience, to put it mildly. Ouch. Very ouch! It's a huge store and we walked up and down most of the aisles (found the Indian section and it was superb), all the way to the end where they have all the gourmet type things like breads and tea and cheeses. Oh my. The cheeses they have. We sampled a couple. Yum. Major yum. By that point I could hardly stand up anymore and the pain was seering through most parts of my body. We checked out our items and loaded everything into the car and drove over to Panera Bread for lunch. I'd never eaten there before and it was good. I had Thai salad with chicken and Mary had smoked turkey half-sandwich and a salad.

Got home finally and OMG, everything hurt so much. Then my new stuff started arriving by delivery trucks and I spent the afternoon getting that organized. My spice bottles all arrived (48 of them and not ONE was broken!!) and my spice racks and my new spice grinder, too. (I should mention that UPS came yesterday and picked up the broken baking stone and took it back to Amazon, and I got the automated e-mail from them saying they were refunding the whole amount - whew!).

I have all the Indian spices set aside in a big plastIC container and will fill the bottles at another time. I've just spenT this morning putting up the spice racks and reorganizing my spice/herb cupboard so I am totally wiped out physically for the day. I need a rest.

More on this adventure later. I can't wait to cook my first Indian dish. Soon.

And again, big thanks to Mary for all your help! You are my new personal angel I think!

Cheers,

Bex

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"Life is not a continuum of pleasant choices, but of inevitable problems that call for strength, determination, and hard work."

[Indian Proverb]