Me or Sophie Kinsella….

Two books of the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella loaned from the Martin Luther library & the Sunnyvale library and I end up shopping like every other sale in the city is the last one. Is it me or is it a coincidence? Now I know the people who know me fairly well would say it is probably just the “shopaholic” in me whom I banished quite a few years ago but just popped up for no reason.

I was reading Sophie Kinsella’s book one day. It was like any other day. The morning was bright. Birds chirping and my plants looking greener than ever. Until mid-afternoon when me and hubby dearest decide to have Thai food for lunch. On our way we both got the biggest shocks when we saw a guy waving a sign that said “BORDERS – Going out of business sale – Books and all fixtures – Everything needs to go – 80-90% off.” Being lovers of handheld books and the printed word, we were disappointed that Borders which was one of the leading bookstores in the USA was going out of business despite desperate efforts such as introducing the Kobo ebook reader to catch up with technology, was going out of business forever! Quoting Joey and the entire gang from the TV show Friends… “It’s like the end of an era”…

While we were having our lunch, I looked at Kar and said “Let’s go have a look… It’s going out of business and pretty soon we know Barnes & Noble will follow suit… if not in the same fashion considering their Nook is THE BEST EBOOK READER ….” And he smiled knowingly. That smile of his and I knew he knew I was more interested in shopping despite feeling bad about the closing of a nice bookstore.  He quipped, “Inurthanoda kashtom unnaku kushi”. We laughed and headed to the store to pick up anything that was left from the sale. Alas, the store was already pretty much stripped off and there were only a few books. I managed to pick up a few books and the girl at the billing counter told us this was the last but one Borders bookstore to close here in the Bay Area. That the Palo Alto Borders will be the last. So we headed to the Palo Alto store as well. I felt like a kid was left to take anything from the world of Narnia. It felt awesome. I shopped until I dropped. Literally! Kar even managed to get himself a cuppa’ while I was too excited to even notice he had gone to the nearest coffee shop to survive the shopping spree.

This week started like every other week. My weekdays were spent majorly in cleaning the house and cooking, of course (my 2nd love… ok I’m lying… one of the loves). We decided to drop off books at the library lest we wanted some “fine” reading. Near our parking lot, we saw a huge “Book Sale” sign. I looked at Kar and he rolled his eyes. He turned to me and there again, I received that knowing smile of his, “Why do these signs keep calling you?”. We dropped off the books. Even donated some books we didn’t want in our collection at the library. And I swore to Kar “Let’s just have a look and I swear if its not any good, we’ll get out”. We went and to my surprise, even Kar himself was excited with the sale. And guess what? I actually got a lot of CDs of songs I would record from the radio straight onto a tape back home (coz it was hard to get pocket money and the best way to have a copy was to rewrite on some of my mom’s teenage music collection). Stuff like Spice Girls, Savage Garden, No Doubt. All for a buck and under. I went berserk. We paid our bill and decided to drop off the next set of books at the Martin Luther library.

Guess what? The Martin Luther Library also had a huge sign outside the library near the Tully’s Coffee shop that said “Used Book Sale”. I did head to the patio at the back after dropping off the books. I guess God has his own ways of putting a stop to nonsense when it gets pretty irritating. They had finished the sale for the day and asked me to visit them tomorrow. I smiled and told Kar “I’m done. Can we go now??”. He was happy I had my share of fun these last few weeks. Everyone needs their own days of splurging and pampering. And days when it is ok to say “It is enough”. I finally said that to myself and my hubby who was patient with me the whole time letting me go crazy until I realized it for myself. And now it’s all good. I have a whole year’s supply of books to be read. It’s going to be atleast that much until I see these libraries again.  Or go SHOPPING!!!!

Gatte Ki Sabzi

During my short stint at Randstad, a member of our team brought a variety of Gujarati food for lunch every single day. Obviously being a Gujarati. This one particular day he asked me to try out a sabzi which he claimed was his favourite. A gravy with besan dumplings. The thought of besan in a north indian gravy was something I had never heard of and to me a south indian who was only exposed to north indian foods that mostly consisted of gravies made of paneer, palak, aloo, gobi. You know the typical gravies we get at restaurants and mom makes at home. But this was something different. My colleague also told me that this was a dish unique to Rajasthan. I had one bite with his wife’s fluffy tear-with-one-finger soft roti. I was blown away. The sabzi was different. Me being a huge fan of south indian ilai saapadu who severely critiqued north indian as merely a blend of the usual spices like garam and chili lacking multiple cooking techniques was stumped. I bowed to him and told him I was a fool to have thought so and that this was probably one of the best and yummiest sabzis I have ever had.

Today I was so in the mood for this sabzi. I took the recipe out and it was too bad I was out of curd. Here goes the recipe:

For the Gattes:

About 1 and a half cups of Besan/Chickpea flour

1 tbsp red chilli powder

1 or 2 green chillies

Salt

For the gravy:

1 onion finely chopped

1 tomato

red chilli powder

garam masala powder

cumin seeds

mustard seeds

ajwain seeds (optional. if you don’t have it, that’s fine. But I think the ajwain seeds add so much flavour)

ginger garlic paste – 1 tbsp

curry leaves – one string

yoghurt – beaten about half a cup

Method:

1. Mix gatte ingredients with some water until it forms a dough. Mine turned out a little sticky. But that’s ok.

2. Put small balls of the dough in a pan of boiling water. Let them sit for about 10-15 mins.

3. In the meantime, chop your vegetables ( tomatoes, onions) and heat oil in a kadai.

4. Splutter mustard seeds, cumin seeds and ajwain seeds.

5. Put the onions and ginger garlic paste together to avoid spluttering of the oil due to water content in the GG paste.

6. Add the tomatoes with curry leaves, turmeric, garam masala and chili powder once the onions turn translucent.

7. I did not have yoghurt. So I substituted that with 3 tbsp sour cream with 1-2 tbsp milk and mixed them until they had a beaten yoghurt feel.

8. Pour this into the pan and stir.

9. Take the gattes out of the water after 10-15 mins. Cut them into small cube-sized pieces and put them into the pan.

10. Cook this on low heat for about 15-20 mins.  Serve hot with rice or roti.

The sabzi turned out really good.