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Yesterday, we went to Bishop Hill and did the whole Swedish thing - food, car show, ya yoo betcha.
In the afternoon, a young man from Jerry's work visited with his mother. They are from India. Dinesh Swamynathan is a 24 yr. old industrial engineer assigned to Jerry's team. Jerry likes the boy and when he found out his mother was coming for three months, he wanted to have them over to "experience" it all out here.
Dinesh (pronounced with soft I and E) was as nice as Jerry had said. His mother spoke no English but she loves flowers and it allowed us a mutual interest. They are from southern India which has weather similar to Texas so she is unfamiliar with most everything in our yard and found the differences fascinating.
Although his family is wealthy by Indian standards, their yard is about the size of a twin bed which prohibits growing their own things but the neighborhood market has everything they need. They buy all their food products every morning for that day. There are few trees and no evergreens. She buys small flowers a couple of times a week to weave into garlands which she takes to temple to honor their dead.
Dinesh has become especially fond of my desserts (the ones I send with Jerry to work to get them out of the house so I don't eat it all). I baked Paula Deen's "Goody Butter Cake" and added fresh blueberries and lemon zest. I topped it with vanilla ice cream and fresh blueberries soaked in sugar and lemon juice.
Mrs. Swamynathan brought me a dish of spicy lentils with carrots and beans. Also, a candy made of sugar, water and ground almonds. It looked like maple sugar candy and tasted nothing like almonds nor was it very sweet. I asked for the recipe so I could understand it better. Since they do not eat beef (sacred) or pork (filthy), their protein diet is mainly lentils and chicken. They have a whole other spice concept that I do not understand well but big on spicy and curry tastes. I did understand that she knew much much more about herbs than I. She wanted to smell almost every leaf and flower in the yard. Any herb she was unfamiliar with she asked how it was used and what flavor it imparted. She is unfamiliar with weeds and I had to warn her not to taste everything we passed. You don't have weeds in a country that uses every single spare inch for produce. Although India is the size of Texas, they have over a billion people and grow over 60% of all soybeans worldwide. That leaves little extra room for weeds.
I did beg for more information about mango ice cream and found they sell mango concentrate in the Indian grocery in Peoria. Dinesh said he puts it into milk (they call that a shake). They eat many of their sweets with milk (cold and warm) instead of the baked desserts we find so typical here. I had mango ice cream at the Indian restaurant in Lafayette IN and again found a 2nd place version at LUMs in Galesburg.
In the afternoon, a young man from Jerry's work visited with his mother. They are from India. Dinesh Swamynathan is a 24 yr. old industrial engineer assigned to Jerry's team. Jerry likes the boy and when he found out his mother was coming for three months, he wanted to have them over to "experience" it all out here.
Dinesh (pronounced with soft I and E) was as nice as Jerry had said. His mother spoke no English but she loves flowers and it allowed us a mutual interest. They are from southern India which has weather similar to Texas so she is unfamiliar with most everything in our yard and found the differences fascinating.
Although his family is wealthy by Indian standards, their yard is about the size of a twin bed which prohibits growing their own things but the neighborhood market has everything they need. They buy all their food products every morning for that day. There are few trees and no evergreens. She buys small flowers a couple of times a week to weave into garlands which she takes to temple to honor their dead.
Dinesh has become especially fond of my desserts (the ones I send with Jerry to work to get them out of the house so I don't eat it all). I baked Paula Deen's "Goody Butter Cake" and added fresh blueberries and lemon zest. I topped it with vanilla ice cream and fresh blueberries soaked in sugar and lemon juice.
Mrs. Swamynathan brought me a dish of spicy lentils with carrots and beans. Also, a candy made of sugar, water and ground almonds. It looked like maple sugar candy and tasted nothing like almonds nor was it very sweet. I asked for the recipe so I could understand it better. Since they do not eat beef (sacred) or pork (filthy), their protein diet is mainly lentils and chicken. They have a whole other spice concept that I do not understand well but big on spicy and curry tastes. I did understand that she knew much much more about herbs than I. She wanted to smell almost every leaf and flower in the yard. Any herb she was unfamiliar with she asked how it was used and what flavor it imparted. She is unfamiliar with weeds and I had to warn her not to taste everything we passed. You don't have weeds in a country that uses every single spare inch for produce. Although India is the size of Texas, they have over a billion people and grow over 60% of all soybeans worldwide. That leaves little extra room for weeds.
I did beg for more information about mango ice cream and found they sell mango concentrate in the Indian grocery in Peoria. Dinesh said he puts it into milk (they call that a shake). They eat many of their sweets with milk (cold and warm) instead of the baked desserts we find so typical here. I had mango ice cream at the Indian restaurant in Lafayette IN and again found a 2nd place version at LUMs in Galesburg.
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