Its raining Awards and MeMes and Whatnot!

Dear fellow bloggers have passed on some awards, and a meme too. I've been lazy in posting and passing it on. I had just started drafting this post, and WHOOOM Lakshmi has rained a whole lot more awards!

Well let me begin with a MeMe from Anudivya which goes like this ...
The rules of the MeMe are:* Pick up the nearest book* Open to page 123* Find the 5th sentence* Post the next three sentences* Tag 5 people and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

The nearest book turned out to be 'First Things Fast, A Handbook of Performance Analysis' by Allison Rosset. The 3 sentences on Page 123 starting from line 5, turned out be a set of profound questions that concern the Training Industry "What can be done to turn experiences with customers, clients, products and the literature into archives of lessons for their associates from other disciplines? What role can human resource leaders play in knowledge management? What Technology in the hands of human resources and training professionals has much to offer here?"....

Hee Hee ...sorry it was not more generic! I tried to cheat and found two more books, but with similar and more nerdy results, so I stuck with the first book!

Now for the awards.... Thanks Malar for sending us the Hardworking Food Blogger. I love your Tamil Haiku, but hated the massacared rabbit!!!




And then thanks Lakshmi for sending alllllllllllllllllllllllllll of these!!
I am following her example by passing all of these awards and the MeMe to:
Yosee - Jalan Jalan
Roshni - Not a Science Geek
Malar - Kitchen Tantra
Shreya - Indian Khana
PearlsofEast - Anyone can Cook
Rashmi - Delhi Belle
Purnima - Fantasy Cooking
Rajeshwari - Rak's Kitchen
Purva - Purva's Daawat
Cham - Spice Club
Anjali - Annaparabrahma
Sangeeth - Art of Indian Cooking
Suganya - Tasty Palates
Sukanya - ...and a little bit more...
Simran - Bombay Foodie
Pallavi - All Thingz Yummy
Nazarina - Giddy Gastronome
Sunshinemom - Tongue Ticklers

Bee - Forgive me my Nonsense
Karuna - Foodie by Nature








Teresa - Mexican American Border Cooking
Vibaas - Delectable Vegetarian Recipes
Jayashree - My experiments with Food
Uma - Essence of Andhra
Jayasree - Experiements in Kailas Kitchen
Sra - When my Soup Came Alive
Mandira - Ahar, pleasure & sustenance
Happy Cook - My Kitchen Treasures
Lubna - Kitchen Flavours
Srivalli - Cooking 4 All Seasons
Alka - Sindhi Rasoi
Deesha - Vegetable Platter
Robert Gilles - Shizouka Gourmet
DK - DK's Culinary Bazaar
Sagari - Indian Cooking
Aparna - My Diverse Kitchen
Divya - Dil Se
Ramya - Mane Adige
Andhra Flavours - For Spicy Lovers
Usha - Veg Inspirations
Priya - Priya's easy n tasty recipes
Mansi - Cool Ideas and Gadgets

I have many more to add to this list! Will save that for the next tag!!!

Kuzhi Paniyaram

You need a kuzhipaniyaram pan. Any brand is ok. If you don't have this, add it to your "to buy list" when you go to India next time. Picture of the pan has been taken from here.


Ingredients:
Dosa batter-2 cups
Chopped onions-1/4 cup
Coriander leaves-handful
Jeera-1/2 tsp
Salt- a pinch
Hing-a pinch
Ginger chopped-1/2 tsp
Green chilli chopped-1/2 tsp
Curry leaves-a few

Method:
Heat kuzhi paniyaram pan. Put 2-3 drops of oil in each hole. fill each hole with the batter and drizzle a drop of oil on top. After 2-3 minutes, flip to cook the other side. Once both the sides turn golden brown, switch off and serve with ketchup or chutney.

My mom sometimes makes deep fried version of this. She adds little rice flour(to thicken the dosa batter) and other ingredients mentioned above to the dosa batter and deep fries. They are too delicious.

a few steps closer to a kitchen

Work is in full swing. We are officially on someone else's schedule now that we've ordered the countertops and I have a feeling they're going to want to place them on top of actual, built and installed cabinets as opposed to the ones we currently have:

This is what cabinets from Ikea look like when you bring them home. It's probably not surprising that we have to put them together ourselves, considering the fact that even if you buy a swedish meatball at Ikea it'll come with assembly instructions. Unless you have a large vehicle, you'll want someone to help (thanks, Matt).

As far as work that's going on:

Framing - we're finally (completely) finished and covering all that hard work with drywall is proving to be rewarding.

Electrical - there are now 10 lights, 5 switches and 8 outlets in the room.  About the lights - remember the previous post about recessed lighting? We ended up adding more, small recessed lights that follow the path of the countertops. They have a brushed stainless steel finish to match the appliances and their installation was about the same as the previous ones.

We wanted to have some pendants hanging over the 'pass through' area, but the way the soffit had to be built prevented this. There are a few small pendants hanging the opposite corner which you can see here (along with some of our beautiful sheetrock):

Sheetrock - we're still in the initial parts of this phase. Along with what you can see in the above pictures, here is a bit more showing the process:

We had to cover some of the opening to the stairwell. The exposed brick is still visible from the kitchen and living room. We wanted to keep it open, but there was no where else to put a refrigerator (not to mention the 92" cabinet that will be in the space also). The outlet up by the ceiling will be in a small open area above the cabinetry - we figured it would be a good idea just in case we wanted to add lights up there... it may also be used to supply power to yet another strand of Christmas lights in Craig's dreams of creating a wonderland in our home.

There is still much to do before the countertop folks come out for measurements, including plumbing, gas lines, a few electrical changes, finishing the sheetrock, fixing some weak spots in the floor, oh sweet Jesus - we should probably get to work.