Cooking Class : Day 1

Tonight was my first night of cooking class. Took me a while to find the place, because the numbering for the houses was pretty weird. I ran into one of the other students on the way in, but I later noticed the ring on her finger; Denied!!! =-( I might have to "miss" class one week and go the other day and scope that out. We're the only ones there, but 2 people were late. I wasn't sure if they were going to actually come. Other chick is Syrian, so I was going to joke that "thank God there aren't any white people otherwise we'd have to water the food down."

But then damn, this other girl and her dad show up. This was quite a comical scene; my instructor is about 4'11" and probably weighs about 70 or 80 pounds versus this new girl who literally atleast 3 or 4 times her size; that girl barely fit in the kitchen. At one point, she needed to walk around me; I sort of just stepped in a little because I didn't realize literally how she couldn't fit with me standing there... LOL! Sorry!

Anyway, instructor asks how hot to make the food and everyone is fine with hot, but the dad pussed out later that night. I just added extra masala by hand with my meal to get the kick back. I finally saw one of those knife board things that they use in India, it's just a blade that is parallel with a cutting board but one side is attached to a swivel end on the cutting board. Basically, you just swing one side of the blade up and down to cut, and the swivel end holds the other side for you. It's pretty easy to cut fast with this thing, cause I'm an amateur and can't cut fast pro style like my mom with a regular knife.

We made srikhand (sweet yogurt desert;upper left), raita (Indian style yogurt with grated cucumber; upper right), potato curry (bottom left), and a bunch of puris (bottom right). We also made "fresh" masala; which is at the upper center. I dunno what the real name is but she just called it fresh masala. Damn, fresh masala got some kick... tastes DAMN good! Instructor's hustband uses the fresh masala like chutney, and I did too. I wasn't really sure how to use it since we were eating with puris, so I mixed it in with my raita.


Just a random Supra I saw when I was out grocery shopping earlier today. Poor thing; I don't think the owner has any clue what kind of car he/she owns. There was some crap, like from the hardware store in the passenger seat, and the stock wheels on that car are atrociously bad. The 4th gen Supra keeps impressing me with its contemporary design; it could be a brand new model on sale today. The last year of the Supra in the US was 1998.