Today, Aunt Eleanor finished her 93rd trip around the sun – it was her 93rd Birthday. Joyce Moncrieff, her friend, and stepdaughter drove down from Colorado to celebrate the big day.

I made dinner, which was Auntie’s first time eating Indian cooking, I also made dessert. For dinner, we had Navratna Korma, Cholle, Batata Poha, and Roti (photo below), and for dessert, we ate Arroz con Leche with guava. Navratna Korma is mixed vegetables in a tomato cream sauce, Cholle is garbanzo beans in a tangy tomato sauce, and Batata Poha is parched rice cooked with onion, potato, nuts, coconut, raisins, lime juice, cilantro, and a few other things. The Roti was a whole wheat bread picked up at Indo Euro Foods. Arroz con Leche is a Mexican dish I learned to prepare from Guadalupe Silva. Arroz con Leche is rice, sweet condensed milk, cinnamon, vanilla, raisins, lime zest, soy milk, and canned guava – a Mexican rice pudding.

The full list of ingredients to prepare the dishes is as follows: peas, corn, carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower, potato, celery, onion, garlic, ginger, green chili, tomato, cilantro, curry leaves, fenugreek, garbanzo beans, cashews, almonds, sunflower seeds, raisins, coconut, guava, lime, lemon, tomato paste, rice, parched rice, cream, condensed milk, soy milk, Nestle Le Lecher (sweetened condensed milk), cinnamon, turmeric, chili powder, cumin, coriander, mustard seed, cumin seed, asafoetida powder, chana masala, vanilla, salt, sugar, grape seed oil.