Making Bhatura

Mandakini (Sonal's mom) making bhatura (fried bread) for dinner

Sonal invited us over for dinner this evening, and, lucky for us, she knows we appreciate a real old-fashioned homecooked meal. Before we could sit down to eat we stepped into the backyard where Sonal lit a propane-fueled burner to heat corn oil in a wok and proceeded to roll out the dough into rounds. Sonal’s mom is seen frying the bhatura (fried bread) that we would eat with chole (spiced garbanzo beans). Also on the menu, this evening was spinach rice that was served with homemade yogurt and papad jeera which was quite simply a papadam sprinkled with a bit of finely chopped red onion, tomato, cilantro, and a light dusting of chaat masala.

The bread is made by mixing 2 cups of all-purpose flour with 1 small boiled and mashed potato, 2 tbsp plain yogurt, 1/2 tsp baking powder, salt, 3 tbsp corn oil, and enough water to form a dough. This has to sit for 5 – 7 hours before you can pinch off a piece about the size of a ping pong ball. Dip in rice flour and roll to the thickness of a quarter and the size of your hand. Place in hot oil and fry on one side until edges begin to firm. Be sure to press the bubbling dough into the oil, then turn over and fry until just golden brown. Great with chole.

Threading

Rinku Shah is "threading" Caroline's eyebrows - the Indian way of plucking eyebrows.

Friend Rinku Shah is seen here ‘threading’ Caroline’s eyebrows. This method of plucking eyebrows is the preferred way of ridding unwanted hairs from the eyebrows and is also used for removing any other facial hairs a woman might find popping out that she prefers wasn’t there. I’m thinking of having Rinku thread my nose hairs.

Tula, the Golden Retriever

Tula, the Golden Retriever, is the new puppy of a friend of our aunt and uncle in Santa Barbara, California

Attention: This post had a few extra images added to it in 2022 to offer a better overview of what was seen on this day.

After visiting Uncle Woody this morning, who was sitting up and ready to get walking, we took his German Shepherd Sophie to the park for a chance to run around and chase a tennis ball with a dog friend named Chester. Chester is a Retriever who hangs out with Gail, a friend of my aunt and uncle. Gail recently lost an older Retriever, and so last night, she and her husband picked up their new puppy, Tula – a Golden Retriever.

Hospital in Santa Barbara, California

Back to the hospital in the afternoon, but with my uncle exhausted and my aunt too, we got her home and made plans to head down to Los Angeles for a few hours.

Mark Shimer, Caroline Wise, and John Wise in Little Tokyo Los Angeles, California

Met up with Mark Shimer at Shabu Shabu in Little Tokyo before returning to Santa Barbara for another night.

Atom Heart, Anton, Caroline, Olaf, John

Uwe Schmidt aka Atom Heart, Anton - the skull, Caroline Wise, Olaf Finkbeiner and John Wise in the background in a photo from early 1990

Early in 1990, with our Digiview image digitizer connected to our Amiga 2000, we grabbed this photo of Uwe Schmidt (Atom Heart) on the left, Anton the skull, Caroline Engelhardt (to become Caroline Wise 4 years later), Olaf Finkbeiner, and that’s me, John Wise in the back row. This photo of the day prior to a recent scanning only existed on a piece of paper printed on a dot-matrix printer, the original file is lost in time. Photoshop and Neat Image helped in bringing this poor-quality image back to life.