Violin Recital Practice

Come Away With Me

Banana Pancake with Toffee Sauce

Recipe for 6 medium sized pancakes

Ingredients 

- 1 large egg

- 1 cup all-purpose flour

- 3/4 cup milk

- 1 tbsp light brown sugar

- 1 banana, peeled and mashed

- 1 tbsp baking powder

- 1/4 tsp salt

-  1/2 cup Diya and Aadi's home-made toffee sauce

Instructions 

- froth egg first 

- mix rest of ingredients to make batter

- heat griddle at medium heat and cook pancakes at this temperature 

- serve with toffee sauce poured on top of the pancakes

Recipe for Toffee Sauce

Ingredients 

- 2 1/2 cups of heavy cream

- 1 stick unsalted butter

- 1/2 cup corn syrup

- 2 cups sugar

Instructions

- combine 1 1/4 cup of cream and all of the butter, corn syrup and sugar in a sauce pan and bring to boil

- continue cooking over medium low heat, while whisking frequently, until a caramel color forms, about 40 min (may be more)

- carefully whisk in rest 1 1/4 cream and keep warm

Black cab tour of London - 12/26/2019 Boxing Day

Tour of London

Started late at 10:37
Rode in an all electric taxi
First thing we drove by was Royal Alberta Hall
Then Saw Kensington park, palace,
Bill Wyland's sticky fingers
Jimmy Paige's London Castle home
Street with converted Stable Garages
Drive around Holland Park
Summerkand Hotel Where Jimmy Hendricks died - sept 18th 1970
Next we go to Notting Hill famous for the Movie and Portobella Road Market
George Orwell's home- 1984, Animal Farm
Alice's shop in Paddington movie
Blue door where Hugh Grant lives in movie Notting Hill
West Indian settlement post WWII to help with man power - they still come back every year to organize the Notting Hill a carnival in August
Thomas Hardy's home - came to London to work as an architect in the railways
Paddington Barge in little Venice (called because of canal system)
Abbey Road Studio - Iconic recording studio. We stopped at the shop and bought trinkets
Lord's cricket ground
Drove thru Regents Park
London Zoo - very first scientific zoo. First animals came from Tower of London
Romanesque Architecture Buildings by John Nash
Primrose Hill
Chalcot Square - #32 hi Ouse for Paddington movie
Regent Street - Oxford circus tube station, Bond street station, Piccadilly Circus station on the other end
Picadilly Square
Hatchard Bookstore - oldest library
Westend
Trafalgar Square
The Mall - Buckingham Palace
Great hall of Westminster- built a thousand years ago
London eye, Thames River
Big Ben - all covered up for repairs
Parliament Square
Westminster Abbey - all the coronations in the last 1000 yrs, also more that 3000 famous people buried - Thomas Hardy, Charles dickens, Stephen Hawkins
Buckingham Palace - built in 1706, monarchy bought the house and queen victoria moved in 1837
Knightsbridge - High end shopping

Harrods - biggest department store in Europe. In early 1900s you could even buy lion and tiger cubs at Harrods! Today you can buy just about anything else - including sports car and speed boats. They were first to include escalators in store. Staff would stand at the top of the escalator and hand out glasses of brandy as people felt woozy from the experience!

On Cromwell road ... also have natural history museum, science museum, ...

Back to the hotel.

It rained all the time - good thing this wasn't a walking tour!

Uppiiiii!!!

Long time no cook!

Palak paneer and chicken stew to celebrate surviving first week of school ... including high school for Diya!

2019 China Trip - Favorite Momemts

Some of our favorite things -

Aadi-

1. Chengdu - I really liked the cooking taste testing.

  2.   Beijing - The Great Wall of China was a really fascinating experience.

  3. Shanghai - 1. I liked the mask play in the restaurant. 2. I also liked the mag lev train.

Diya -

1. Xian - food tour
2. Xian - terra cotta warriors
3. Chengdu - cooking class & pandas
4. Chengdu - hotpot
5. Beijing - Great Wall
6. Beijing - all of the temples and palaces
7. Beijing - mask painting & crickets
8. Beijing - Skipping the Mao Zedong memorial bc of the line 
9. Shanghai - meeting the family and the restaurant 
10. Shanghai - Starbucks Roastery 
11. Shanghai - Bookstore
12. Shanghai - weather
13. Shanghai - guide was really nice

 Baba

I liked - 

1. Beijing - The Great Wall
2. Beijing - Mass Painting
3. Beijing - Cricket man
4. Xian - Terracota Army
5. Xian- Tuktuk food tour
6. Chengdu - Hotpot
7. Chrndu - Market tour & cooking class
8. Shanghai - Starbucks refinery
9. Shanghai - Mask dance 
10. Personalized tour guide and car

Mamma-

1. Fact that I can authentically sign this off as "Mamma" .... goal was to enable a life time experience for kids and we did just that.
2. Smooth operation, minimal hiccups... template for all future family adventures. 
3. Meeting some interesting new people on the way and reconnecting with other interesting people I already knew. 
4. Food. Food. Food. Everything from food tour to cooking lessons to hot pot to family style dinner with friends.
5. The Wall. Impressive. 
6. Surviving the crowds. 
7. Not letting minor problems like 'The biggest typhoon in Shanghai in recent times' get in the way of our fun. 
8. All the unplanned things that blew us away - tea house in Beijing; Starbucks Roastery; Maglev. Totally unexpected but that's how it goes!
9. Watching the kids grow as expert glove trotters and avid foodies. 
10. The Olympic village - totally understated stop in the itinerary... have to let its spirit touch your core.