The Many Faces & Colors of India

Meredith Mullins who was with me in India and, as you have already seen in my first four India blogs, takes fabulous photos of everything but especially people.  I really want to share with you more of the wonderful faces and colors of India, captured mostly by Meredith to whom this blog is dedicated.  You can see much more of her work on her website www.meredithmullins.artspan.com.

Enjoy & hope you can join me on the next adventure!

Udaipur : The Venice of India

We flew from Lucknow to Delhi and then onto Udaipur, a true utopia.  Our hotel was on the water with amazing vistas, especially at night from the rooftop terrace restaurant. 

Next time I will definitely stay at the Taj Lake Palace Hotel, a true paradise on earth where the James Bond movie, Octopussy was filmed!

We had another very good guide, Shakti and visited the Crystal Palace with amazing crystals from Belgium which are surprisingly all over northern India. Our final gala dinner was at the Jagmandir Island Palace in the pouring rain but nonetheless we loved (almost) every minute.

My last India blog will be …. The Faces and Colors of India captured by my good friend and photographer Meredith Mullins.

Unlucky on the way to Lucknow

The one nightmare of our 2 weeks in India was the train ride from Agra to Lucknow, which was supposed to take 5 hours and took 12!!!  It was amazing to watch how much patience the Indian people exhibit, including their children.  No one fussed until the very last hour when we were all tired and hungry.

Lucknow is not a city where you find many tourists and there are wide boulevards and lots of greenery, with beautiful parks and lovely flowers, especially dahlias and roses.

It seemed especially peaceful after all the tourists we encountered in Jaipur and Agra.  Our guide referred to his hometown as a "fresh city" not contaminated by "commissions for the guides"!

We visited several palaces and temples but were particularly moved by our visit to La Martiniere School , a top boy’s school in a building which was once the palatial home of and designed by Claude Martin, a French soldier turned architect who spent his life in Lucknow.

We were also very moved by our visit to SEWA, Self-Employed Women’s Association, an autonomous organization of Chikan artisans who make the most beautiful hand-embroidered garments.

Lucknow is a very important culinary destination, especially for Indian Kebabs of which there are 120 different kinds!  Most of these kebabs look like meat patties, the most famous and delicious of these are the Tundey Kebabs, made of lamb (or water buffalo) and raw papaya.  

We spent another special moment having tea with Newab Sahib at his home filled with antiques and great stories of his royal life in Lucknow.  We were very satisfied and ready for our final few days on the lake in Udaipur.

Jaipur, an Indian Jewel & Agra, a Magnificent Monument

Our next stop was Jaipur, in Rajasthan, the pink city of India because of the beautiful pink limestone used for the buildings.  The Johari bazaar is a world famous bazaar for precious jewelry and our group took full advantage, once again dropping more than intended on jewels including several magnificent rings.

Other highpoints in Jaipur were visiting the Amber Fort including an elephant ride to the top and a visit to the exquisite Samode Palace filled with intricate inlaid marble work.

We toured the flower market in Jaipur and had a cooking class and dinner at Shahpura House, a private royal residence.  The owner cooked his grandmother’s favorite Butter Chicken in her special pot over a very hot fire and told us stories of growing up and spending time with her cooking.  

We had a delicious dinner by candlelight and left with fireworks exploding overhead in celebration of a local wedding ( maybe for us as well ?).  We had a 2^nd cooking class outside of Jaipur at a farm where they cooked vegetables they had grown and made a very spicy chili sauce.  And, we had a 3^rd cooking class in Agra the next day with a local family who had invited an astrologer to tell our fortunes which were all good, of course!

       

Agra is the Taj Mahal, which we saw at sunrise and sunset.

Our guide, Arif, a young man who was intelligent, humorous, honest and a good listener was the best guide of our trip, which made Agra extra special.  Shopping here for inlaid marble tables was amazing and watching the artisans at work was a real treat.

 

Delving into Delhi

My two week trip to Northern India began in Delhi/New Delhi where I spent the first 4 days with 6 women friends.  We jumped right into the culinary side of things with a dinner the first night at Bukara, one of the best Indian restaurants in the world where Barak Obama, Bill Clinton & Bill Gates have all eaten.  We ate with our hands and shared many traditional dishes including tandoori chicken, chicken tikka, tandoori prawns, paneer,  papadam & naan(breads) and daal!  We drank the local Kingfisher beer and some quite nice local Sula wines.

We got even more intimately connected to the foods of India the following day when we visited Old Dehli by cycle rickshaw and spent the morning in the vegetable market overflowing with spring fruits and vegetables.  

                                                                                                                           We also spent time in the wholesale spice market and were introduced to the basics of Indian cooking including the essential spices ~ cardamom, coriander, cumin, fenugreek seeds, mango and chili powders, turmeric, cinnamon, and saffron! WOW! A few other basics are garlic, fresh ginger, yogurt, paneer(cottage cheese), coconut milk and lentils.  After our great trip to the spice market we enjoyed a lunch at a private home.

We visited several temples in Delhi including the Sikh temple with a kitchen, called Langar, which feeds and nourishes the souls of anyone in the city for free.

We did not spend all our time eating in Delhi however.  We toured Humayum’s tomb, the India gate, a Hindu temple where a marriage was taking place and shopped until many of us dropped (more than we intended) on pashmina scarves made from goat wool in Kashmir, India.

Rolling Hills, Rioja Wines, Cod, Peppers & Perfect Pork in the Spanish Basque Country --- April 2015

My Delicious Connections Facebook page recently featured some of the early highlights of our weeklong trip to northern Spain, including running with the bulls in Pamplona and sitting with Ernest Hemingway in his beloved Cafe Iruna.

Bilbao's Guggeheuim Museum is a modern masterpiece as was our dinner at La Vina del Ensanche where I enjoyed sublime pork cheeks with asparagus.

We continued on to the Rioja wine region and headed for HARO where we visited several wineries including La Rioja Alta which was outstanding.  Our Delicious Connections friend, Roy Cloud, a wine importer, suggested we try their wines and we were thrilled.  All of their wines were wonderful but their Vina Ardanza Reserva 2005 was outstanding, rich, complex, earthy, and crying out for a piece of red meat!






After our tasting we headed for lunch nearby at La Vieja Bodega and had one of the best meals of our trip, including a superb garlic soup and their signature dish of local vegetables with slices of cod and a red pepper sauce.  The owner, Angel Perex Aguilar, took special care of us and together we visited his wine cellar under the restaurant.  Angel would love to run a trip with me in the future which would be amazing.

We saved the best for the last on this trip which was San Sebastian with its elegant promenade along its curving beach la Concha.  

The museo San Telmo is a gem of a museum on Basque culture and the entire old town quite charming.  But the highlights here were the food.  We had two superb meals, the first of which was at La Muralla in the old town where we enjoyed a 39 euro, 7 course tasting menu which included unlimited amounts of red and white house wines and delectable cod cheeks with peppers.

Our second dinner in San Sebastian was in a house up in the hills overlooking the town.  Zelai Txiki, is a family owned restaurant, run by Chef Juan Carlos and his wife Eva.  The pigeon and the suckling pork were perfect as were the vegetables grown in their own garden.  After our fantastic meal, we had the distinct pleasure of visiting their kitchen and wine cellar.  Juan Carlos and Eva want to work with me as well, so watch out, I may soon have a trip to the Spanish Basque Country!

Voices of Istanbul

The other night I was invited by the Turkish Ambassador to UNESCO, Huseyin Avni Botsah, to a concert and reception in Paris celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of UNESCO and the 30th anniversary of Istanbul's being named a world heritage site.

The concert was lively with classical and contemporary music and dancing onstage. I met the mayor of Istanbul, Kadir Topbas and Mr. Botsah, himself assured me the traveling to Turkey, including Istanbul, is very safe, if you avoid the Syrian border and Istanbul during the Turkish elections.  I enjoyed many mezes(both meat and vegetable), kebabs, dolmas(stuffed grape leaves) and baklava at the reception. YUM!

So, come with me and Chef Reine Sammut (http://deliciousconnections.com/sailing-in-the-turkish-isles/) to the Turquoise Coast for a week of exploring, shopping, cooking and eating delicious turkish delicacies.