Along the Mississippi - Shadow Falls

Fall is one of the most beautiful time in Minnesota, its when the nature is set ablaze and colors burst from each little crack in the scenery. The temperatures are often moderate and perfect for hiking. If you are from out of town and would like to experience Minnesota, there can't be a better time than Fall.

Happy Thanksgiving...

Hope you all had a very happy and gratifying Thanksgiving.

For us, it was a wonderful time spent with friends and family. I literally went on a cooking marathon and loved every bit of it. I’ll try and find time to share all the recipes and tips for the dishes that DH and I ended up making, experimenting and loving…

For the main course, there was Brussels sprout on the branch, Chicken stuffed with basmati rice pilaf, Bell-pepper stuffed with spiced tofu filling, Gobhi Dum (Whole cauliflower head cooked in Indian curry spices), Jeweled cranberries (two varieties – Brandy and Orange), New baby potatoes from farmers market cooked with garlic and rosemary.

Besides cooking and cleaning and spending time with friends and family, most of my time was spent working on a project at work that’s due within the next two weeks. I’m hoping for a quieter Christmas. Be back soon with a couple more pages that I was able to squeeze in during this busy weekend. 

Jammin! to the (Apple) Core, recipe

Apple has been very central to human civilization or lack thereof. Legend has it that the Gawds had forbidden it to humans. Legend also has it that an apple a day keeps the Doctor away. Clearly the Gawds were siding with the Doctors on this one not wanting the Doctor away from people at all, so to speak.
It was in fact a cold-blooded reptile - the serpent that introduced us mortals to this delicious fruit. Though we suggest that you don't go hugging a snake on this account. Preceding was a lesson in mythology + medical science rolled into one. You're welcome!

It's autumn in Minnesota - that ever so brief interlude between the two seasons known to locals - road repair and winter. Besides beautiful weather, brilliant colors of foliage and a festive, happy mood, the season also brings bountiful harvests of corn, pumpkins, wild turkeys and apples.

Our first foray in an orchard this season yielded 3 Pecks (no relation to Gregory) of delicious apples - crisp as an autumn breeze. Paula red, Macintosh and Red Barron decided to grace our home and palates for a while.Since we live in the land of 'Metric system is evil', all that we can say about our haul is that we were a peck short of a bushel. Get it? Me neither. Suffice it to say that it translated into a lot of apples.

Tucking into apples of each kind while waxing poetic, we wondered - is it even possible to capture the essence of autumn that we're relishing in this fruit? (And an apple does justice to the season that bears it - in color, texture and sweet and tart taste.) While the overall consensus was the obvious - of course we can't, but boldly venturing out on nonsensical ventures constitutes half the perks of being human.

Around Here...

View coming into work this morning

• The sugar rush from Halloween continues, we haven’t put away the candy tray and it still sits by the front door

At the fireworks shop

•  The 5 day festival of Diwali culminated yesterday with Bhai dooj (started 1^st Nov)

I always aim to make 5 different types of sweets for Diwali

We made and ate and shared lots and lots of sweets with friends and neighbors

We switched back from Day light savings time to regular time and it is beautiful to see sunlight filtering into the bedroom rather than waking up in the dark (which I still do on most days)

As I woke up

• Both girls are working very hard towards their respective music recitals that is coming up soon in just about a months’ time along with a few other musical fundraiser events

• We got our first dusting of snow and it made everything so pretty, the silvery shimmer on grey limbs of the leaf-less trees… only because it November, I’d hate this in spring

Our pumkin got some grey hair

• Recreational basketball made an entry into our lives and the first session began this week

Photos taken by me using my phone

Happy Halloween folks!

2013 was a special Halloween for us; it was the first time that DH agreed to dress up. I had picked up a skeleton suit for him but he wasn’t sure and so I had not planned anything either so when at the last minute he slipped into the costume, I had to come up with something really fast. And besides an angel and a witch, a girl with long dark hair can always bank on dressing up as Frida Kahlo. A warp around skirt and a shawl that DH had picked up in Spain and a few accessories later, I was ready.

A skeleton, a kitty cat, Frida Kahlo and a fortune teller.

The girls chose their own costumes, a cat and a fortune teller. I wanted to make the cat ear and tail myself but when I found the whole Cat kit in Target for five dollars, I knew my time will not be worth it. So it was store bought (sacrilege), I know.

The fortune teller was a combination of skirts for layering effect and a scarf that we had picked up during our last Paris trip. Rest was accessories from our dressing tables and jewelry drawers…

p.s. sorry about the noisy picture... its a phone picture but I really wanted to share now and not wait for pictures from the really camera :-)

Wreath for Harvest season...

Harvest season is upon us and it was time update out Spring Wreath. 

Fall = Apple+Raspberry picking season

I feel blessed that we live just a few miles from tons of green spaces, parks and a few orchards and farmers as well. It makes taking breaks from routine very easy and enriching; and what that means besides other things is that on a beautiful Fall afternoon over the weekend right before the lethargy from an elaborate lunch sets in, we can escape to the nearby apple orchard and soak up the sun and inhale fresh apples and raspberries.

I sure love it that the girls know their favorite variety of apple by name and can often pick it right from the trees.

We ended up picking almost 15 lbs (7 kg) of apples and 4 pints of raspberries. That’s more apple than what we’d have gotten from the grocery store but it’s so fresh, it will last a couple weeks. Besides DH plans to make some apple Jam and my younger daughter wishes to try making homemade apple sauce.

This year the raspberries are really good. I ate right of the shrubs almost as much as I picked. This was the very first year when we got to pick the pink and yellow raspberries. Now my green smoothies have been tinged pink

DH made a quick raspberry tart and it needed a few more minutes of setting but we were too greedy to wait and gobbled it all up. Even though the filling was a little runny, the taste was just perfect...

Design versus Trends

It is Thanksgiving and we are all getting ready to celebrate the bounty of life's blessings with our friends and family. For past many months catalogs have been pouring in my mail box to make sure I have the right decor keeping up with the trends while I express my gratitude for the beautiful life on Thanksgiving Day.

If I cannot afford the most expensive and trendy designer products then there are websites and blogs that can tell me how I can create the expensive looks for cheap with simple DIYs. It can perhaps be inspiring at some level while we explore our own dislike and like and push the boundaries of safe and neutral decor but how far do we take that... Do we really need to change wall color, accessories, dishes, lightings each season, at each festival, year after year, season after season... Is it really necessary to celebrate a festival like Thanksgiving, would it help generate a feeling of gratitude, generosity or love and tolerance among family and friends.

I am a Bridge designer by profession, and I understand learning the basic principles of design and rule of structural stability but after that, the site and the transportation needs govern the design. The function leads and defines the form in most cases while generating unique structures where no two are alike, and they live and evolve through years. And so its very tough for me to grasp a design push where trends overtake the function and all sorts of absurdities prevail in the name of conforming with trends, is that necessary? And not to mention that they'll become disposables and garage sale commodities within few weeks of the so called celebration...

Are we promoting a culture where we are voluntarily surrendering our like and dislikes to the tastes of the few that we admire and in the process loosing our individuality. When Pantone announces colors for the next season, do we really need go out of our way to paint that chair 'tangerine tango' and keep up?

Design I think is that refuge that helps inspire and promote function and help achieve inner peace and at the same time, perfect design ideas for individuals come to surface when we settle our minds rather than constantly running after someone else's peace and inspiration. It is an individual statement and we all need to find it for ourselves rather than copy someone else.

This Thanksgiving season, while we are expressing gratitudes for all that God has blessed us with, can we also thank God and Nature for the sensibilities we were built with and let them guide us to a haven that we can carve for our soul and not the look from the favorite magazine and favorite designer...

May the good sense prevail and we follow our own inspiration and pave our own path to the individual destination and journey that we are to take in this life...

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Manipulating in photoshop

I don’t believe in manipulating pictures to make them perfect. Don’t get me wrong, I shoot in RAW so I have to make minor adjustments to bring it to .jpg and share online but to overtly change the nature of a photograph is not appealing to me at all. That said since I am writing about this topic, there must be an exception to this rule; contradictions create drama and needs explanation which often makes it a nice topic to write about.

This picture was taken in an early October afternoon, while the leaves were still gathering fall colors and summer still had an upper hand over winter. It’s a posed picture, as you can probably tell, and we precariously balance the camera on the edge of a picnic bench to use its self- timer and make this shot. Well at the last minute a father-daughter duo jumped in our orchestrated background making it rather unpleasant but for some reason I didn’t delete it.

It was Sunday afternoon and we had to get back to the following week’s preparation so we skipped taking another picture and relieved the camera of its precarious balancing misery. Fast forward to six weeks later when I was looking for a picture of DH and I to share online for announcing our 12 years of matrimony. I ended up using Photoshop to creatively eliminate the extra people in the picture. My Photoshop skills were rusty and I had limited time to fix the picture so it’s not the best editing possible but I am glad that I was able to make it work.

We received many compliments on the picture and later as I was trying to make peace within me since I crossed a new boundary, it occurred to me that what I did with this picture is exactly what marriage/relationship is all about. There is bound to be distractions in life but as long as the two people in relationship are committed to keeping each other in focus and central, other fade away in the background anyways...

Here's to our 12 years together.... 

A beautiful Autumn day...

23 October 2011
A drive through Wisconsin country side generated these series of pictures. It was a beautiful fall day and a drive to our recent favorite place was warranted.  With this post I also confess my most recent instagram (photo app for iphone users) addiction and warn you of several more of such posts.  We started south on Hwy 61 up to Red Wing and then crossed over to wisconsin via this bridge and drove along the Mississippi on Hwy 35.

Red wing bridge, a photo by shalini_devesh on Flickr.

We came across 'Swan song' art gallery in Maiden Rock during our visit for the 'Fresh Art Tour' last month. I do hope to get to that post some time but now lets discuss just this trip. The owner is a practicing Hindu and it is so fun to see her idols collection, which is of course not for sale. She has a big dog and girls like to pet him till him till he kisses (licks) them back. 

Another one of our great find is the 'Smiling Pelican' bakery. It is only open on weekends and usually by two most their bread are sold out. I am stating that to emphasize its popularity and absolute deliciousness. The pies that we have tried so far (passion fruit and cream, banana and cream, mixed berries and apple) are out of this world. 'Must try'... and the ambiance in the outdoor garden on a perfect fall day seemed like heaven. 

After that we took a short drive south to the city of Pepin, to visit the home of  Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was a pioneer and the author of the 'Little house in the big woods series'; and my 2nd grader absolutely adores her. So this little detour made the trip extra special for her.



Laura Ingalls Wilder's house from late eighteenth century

We stopped on the way back at Bay city to eat some ice cream and this Boo (Soo) line engine was on display and we ate ice cream (green apple ice cream topped with slighted salted caramel) inside this caboose.

Lake Superior Trip in pictures...

Right before the sunrise

As the sun rose...

Sun rays hasn't made it to the earth yet...

Scenery is slowly lighting up :)

The warmth of sun changed everything



Finished a puzzle right after breakfast



And then it was time to sit/walk by the lake and relax

A fire-ring submerged in water

Some fauna, that later came home in plastic cup

Girlies loved to walk on the rocky shore

Beach wood and some rocks, precious collections

On pebbles beach

Light house view...

Beautiful Fall colors



Birch, I love the texture and the cool contrast

Gooseberry Falls

Roots on top of the rocks...

Mr. Squirrel

Ms. Chikadee



Ms. Sunshine

Ms. Realist

We met a deer family on the way

Some stayed and posed while others ran away...