The Lonestar Life: March 2010

I love the days when my husband works from home. It's not like we get to hang out together or anything. We both sit in the same room and do our own work. However, just knowing that he is near me makes my day. Also, we get to have lunch together...it feels like a date. :)

On the menu today: Parotta with Chicken Salna/Chalna. Parottas are buttery, pillowy, flaky morsels of bread. Chicken Salna is a curry made with chicken, onions, tomatoes, coconut and lots of spices. In Tamilnadu, these dishes are often served together. We brought the Parottas from India. They were made by Amuda Akka, a wonderful woman who works in my in-laws' home. I made the Chicken Salna using a recipe I found online.

Here is a picture of this lovely lunch. Hope you enjoy! Happy Friday. :)

Parotta with Chicken Salna....yum!

Finally, the long awaited post about our recent trip to India (particularly Jaipur). :) We had a fun time in India with our families. We celebrated our 3rd anniversary (on February 8th) in Jaipur. My sweetheart planned the entire trip. He is such a great planner! Also, our uncles and aunts wanted to bless us by sending us on this trip. We are incredibly grateful to them!

We stayed at The Sheraton Rajputana. It was one of the best hotels we've stayed in. The customer service was amazing. Our room was gorgeous and not to mention so comfortable! The pillows on the bed were so soft that I wanted to steal them! Don't worry though...I didn't. Our favorite part of the hotel was the breakfast buffet. It was unbelievable! They had everything you can possibly imagine! After eating Indian food for 3 weeks straight, I was more than ready to have an American breakfast. My stomach just doesn't handle spicy food very well. They also had plenty of Indian food on hand, which made my husband very happy. :)

My uncle and aunt arranged for a tour guide to take us around Jaipur. The first night we were there, we went to a place called Chokhi Dhani. Chokhi Dhani is set up like a typical Rajasthani Village. We watched a puppet shows, a couple of Rajasthani dances and went on a manually run ferris wheel (my personal favorite). A man jumped on the ferris wheel and start spinning it around by jumping from one end to the other. It was crazy! We also had a traditional Rajasthani meal. We were shocked at the amount of ghee (clarified butter) they used but the food was good.

The following day, our tour guide took us to the City Palace. Along the way, we stopped at Hawa Mahal, which forms part of the City Palace. Hawa Mahal is a palace in Jaipur which was built in 1799. It was built so that royal ladies could observe everyday life in the streets without being seen in public. Once inside the City Palace, we went on a fun, elephant ride. Our rider was trying to overtake the other elephants! Some things in India never change! ;) The City Palace includes the Chandra Mahal and many other palaces and buildings. The architecture of all the palaces were striking. The rich, colorful tones of the palaces were breathtaking.

I could go over all the different palaces but I don't think I can do it justice. If you'd like to know more information, please check out this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Palace,_Jaipur. We also did quite a bit of shopping. Jaipur is known for it's gems, silk paintings, rugs and block printing on bed linens and clothes, among other things. We didn't get any gems (sigh) but we did get some bed linens. We also bought puppets, clothes, costume jewelry and shawls.

Below are some pictures of our trip. If you want to know more about this beautiful city, feel free to e-mail me. Enjoy the pictures!