Philip's

Emperor Bahadur Shah's feast of lamb mince with rice and gram pulao and besani bread, the Mughal feast #7 on 27 May 2012. The last Mughal emperor, and the last emperor's feast cooked in this experimental series of 'old' Indian food. For the last Mughal feast or #7 I cooked 3 recipes on Sunday evening on the 27th of May 2012 for Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar from Aurangzeb's and Bahadur Shah's sections in the S. Husain "Emperor's Table". The three recipes were 1. Rice and Bengal Gram Pulao or "Qubooli" (from Aurangzeb's section) 2. Lamb Mince with Pistachios or "Piston Ka Keema" (Bahadur Shah's section) and 3. Unlevened Gram Flour Bread or "Besani Roti" (als Bahadur Shah's section) Here's are photos of the ingredients lined up - Above is first for Pulao, then for Lamb Mine, and lst for Besani bread. To see photos of cooking for this dinner, start with this Picasa photo and keep...

Emperor Aurangzebs's black beans with with cottage cheese bread Mughal feasts #6 on 4 March 2012 For the Mughal feast #6 I cooked 2 recipes on Sunday afternoon on the 4th March 2012 for Emperor Aurangzeb from Aurangzeb's section in the S. Husain "Emperor's Table". The two recipes were 1. Rich Creamy Black Gram or "Dal Alamgiri" and 2. Cottage Cheese Bread or "Naan-e-Paneer"

Emperor Shah Jahan's chicken dinner with naan (bread) Mughal feasts #5 on 30 October 2011 For the Mughal feast #5 cooked 2 recipes on Sunday afternoon on the 30 October 2011 for Emperor Shah Jahan from Shah Jahan's section in the S. Husain "Emperor's Table". The two recipes were 1. Chicken Royal or "Murgh-e-Taaus" and 2. Almond Pistachio Bread or "Nana-e-Nemat" This was a delicious, nutty, and sweet combination of dishes, both using almonds, pistachios, saffron, ghee, and yogurt. The bread complimented the saucy chicken curry.  Neither of them used the more common curry spices of cumin, coriander, or cayenne pepper, but the chicken included some cinnamon, cloves, white or black pepper, and turmeric. These get an overall rating of B+, with the chicken rating an A- and the bread a B-. The chicken was very rich and filling in its white yogurt marinade and sauce, added to which were several small amounts of pastes from poppies, almonds, an...

Emperor Jahangir's Lamb kebabs dinner

Emperor Akbar's chicken dinner with dal and roti (lentils and bread) - Mughal feasts #3 on 2 Ap 2011 Mughal feast #3 cooked three recipes on Saturday 2nd April 2011 for Emperor Akbar from Akbar's section in the S. Husain "Emperor's Table". The three recipes were 1. Murgh Zameen Doz = Chicken wrapped in bread and baked 2. Khasa Tilaai (Paheet) = Lentil cooked with yoghurt 3. Roghni Roti Shahi = Wholewheat milk bread See photos of the Mughal feasts , or start with the Akbar section . This feast or dinner was a nice combination of chicken with lentils and bread. It was fun to make, but overall the flavor and taste was not that great - they get an overall rating of B-. The chicken especially was not outstanding - the meat was moist and somewhat flavorful, but not succulent or exciting, an overall C+. So too with the lentils - just mildly interesting with a B-. The bread was perhaps the most interesting with a mild sweet flavor, different from the normal ...

Emperor Humayun's supper and breakfast - Mughal feasts #2 Mughal feast #2 was to cook four recipes for Emperor Humanyun from his section in the S. Husain " Emperor's Table ". For his supper - a soup, lamb kebabs, and bread, and for his breakfast - an eggplant omelet. Listed as 1. Eshkaneh Shirazi or Yoghurt Soup Laced with Saffron 2. Luleh Kebab or Lamb Kebabs Wrapped in Bread 3. Naan-i-Tunak or Baked Flour Bread Flavoured with Mint 4. Kukuye Bademajan or Eggplant Omelet Served with Yoghurt I cooked the supper items on Saturday evening the 12th of Feb 2011, eating the soup and kebabs over three evenings; while we cooked and ate half-recipe omelets for brunch the early afternoon of Sunday the 13th Feb, and the evening of Wednesday the 16th Feb. Yogurt soup Lamb kebabs Eggplant omelet Did they celebrate Valentines Day in the Mughal court? (of course not) Or if they would have, what foods do you think they would have cooked and eaten at the ...

Babur's supper - Mughal feasts, food, cuisine I'm interested in Indian food, especially food from historic times, like the Mughal's. So, I'm going to experiment and cook some of the recipes from Salma Husain's The Emperor's Table (2008. ISBN: 8174364536) . We start with two recipes from the time of Emperor Babur (1494-1530), Karam Dulma or Stuffed Cabbage Rolls and Kyulcha or Spicy Wholewheat Baked Bread . I cooked these last night, Saturday the 5th of Februray 2011. I write a narrative of the details of making these below. Overall? Very interesting tastes. I'd give the Karam Dulma an A- rating, while the bread or Kyulcha gets a B- or even C- rating. Very heavy food. I should have been content to eat just one of the Cabbage Rolls, but they were so, so good, rich, flavorful, juicy. And the bread turned out more like a stiff, spicy pie crust - don't know what's going on with that, but I have some suggestions (below). (See Picasa photo album...

Lunar Eclipse, 20th February 2008, from Druid backyard. Click on image to see a gif animation.

This morning Deej's friend's guys came and cut up one downed rotted maple, and then fell a second rotted one, sawed it up, and took it all away in two hauls in about 2 hours - fast work, and pretty cheaply - boy, am I glad to have that over. We've continued to have high winds all day long, but no further big trees knocked over. Here's how the back yard looked, the day after the high winds on the 26th December 2007: And here's a composite photo from today: Here's a little 31 second video of cutting down the dead tree: also at Google Video

Just wanted to make a new post so that the Excel file was not the only things seen here. Winter is passing, Rachel has had her birthday, Solstice is over, a new year, even with a new Curry Club, and a South Asia Center Seminar. Yipee! Solstice 2007 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-356137279461630226 Curry Club Jan 2008 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2592007359493206482 Seminar http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4276483680219459867

GIPL 2004 Bihar 64 Agriculture, Bihar 15 Caste B 79 C&P, B 80 Children, employment, B 92 Communalism B 105 Education, primary B 153 Education, tribal 154 Elections B 157 Elections J 160 Festivals J 183 Fish culture B 186 Folk art J 188 Forest management J 191 Hygiene B 232 Irrigation B 269 Jharkhand 282 Land reforms B 316 Naxalites B 383 Rice B 459 Rural-urban migration B 466 Social conflict B 521 (AC) Watersheds J 596 Women B 604 (1930) GIPL 2006 Ja-Mar 43:1 Agriculture Bihar 4 Manpower Jh 78 Medical Jh 79 Tribes Jh 133 Water rights Jh 140 GIPL 2006 Ap-Je 43:2 Bihar 16 Naxalites 93 GIPL Jl-sp 2006 43:3 Coal mines and mining Jh 26 Education of women B 39 Employment Jh 41 Literacy and illiteracy B 79 Naxalites India 94 Rehabilitation Jh 112 GIPL Oc-Dc 2006 43:4 Bihar 17 Christianity Jh 24 Churches Jh 25 employment B 40 Jainism Jh 66 Rural-urban migration Jh 112 Sikhism Jh 121 Tribes Jh 135 Tribes, Primitive Jh 135 GIPL 2004 Bihar 64 Agriculture,...

4th of July 2007. Travel day - from Charlottesville cars to Richmond, fly to Newark, wait 8 hours, on the plane to Delhi over the north (Halifax, Stockholm, near Moscow, eastern Turkey, near Lahore) to Delhi. Everyone made it to Richmond, where we put in our luggage, all the way to Delhi, said goodbyes, and went to the gate waiting an hour. Flight to Newark, 10:30 to noon. Then the long 8 hour wait. Camped out first in a side hallway on seats, while I bought cold medicine, a lock, the book Namesake. Then moved to an unused gateway, seated next to a plug, so we connected to Deej and ICQed for a while, Mark looking at his mail and trying out the Lock and SinkSub games for a while, but read his book mainly. We ate around 6 at the food court's A&W and then went to our gate. Unannounced, but had to double check-in, as they made sure everyone had the right passports and the right visas. A rush to get on as 8:00 approached, and we waded through the crowd to get to our Row 38 seats...

[Hey, all, remember to keep checking Liz and Terri's Tazmaniacs 2005 blog at http://tasmaniacs2005.blogspot.com/ ] Kathy and Lois came through to visit on a day when the seasons were changing. Last of the summer's Rose of Sharon and first of the Moon Flowers for the coming month.

HS pink tea Birthday Philip Valentine librarians four Pink, pink cup cakes

Florida 2005 Tori laughing with grandma Betty Tori resting in mom's car Kim at grandpa's Dick at Dad and Jeanne's Sunset at Barb's Missy Deej and Philip at Anna Maria breakfast

Working before Christmas. I wish I didn't have to work these 4 days before Christmas eve and Christmas, when almost every one else seems to be off. Oh, well, maybe I'll catch up on some things. Had a nice pre-Christmas dinner over in the Valley - the predicted snow didn't hit our area, though the Richmond area evidently got a thunder snow shower of about an inch. I cooked the turkey breast, but as usually Sharon cooked all the many other things. Roger and daughters were finishing up putting their tree decorations. Saturday we went downtown to a busy mall with lots of mall vendors; and then over to Tims to have Deej snap their Christmas photos; which got me busy settting up a 2004 Holiday web page at http://www.people.virginia.edu/~dbc/xmas/2004/xmas2004.html which took me late into Saturday evening and very early Sunday morning. Cold this Monday morning, with the birds in the yard scrambling to get seeds from the empty bird feeder, which we filled before we left f...

New Fall 2004 Semester Ah, another new semester and another trip to the Madison South Asia conference coming up. So far I've done 4 ENWR classes/sessions, pretty interesting topics. Yesterday's was on the American Dream related to work, wages, etc. I've been enjoying reading books, ficition, for the first time in almost 30 years, since I joined or started an reading club in May 2004. Recently I sent out several posts to that egroup, all on the writings of Gita Mehta; mainly her books River Sutra and Raj. Almost a cold day today - wonder if there will still be some okra and hot peppers in our remted public gardent plot. Did we have our first frost last night?

I wonder what's going on with you, in your life recently? Seems like most of the stuff I'm doing is pretty normal, though some of it is very interesting? Also what MUSIC have you listened to in the last couple of years, that's been exiting to you, that you've gone out and bought or wished you had bought. See my last couple paragraphs below about some of the stuff I'm listening to. We are having the Virginia Festival of the BOOK this week and week-end (24-29 March 2004). I went to readings of translated works by India and Pakistan authors yesterday afternoon, while Deej was going to hear well-known book reviews (Michael Dirda of the Washington Post for one), and I will try to see and hear Ondaatje (English Patient and Anil's Ghost) and Victoria Sanford (the model for the protaganist in Anil's Ghost) this afternoon. Garrison Keillor was another headliner, among the 100 or so authors at this 10th anniversary of this festival. You can see more about it, i...

Snowed overnight, with the city plow leaving big chuncks in our parking spot, all up the street on the north side. Supposedly Matt's coming to put the kitchen cabinet back in, thus we are staying home this Friday; but he had a FedEx truck blocking his drive way. Don't know when he will come. Did some shoveling, pant, pant. Made air plane reservations to go to Florida to see dad, sisters and all, the second week of Jan 2004. 2004 is coming up soon!

Friday's here again - after a week starting out unseasonably warm followed by more than 2 days of non-stop rain; two birthdays in the week - my daughter's and my older sister's plus one of my high school friends. Normal Library work with some interesting twists: a shower for a co-worker soon to have a baby; a reference person who also had been in India - he was in Calcutta in the 1960s, and was trying to see a PDF on a bar so he could accurately include it in a novel he's writing; then someone came in with their sons wonderful collection of Central Asia maps. Seminar this afternoon as usual. When will my boss want to go over digital photo instruction and learning today? Best Buy opens in town today! I earlier looked around for a fm transmitter to use with my PC sound to my radio since my speakers' switch is broken and I can't find a long enough phillips screwdriver to try to fix it. Maybe need to buy a better FM radio to hear this stuff. House: two guys came...