Sunday Snapshots: Bharatanatyam pre-Arangetram Shoot

Arangetram is the professional dance debut of a dancer after years of training. It is akin to a graduation and is celebrated with a solo dance performance of at least two to two-and-a-half hours. The artist dances to live music and has to work closely with the musicians.

In the years past, arangetrams would be held in temples and the audience would be made up of prospective clients. Today, an arangetram is a celebration of the artist's achievements with friends and family blessing the dancer for attaining an important milestone. Arangetrams can be as fancy as a wedding or as simple as a dance performance to live music.

I was fortunate enough to do a pre-arangetram shoot for an event that is happening at the time that this post will go live. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that shoot.

Enjoy!

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Catching up on May over Pan Fried Fish

May is about the craziest month of the school year around here. School ends on the Friday before Memorial Day, and, if there are several days in May left after that as there were this year, May becomes a very short school month for us. End-of-year performances, state-level competitions, piano recitals, graduation parties, Balvihar picnic, not to mention finals were all crammed into 24 days of May, of which only 17 were school days.

We also had two bomb threats in our high schools, one real and one not, and an 'accidental' spraying of pepper spray that added to the stress of May. No parent needs this kind of excitement.

I cooked a lot of fish last month. We experienced protein cravings more often, given that we were in overdrive when it came to our schedule. Pan-fried fish is the simplest kind of fried fish to make. There is no leftover smelly oil to dispose of either!

Pan-fried Fish

The recipe is on the Whole Foods Market Cooking Blog. It's pretty darned good and saw us through several nights in May. 

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Of Coconut Milk as well as Spring Flora and Fauna

Spring has been a mixed bag this year, flip-flopping between summer and winter.

I made coconut milk at home using frozen shredded coconut and I'm never going back to canned coconut milk! Read my column on Whole Foods Market Cooking on How to Make Coconut Milk.

How to Make Coconut Milk at home (Whole Foods Market Cooking)

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Banana Blossom

What?! Are Sunday Snapshots back?! I hope so, my friend, I hope so!

Banana blossoms are considered to be exotic in the US. They shouldn't be as the banana plant is one of the oldest plants known to man and the banana fruit one of the most common fruits. The banana plant makes pretensions to be a tree when, in fact, it is the largest flowering herbaceous plant. If you haven't seen a banana blossom before, then these Sunday Snapshots might interest you.

Purple red blossom

Always intriguing

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Bharat Natyam Recital

This weekend our friend's 15-year-old daughter gave a private two-hour Bharat Natyam recital at their home. Her performance was beyond brilliant as she wove stories through her graceful movements, gestures and expressions. The light was difficult and I wish I had the patience to energize the two doors in the background into oblivion using Photoshop. But I will not complain because this was a performance to be cherished.

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Isabelle Farm, Lafayette, CO

It's been a rough three weeks.

My carpool buddy developed sepsis from an undiagnosed infection and is in her third week of hospitalization. She is recovering but it will be a while before she can return home.

People went to watch the premier of a movie in Aurora not knowing that their lives would change drastically.

This morning a Sikh temple was the target for reasons beyond comprehension.

Life changes in an instant. We're here now. Make the most of every moment. Keep your loved ones close, enjoy your friends and reject all forms of negative energy.

I went to another Mile High Food Swap today, a welcome distraction. It was hosted by Isabelle Farm, an organic farm in neighboring Lafayette. Isabelle Farm leases the Thomas Open Space from the City of Lafayette where they grow tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, squash, okra and many other vegetables. The farm also has a CSA that runs for 20 weeks between June and October. Tiffany Carpenter gave us a tour of the farm and explained how the people of Lafayette had voted for an organic farm instead of yet another golf course.

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Cham Towers, Vietnam

I'm very sure that Bay, our driver and guide when we were in Vietnam last Thanksgiving, thought we were curious people. We were not interested in the regular tourist spots and I made him pull over at all kinds of nondescript locations. Like these neglected Cham Towers, for example, that suddenly showed up on the side of the highway when we were on our way to Nha Trang from Phan Rang. He couldn't understand why I wanted to stop here when we were headed to the better-known and better-maintained Po Nagar Towers in Nha Trang. Well, that's just it! I wanted to stop because it was deserted.

At least, I thought it was deserted until I saw a young man walking through the grounds, overgrown with weeds, hand-in-hand with a beautiful girl. I almost believed they were an apparition because, after all, these were ruins from the Cham Dynasty, a Hindu people that once ruled southern and central parts of Vietnam from the 7th century to early 1800s.

Cham Tower

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Dam Market, Nha Trang, Vietnam

Dam Market in Nha Trang, Vietnam is listed as a must-do on several travel web sites. I was interested in Vietnamese spices but thus far, they had seemed elusive. Snake wine, dried seafood and dried persimmons were more ubiquitous. I found one woman selling spices, buried deep inside the Dam Market. She spoke no English, our guide was no help on the spices front and my pocket English-Vietnamese dictionary was curiously devoid of anything remotely spice-related. She shoved a piece of paper and pen in my hand and motioned me to write what I was looking for. I printed cardamom carefully so that my squiggly unreadable handwriting did not throw her off as it had Medha's elementary school teachers. She stared at it and then her face broke out into one of the widest smiles I have ever seen. She rushed off into a dark alley, only to return with a packet of fragrant smoky Vietnamese cardamom. I bought some cinnamom, too, happy in the knowledge that I was all set to make some authentic aromatic Pho when I got back home.

We had only a few more hours to explore Nha Trang so I did not go deeper into the market. I did get these pictures, though.

Puffer fish

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Setting off to Sea

We spent a couple of days in a small town by the beach in Ninh Thaun Province of Vietnam called Phan Rang, as the second ceremony for our friend's wedding was to be held here. Phan Rang is often described by tourists as "nothing to do, nothing to see." That, by itself, made it very attractive to us. No crowds, lots of relaxation and plenty of quality time together. We did face a language issue but it wasn't anything that a Vietnamese-English dictionary did not help resolve. Phan Rang has a twin city called Thap Cham, which is slightly bigger but since we are averse to cities, we stayed put at Phan Rang even though the beach was murky and the sea was a tad too rough. Until we discovered that the time to go into the sea was just before dawn. The otherwise-deserted beach came alive with local swimmers and fisherfolk.

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Reluctant Elephant Ride

There we were, being led into the classic tourist trap: an elephant ride. We had successfully avoided it last year in Jaipur, India and each one of us was very clear that we did not want to be party to ill-treating of this gentle giant. We told Mr. Bay (Bah-ee), our driver and guide, that we would ride only if we got good vibes. My thoughts were: Why? Why ride at all? But there was no clear answer. We ride horses and camels, attach bulls and cows to carts; so how was riding an elephant any different? I'm not sure. It just didn't feel right.

We drove along Tuyen Lam Lake in the Central Highlands of Vietnam to a nature sanctuary and then walked about a quarter mile into the sanctuary to an idyllic spot by the lake. Huts with thatched roofs, a large wooden deck on the lake, and an elephant. It was not chained, the first good vibe. We spent a lot of time with the elephant, feeding it, talking to it, marveling at it. I think we deluded ourselves that we were getting to know it. My question, however, remained.

Medha was the first to give the go-ahead just as she had been the first to raise the red flag in Jaipur. This child has great instincts when it comes to animals—something I lack—so I gave in. Mr. Bay rushed to get the mahout; if he could have skipped and done a cartwheel along the way, he probably would have. What I saw next touched me immensely.

Mahout and elephant, conversing

Read on...

Sunday Snapshots: Rajasthani Dinner at Chokhi Dhani

Jimanro Samay

Read on...