Chomp!

I just had a very cold shower. A very fast, cold shower. I turned on the hot water heater in the bathroom around 8 am thinking that I would have enough hot water by 9 am to wash my hair. I was wrong. First, I couldn't figure out how to get the hot water out of the tap. Did you know that, in India, hot is to the right? In all my years of travelling here, how did I not know that? Maybe because our old house had separate hot and cold taps instead of a single faucet? Maybe because of the old school bucket baths? I don't know. Anyway, the hot water ran out before I even finished rinsing the shampoo out of my hair. I turned off the water while I soaped thinking that maybe it would come back. Nope, no hot water. I may not have completely rinsed the conditioner out of my hair. Fortunately I have a heater in my bedroom. I sat in front of it for a few minutes to warm up. Ahhh India!

Anyway, onto more important things. Food. I had rasmalai and very milky tea for pre-breakfast. I plan to have rasmalai for breakfast every day that I'm in Delhi. Because it's my favourite and I can do that. Go ahead, call me a princess. I'm going to have yoghurt (with my doctor-prescribed wheat bran) and a samosa for breakfast. It might be closer to elevenses though. Yesterday when we arrived, we went to the local plaza to top up the minutes on my dad's Delhi SIM card and picked up a loaf of bread and yoghurt and a bag of milk from Mother Dairy. The yoghurt and milk were about the equivalent of C$1 and the loaf of bread was around 30 cents. I forgot how much the mishti (Bengali for desserts or sweets) and samosas were. We picked those up on the way "home" from the airport. I think it was around Rs 110 which is around C$4. How can you beat that?

We have a cook here and he's pretty good. His name is Ram Krishna. So far we've had chapati (or roti), dal, fish, mutton (only Indians call goat "mutton", apparently), cauliflower, some other random veggies and rice, of course. I'm happy to eat this way for the rest of the trip. I'm sure we will go out for dinner tonight. Some friends are picking us up in about an hour. I don't know what we're doing yet. Probably some shopping and stuff. My facebook horrrrrorrrrscope says that today will be filled with my favourite things. I'm excited to see how true that is. I already had my favourite dessert for breakfast and a cup of tea. All I need now is a newspaper, some friends, some conversation and some laughs. I'm fairly sure I'll get all of that. And maybe play with a puppy :)

You know what else was good? The food on Cathay Pacific. My dad got the omelette. The sausage and hash brown I stole from him were good... by plane food standards, obviously. I chose the vegetarian option which was idly sambar (see Indian food post below) and it was good. It was actually as good as anything I have tasted in India. I was very impressed. Cathay's service was good too. They accommodated every single one of my dad's grunted requests for water or newspapers or whatever. The fruit was a little soft but that's inevitable on aircraft. And there was a small cup of plain yoghurt. I should probably start carrying around one serving of wheat bran at all times in case I randomly run into yoghurt in my travels.

One last note on food. I was a buffet for a mosquito last night. It figures that the only mosquito in Delhi in December would find me. I got bitten three times: twice on the chin and once on my right arm. Now I'm all puffy and itchy and swollen and irritable. I have been sensitive to mosquito bites my entire life. When I was little, I used to get them around my eyes and it looked like someone had given me a shiner. My parents used to send me to school looking like that. I remember when I switched schools half way through Grade 5, the nurse called my parents looking like I was the victim of some horrible kind of child abuse or something. My dad told her it was fine and to send me back to class. Hazards of being a doctor's daughter. Anyway, fortunately I only have a triple chin today and not a black eye. I hope that little bugger died trapped in my room.

Anyway, it's time for breakfast. Stay tuned for today's food summary either late tonight or early tomorrow morning (my time, naturally).