sweet somethings and i feel love

Thats baked karanji/gujiya. I took the crust recipe from here. I took
2 cups of all purpose flour, salt, 3 tbsp ghee, 3 tbsp yogurt, pinch of baking soda and water to get a tight dough as mentioned in the recipe. For the sweet filling, I melted jaggery and added dried grated coconut, cardamom powder and some sugar too. It would be great if you can find the soft kind of jaggery. I baked it at 375 F as mentioned in the linked recipe. It turned out delicious for a low fat sweet. Anurag said the crust was like biscuit. Maybe because it was crispy hard, which means, I had to cut up the karanji with a knife instead of being able to break it by hand. We got a lot of karanjis from the dough but we were still sad when they got over after a few days :)

I had tried this easy rasmalai recipe on diwali. Yes, thats a long time ago. I also made a lot of other stuff which is in the background. This baked ricotta cheese rasmalai is so tasty, that its hard to believe you didn't toil hard in the kitchen to make it. :) I love these type of recipes. I admire the smart people out there who create such innovations.

I made these banana nut muffins from this recipe. I had made the loaf version of the recipe a couple of times earlier. And banana bread or muffins are always delicious. Anurag made this absolutely yummy bowl in the second row. He cut up two muffins and scooped vanilla icecream over it. Then he poured chocolate syrup and sprinkled nut topping on it. It sure felt like a tiny bit of heaven in a bowl :)

I had made the banana muffins again. This time, skipping the nuts and adding chocolate syrup in the batter since Anurag enjoyed them with chocolate syrup drizzled on them the last time. Although I try to avoid chocolate as much as possible lest the migraine flares up.



Check out this video. "I feel love" by Venus Hum and the Blueman group. It is electric and vibrant. Sure to lift anyone up from a bad mood.


Isn't Annette Strean almost super natural with her singing? She is singing it so effortlessly, you would think its baccha song. I have heard other singers try to sing it for the blue man group but they are just not able to cut it. I also love how the guitarists and drummers are so totally enjoying what they are doing. Each person on the stage seems to be in a trance, completely absorbed in enjoying their own thing. But yet it works so well in complete harmony. :) Let me not get philosophical about it and say bye before I start sounding weird.

new veggies, old tastes

There isn't a huge variety of "known" vegetables in the supermarkets here. The staples on our weekly shopping are cabbage, cauliflower, french beans, spinach. Sometimes, I buy the vegetables I am not too familiar with, just to break the monotony. So, this post is about those vegetables which I tried to cook for the first time.

The first one is Brussels sprouts. The picture shows them raw and then cooked with potatoes.
I just quartered each Brussels sprout and cooked it like the usual cabbage aloo. Made a tadka of jeera, hing, turmeric, chilli and then added the cut up Brussels sprouts and potatoes, some salt and dhaniya powder. Then instead of cooking it up in the pan like usual. I thought this needed to be crispier than that. So I put the almost cooked vegetables in an oven tray and broiled them for a while. I didn't warm up to this vegetable a lot though Anurag thought it was good. I thought it had a strong odour and taste. I never had this problem with cooked cabbage. I thought this was way stronger.

Who wouldn't be tempted to buy these cute little chillies? I gave into the temptation and bought them. I was thinking of stuffing them but I finally made mirchi ka salan. It sure is a tasty dish and the best recipe is here.

If you don't concentrate on reading the label "tamarind paste concentrate", and read it only as "tamarind paste" then you can end up with mirchi ka salan that looks a lot more brown than necessary and you also have to add a lot of sugar to compensate the sour. If you didn't notice, thats the stupid mistake I made. But the positive side is that, I could still turn the blunder around into an edible dish. Though it didn't taste like a mirchi dish :) It could have been a spicier. I think I shouldn't have de-seeded these peppers. They were pretty mild even without the sugar addition.

I had been intrigued since I first saw asparagus on the internet when I was in India. I wondered what a stem like vegetable would taste like. So I took the opportunity to taste it first-hand. It does look pretty and tastes good too. It is nice and crunchy when baked. That is the only way I tried it. Need to buy it again one of these days.

I cut up 1-2 inch pieces of asparagus and carrots. Added olive oil, salt, pepper, chilli powder and a tiny bit of dhaniya powder and rolled it around to coat it with the spices and baked them till crisp. We had them as a side with dal chawal. Surprisingly, it also tasted great on the pizza I made the next day.

Next is the very traditional punjabi dish of sarson ka saag and makki ki roti. I used a can of mustard greens instead of fresh ones. This one doesn't have a before and after picture as I didn't take the picture of the can :)

I followed the recipe almost as it is from here as I think this is the most authentic recipe I could find on the internet. My makki ki roti doesn't look yellow because I used white corn meal. I also added a bit of wheat flour as the corn meal was quite coarse. I also didn't add any radish to the roti. You know how I avoid strong flavour and odour. They make my stomach feel weird. This was super yummy. And don't forget to add ghee or butter on both the saag and the roti.

This weekend, we were just roaming around the neighborhood shopping center. We tried the ben and jerry's frozen yogurt. I had frozen yogurt for the first time and I thought it is an amazing idea. It is lighter than ice-cream and is not as sweet. So I loved it.

I almost feel bad writing about this after all the food stuff but I just need to tell this. We also went into a pet shop. We always used to see these cute rabbits and birds from the shop window, so we thought of having a look around the shop. There were so many beautiful fish in there and then can you believe it, there was a section of reptiles. Absolutely eww. There were snakes, and lizard or I should say gecko. eww. eww. Let me not get into their types and sizes . I ran from there into the dog section. What kind of people would want such pets!!! And here I used to think "wow, I live in a lizard free land" coz I had never seen them before like in India where they sneak into the house. Oh enough!! I need to stop before I have nightmares about them.
Lets talk about movies. It seems like a mandatory section here these days :) But I don't have much on this front lately. Just saw "Aa dekhe zara". It is an average movie in the thriller category. Neil's first movie "Johnny Gaddar" was way better. His next is going to be "Jail" I think but I don't have high hopes on that either.
I think I haven't mentioned "Marley and Me". Saw it long time ago. It is a beautiful movie. Nothing extraordinary in terms of story but it touched my heart.

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Crafty ideas and a trip

What does one do when one washes a pillow in the washing machine and it kind of gets torn? One can do some kind of patch work on it. That someone is me.
The pillow threads got loose and it was sure to get torn if we didn't do anything about it. Anurag said we need to do a patch on it. After thinking for many days, we finally went into a craft store. And instead of a real cloth, we bought a felt cloth. And some stick-on snowflakes and flowers and leaves. That made the task so much easier. Anurag gave the idea that one side of the pillow represents winter and other side represents spring. So we stuck snow flakes and flowers in seemingly random way, but I assure you I spent a few days (pretending to be) thinking the design.
I tried to sew on the felt on the pillow but the stitches didn't look neat. I should have expected that, since my sewing experience is in negative. So I took a ruler and marked dots on the felt so that I know exactly where the needle goes in and where it comes out.
I am not sure if I did a good job but guests, specially the ladies, say "wow, those are some unusual pillows" and I take that as a compliment :)

We also bought this small round mirror from the craft store. And the picture shows what happened to the mirror after I painted on the poor thing.

In other news, a few weeks ago we had gone on a small trip to sugar mountain resort for skiing and then to grandfather mountain. I think this is the first time I am writing about a trip so late after the trip. But honestly, I didnt have much to write about it. Except, skiing is hard :) It makes you feel like a baby who is learning to walk. You fall and you can't get up by yourself. It was kind of fun overall. Atleast, we did something new and exciting.
Grandfather mountain was good. We could only see the mile high swinging bridge. The nature museum was closed coz we were late for it. Some pics from Grandfather mountain below

baking, movies, music ...

Here's some of the fun stuff I baked in the past few months.
The first row of pictures are paav. I made them a few months ago. I think I used this recipe. We had them as pav bhaji. They didn't turn out as soft as I would have liked them to be. Must be because I used some whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour. Also looks like I baked them a bit more than needed. I hope to give it a try once again. Lets see when I muster up enough courage to do it again :) The yeast I used to buy in Bangalore was such a bummer. It didn't froth so much. The yeast here does froth very well. So I can't blame anything on yeast any more.

The second row is vegetable puffs or some people call them patties. They don't look so good in the pictures but they tasted amazingly good. I used ready made puff pastry sheets like these. I had them in the freezer for months. A few times I had taken out the box but well, it seemed quite time consuming to make when someone is over for tea. 40 mins to thaw and then baking it. I had even cut open the box once but didn't make it. So the uppper layer had dried out a bit by the time I finally made the puffs. Once you have the filling ready, just cut up the sheets into rectangles of appropriate sizes. Put some filling in the center and fold it over. Bake as per the directions on the box which were 15 mins at 400 F on the box I got. The filling recipe is a winner by the way. Can be used for samosas or just as a plain subzi. Quite tasty.
For the filling,
- boil, peel and chop potatoes into small pieces.
- Chop some green chilies
- Get the peas out of the freezer or shell them and cook them in the microwave or any other way.
- Heat oil in a pan, Add saunf (fennel seeds), asafoetida, green chillies, turmeric, red chilli powder, dhaniya jeera pwd, garam masala, salt, sugar
- Add the potatoes and peas, some lemon juice. Mix. cover and let it cook for a few minutes and you are done. The best flavour here is of the saunf with the potatoes. It tastes best when it is a bit spicy.

Next up is flaky dinner rolls with fake misal. I followed this recipe for the dinner rolls. They were one of the best things I ever baked. Absolutely lovely! Soft, crusty and divine. When I tasted them, I was proud of myself even though all I did was follow the recipe. :) Instead of using whole wheat flour entirely, I had used replaced half of it with all purpose flour because I was scared by the paav experience. Coming to the fake misal. Hmm, it is not the real misal but we love to eat our sprouted moong curry like misal, with the pav and with a whole lot of toppings.
The moong curry is pretty simple.
- Get some sprouted moong. Do it yourself like I do or buy the sprouts.
- Chop up some onions. Get the ginger-garlic paste and tomato puree out of the fridge or chop up ginger, garlic and tomatoes too.
- Heat oil, add mustard seeds and let them splutter. Add asafoetida, onions and ginger garlic
- Let the onions turn transparent. Add turmeric, chilli powder, tomato puree and let it cook for a min.
- Add the moong sprouts, salt, sugar, kala masala (maharashtrian garam masala) made by mom. Add water and cover and let it cook till the sprouts are done. It should work with any other garam masala too. It should be a slightly watery curry. Pretty simple, isnt it? Now take the curry in a bowl, add some chopped raw onions, coriander leaves, lemon juice, curd if u like, and add sev or any other farsan. Dip your bread in this delicious bowl, scoop up and enjoy!

The last picture is corn bread muffins and vegetarian chilli. I had heard a lot about chilli. It is one of the American favourites. I had bought a packet of self raising corn meal and just followed the directions on the packet to make these corn muffins. Just add eggs, milk and oil to the corn meal and bake it in the muffin pan. For the chilli, I had looked up a lot of recipes on the internet. I don't think I followed one particular recipe but took the recipes as a guideline. I bought canned kidney beans, canned corn and canned Italian tomatoes and some tofu and vegetables which were not canned ;). Heat oil, add onions, garlic, mashed tofu, celery, bell pepper. Let the tofu brown a bit. The chilli usually contains beef. Some recipes used tofu in the vegetarian version. I believe it would have tasted just as good without the tofu. Then add the can of tomatoes, beans and corn, chilli pwd, cumin pwd and let it cook on low heat for as long as you can. I let it sit for nearly 45 mins. It was good but I don't think I will make it again. I would rather make a rajma with the can of kidney beans :) Looks like Old habits and tastes die hard.

A few days ago, I watched Dev D and 13B movies. Both the movies are good. I was apprehensive about Dev D because it was supposed to be very bold and realistic and I was not sure if I wanted to see that much reality. But then there was Abhay Deol and I have always liked his movies. This might just be his first path breaking movie. Shahrukh's devdas really pales in comparison. In that movie, I thought devdas, chunnilal, infact most of the characters were quite irritating. Inspite of devdas being an inherently irritating character (he is hell bent on destroying his life), Dev D is a very interesting and fresh. It absolutely can happen to anyone. And I loved the moment of realisation for Dev. I mean really how self-destructive can you get! You need to stop and realise one day. Speaking of realisation, I see some of that devdas in me. I feel the compulsive need to stay away from everything which can be good for me like gym, studies or anything worthwhile and I am yet to find my realisation. ;)
In the last post, I talked about Delli6. What a waste of time that movie was! And after hearing the music of DevD, Delli6 really doesn't look that good even music wise. I absolutely loved every song of DevD. I can imagine 'Emotional attyachar' playing on radios in india. Nayan tarse, pardesi....i would have to list out all the 17 songs because there was not a single song I skip unlike most other albums where only 2 or 3 songs are worth listening to. And I had completely forgotten to mention about 'Oye Lucky' music. Lovely songs there too. All of them. There is a 70 year old man and a 12 year old boy from villages singing addictive songs on this album. Both Dev D and Oye Lucky songs grow on you as you keep listening to them.
Check out this making of Oye Lucky music. This has been a long post! Hope to write again soon!

Lets talk food...

Yesterday I made butternut squash which looks like the pic. It tastes like pumpkin which we get in India. And I thought this is the best way to eat pumpkins. I saw on 'Highway on my plate' show that kaddu ki sabzi is very famous in UP. So I had asked Priya for the recipe a long time ago. And I just adapted from whatever I could remember of it. I wanted to note this down so that any-time I want to make it, I can follow this exactly. What I did was : Heat some oil in a pressure cooker and add a teaspoon of ghee to it. Add mustard seeds and let them splutter. Add some jeera. Then add two nice pinches of asafoetida and half a teaspoon of methi seeds powder. Pic: Google

Then go in the usual suspects, half a teaspoon each of turmeric and chilli powder and some chopped green chillies. It shouldn't be overwhelmingly spicy but it must have that sharpness. Then add about 2-3 cups of the squash, chopped into cubes. I had mixed in a potato. I know, I love adding potatoes to everything. Then add a good 2 teaspoons of dhaniya powder and a teaspoon of dhaniya-jeera powder and a bit of garam masala. Add salt. I am sure this was not in the recipe but I added some dessicated coconut and kasuri methi for the added hint of sweetness and bitterness. The squash has some sweetness to it and we had already added methi seeds powder. But this is one curry where you wouldn't mind adding a bit of extra everything. I was worried at the amount of dhaniya powder I had added but something told me, nothing is too much, when doing this curry, specially the dhaniya pwd. Well, we are almost done. Just add water enough to cover the squash and pressure cook for 1 whistle. Let it cool down while you make rotis or parathas to go with this and you will be ready for a meal to remember. Be sure to make some extra curry and next day, add some dough to it and make pumpkin parathas.

In the middle of winter and a day of snowfall, I made mango icecream. Sitting inside a warm house all day long doesn't make you feel, "you cant eat icecream and not catch a cold". (Thats too many negatives in one sentence! If you understood it, then "nacho" - which is dance and its Chetan's favourite thing to say :) ) Back to icecream, It was the most easiest and the best recipe to make mango ice cream and It just takes a few minutes. I took the idea of using condensed milk from here and well, I didn't really measure out anything. I just poured out a tin of condensed milk and added some whipped cream and milk and some mango puree till I felt it had a good consistency and a good mango flavour. Freeze in a metal bowl which is wide rather than tall. I got this tip from here. I think using condensed milk doesn't create crystals and hard icecream. Otherwise following the process of beating the icecream at regular intervals as mentioned in the tips page needs to be followed.



I just made some methi na gotas (pakodas) for some guests at tea. It came out really good for a first attempt. The guests were surprised at the fluffiness. I mostly followed this recipe. But I used semolina instead of wheat flour, opted out of using peppercorns and coriander seeds. I also used Eno instead of baking soda. It is important to have sour curd and since the yogurt here is never sour, I added lemon juice just as the recipe says. Here's how they looked like.

I have recently started using balloon whisk. Its such a great kitchen tool. I am wondering how I managed all these years without it. :) Do buy one to make all your mixing a breeze.

By the way, aren't 'Delhi 6' songs great? I think its one of the best albums that has come out in recent times. I hope the movie is good. Unlike most movies these days, which are really bad. Specially the hyped and over-hyped ones. And I wonder if reviewers get paid to write good reviews for movies like Dostana and Ghajini or they write good reviews just coz there are Bollywood bigges involved. The last movie I enjoyed was 'Dasvidaniya'. I also saw 'The President is coming' which really doesn't have much of a story but is quite hilarious and a good watch.

If you are wondering, will this post ever end? You are in luck, the post is ending now.

trip to orlando

This was our first trip after coming to US and unfortunately it was not a road trip. Oh! How we miss our bike, or motorcycle as they call it here. (When in rome... ;) ) But it was still a good trip. Let me start with the preparations. Since I promised to write about the food experiments and didnt keep up the promise, heres what i made the day before the trip :

chivda/chevdo/mixture whatever its called in different parts of india made from puffed rice and cornflakes.

Moong dal halwa - using this recipe. The only problem was the the dal didnt get ground finely in my mixer. Otherwise I can imagine this to be really tasty

Baked tikhat/tikhi puri - For this, I took wheat flour, besan, one grated garlic pod, til, ajwain, fair amount of warm oil, baking pwd, chilli pwd, dhana jeera pwd and made a stiff dough. Rolled out in a round shape and made cuts on it to prevent puffing. Baked them at 375 F for 5 mins on each side.

I knew that we are not going to eat so much of home food but this was just an opportunity to try the recipes I had wanted to try. Otherwise I am too lazy to make snack kind of recipes.

The next day, the journey to Orlando was not uneventful. Well, we missed the connecting flight from Atlanta. We were put on stand by on the next flight and if we couldn't get on that one, we would have to spend the night on the airport and leave next morning at 8. But luckily, we were cleared for the flight. But we had to endure a couple of stressful hours.

We were at our hotel by 4:30 in the evening. We were too tired to go out so we just went for a small walk around the place and had 2 nice subs from subway. I was surprised that we need to buy water and a water jug is not provided in the room unlike India :)

The hotel's guest service desk, told us that they have really good discounted tickets. And she said we also have a free tour of our resort and free breakfast and a presentation. And you will get the tickets after this 2 hour program. There was also a free pickup and drop. We could not see any harm in it since it started at 7:30 and we would be free by the time, the parks open. That was a mistake to have agreed to this. The so called "presentation" was to try and force us to buy a time-share vacation property. Somehow we managed to escape by 11:30. Then we had to wait in a long queue to get the tickets. And by the time we were back to the hotel, half a day was wasted. To cheer ourselves up, we went to the Indian restaurant buffet which was bang opposite to the hotel. The food was good and we were happy and stuffed again ;) Now was a good time for a nap. Before taking the nap, I made reservations for the dinner show at wonderworks. We already had the tickets now.

At 6 in the evening, we reached wonder-works. It was a fun place to fill up any free hours in Orlando, if you have them. The bed of nails and some video games were good. But the dinner show was the best part of the evening. It was a comedy and magic show. And it was great fun with lot of viewer interaction. And there was unlimited pizza, popcorn and drinks (that would be pepsi for us ;) ) That's wonderworks, the upside down building.

The next morning we took the shuttle service provided by the hotel to reach disney. We went only to one of the 4 disney theme parks and that was called magic kingdom. This being Christmas day, the park was completely crowded.
The jungle cruise ride was good fun. The cruise is supposed to take you through the rivers of African and Asian jungles. There are some wild animals and other surprises on the way. And the skipper who is supposed to navigate the boat keeps the humour going.
The Pirates of Caribbean ride was also a good one. Get to see the very real looking Capt. Jack Sparrow and other characters and experience some "mild but wild thrills" as they call it at Disney.
The Splash Mountain ride is very popular at Disney. We had to wait for nearly an hour in the queue to finally ride it. I was too busy anticipating the fear of a 5 stories drop into the water to enjoy the ride fully. It is better to let the ride surprise you rather than know what's going to happen. And well, it wasn't so frightening after all and I was like, is the drop already done! Then, we went to the Haunted Mansion. Another fun ride. All rides at Disney are fun rides and nothing too extreme.
We got to see the "Once upon a Christmastime parade". That was the highlight of the day. The Fantasyland part of Magic Kingdom can be completely skipped if there are no children in your group. Except Mickey's PhilharMagic which is a delightful 3-D show.
By evening we were exhausted. And decided against waiting for the fireworks display. We had to regain some stamina for Universal parks the next day.

The next day we went to Universal resort. They have 2 parks. We first went to Islands of Adventure. This was a day full of adrenaline rush. In this respect, Disney and Universal are different. Disney is more plain fun and Universal is more of extreme fun. But each of them is unique. It is good thing, we covered both. The first ride we went to was called "Incredible Hulk Coaster". Some interesting facts about the coaster :
The Incredible Hulk launches riders upward 150 feet in three seconds. Immediately, riders experience a zero-g heartline inversion and turned upside down 110-feet above the ground.

The Incredible Hulk reaches top speeds of 67 mph. It also features one of the highest inversions in the world at 109 feet.

The G-force experienced on the Incredible Hulk Coaster is equivalent to that felt by the pilot of an F-16 fighter jet.

The Incredible Hulk launcher provides about 45,000 pounds of thrust for two seconds. If the same thrust were used on a bowing ball, it would reach the Pacific Ocean. More facts found here

Do I need to say we were shaky for a while after the ride? But I loved the ride. Next we went to the "Amazing Adventures of Spiderman" ride. The most popular ride at Universal. And we waited an hour in the queue. But the best part is that the story is slowly built upon as you wait in the queue. So you are not bored and get into the Spiderman mood before the actual ride. This story building is part of many rides at Universal and Disney which is a good thing considering the way these parks get crowded. The story goes that you are sent out to get pictures of Spiderman as the city is taken over by all the baddies. The baddies come to hurt you while Spiderman saves you. You need 3-D night vision glasses for this ride. I really cannot write much about it. It has to be experienced, and several times at that. This really was the highlight of the day along with the revenge of the mummy ride.

Next was the Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barges ride. You pass through white water rapids on large, round rafts that seat eight people. Everyone gets soaked on this ride. The next soaking ride was Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls. Experience a 75 foot drop into the water sitting inside a log. Guaranteed fun and guaranteed soaking! One problem was the ride experienced some technical difficulty when we were half way through the queue. So some time lost there.

Next up was Duelling Dragons which is also a very popular roller coaster at universal. But we didn't get much of a queue because it was lunch time. And no one would dare ride this on a full stomach. We planned on a late lunch after finishing this ride. There are two inter-looped roller coasters called "Fire" and "Ice". It has several inversions, including a zero-g roll, a Cobra roll, two corkscrews, and two vertical loops but the distinct feature of this ride are the 3 near misses with the other coaster. It seems as if the 2 coasters come straight at each other in a head-on collision but are steered away at the last minute. If you are brave enough, the ride is best experienced in the front row. There is a separate queue for the front row seats.

After lunch, we headed straight to universal studios park. First up, was Shrek 4D. It didn't impress as much, maybe because we already did the mickey 3D show and this wasn't much different other than moving seats.

Next, we headed for the Revenge of the Mummy ride. Another great ride, similar to Spiderman. The queue area is used to create a story line. You wander on to the sets of Mummy and later into the Mummy's tomb. Good set-up all the way. Ride itself is a lot of thrilling fun. Universal calls it psychological thrill ride. Again a must-see attraction for adults.

As soon as we got out of the Mummy Ride, we were just in time and the right place for Macy's Holiday Parade. So, we were lucky to catch it. Although, the Disney parade is better, this ones good too. By, the end of it, it was already going to be 6 o clock in the evening and we had had enough of thrills for a day. So, we just roamed around a bit and headed back to the hotel.

The next day, we went to SeaWorld. If you are staying near International Drive, it is better to use the I-Ride trolley instead of the hotel shuttle which takes forever to reach SeaWorld because it goes to both Universal and SeaWorld. This day was like a breath of fresh air after all the mad roller-coaster and waiting in queues days. We went straight to the Shamu "Believe" show. Shamu is the killer whale and unlike its name, it looks so beautiful. If I could, I would have sat in that stadium to see the show over and over again. It was definitely the highlight of the day and of the trip too. The relationship between the trainers and the whales, touches the heart. Again, one of those indescribable things which needs to be experienced.

Next up, Blue Horizons show. It was spectacular with elaborate costumes and stunts. There were dolphins, parrots and amazing stunt actors. Since, this was the holiday season which translates into hoards of tourists. We had to reach the respective stadiums at least half an hour before the show. There is also a dolphin nursery and dolphin cove where you can feed and touch the dolphins. Stingray lagoon where you can touch and feed Stingrays. We also saw the manatees, penguins and sharks. People can pay to be put up in cages in the shark pool! That's what they call a "close" encounter :) The other show that we saw was A'lure, the call of the ocean. No animals on this show. It has some amazing performers and silk yo-yo artists. Underwater viewing of whales and dolphin pools is also good. And if you are lucky, you can see them right next to your nose, like the dolphin in the picture. Did you see the air ring it is creating?

We had reservations for the dinner show, Arabian nights. So, we left at around 6. First there is a magic show in the waiting area. It is more hard core magic unlike the comedy magic show of wonderworks. And then everyone is led into a stadium for the actual show. There was salad, pasta and some strange icecream. The show was good. I think they had brought in a new story line for Christmas. Much of the acrobatics was as seen in the A'lure show. The exception being, there were lots and lots of horses here and some good performers on the horse. It is not worth the 50-60$ they ask for. But we got discounted tickets so that was fine.

That was our last outing in Orlando before we caught a flight back home the next afternoon.

Some of the new tastes I discovered during this trip were : salad and honey mustard dressing. Who knew salad could taste so good? Fresh and crunchy lettuce and other greens spiked with the lovely honey mustard dressing. And I also loved the creamy scrambled eggs. And the lovely Italian herbs and cheese bread at subway. I can now understand how people can eat a sub everyday at subway. Some mouth-watering memories those! So, on our next trip to the grocery store we bought a bottle of honey mustard dressing and salad greens.