Purplesque

A green soup inspired by the Indian sarson ka saag (slow cooked mustard greens).

Green Soup

(Where A discovered how girls can be seduced with rocks.)

The self-guided journey began at the back door of the quaint gift shop. The lady gave us a flashlight  and explained with a smile, 'To look into corners and stuff.'  The door opens into a concrete tunnel, which leads to a cavern 1000 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 12 stories high.

The hexes on the wall

The Icecream Wall

White calcite= vanilla, Iron oxides=chocolate and butterscotch.

We decided to name our own rock formation, which reminded me of old Russian fairy tales.

Baba Yaga's hut

The bridal veil

The bridal veil, shimmering with calcite crystals.

The Goliath and I

Next came the Goliath, about five million years old. Older men are so seductive, don't you think?

Snowy chandelier

The snowy chandelier, which given a few million more years, will meet its soulmate rising up from below.

Made for each other

The war club

The war club, where Bob Addis set a Guinness record for stalagmite sitting by sitting on top of this thing for 15 days, 23 hours, and 22 minutes.

And finally, the natural hole where they first rappeled 120 feet down to discover the cavern about 50 years ago.

120 feet under

This was so cool, we plan to go back for the more extensive 'wild tour', which includes passages known as The Birth Canal and The Fat Man's Misery, and promise lots of mud and dirt!

Or 'mother's lentils', a famously rich and creamy Indian creation also known as dhaabe ki dal.

A dhaaba is a roadside diner, often no more than a shed with a hot clay oven and a few charpais for the truckers passing by. The only selling point is the food, and it is not uncommon to see Hondas and Mercedes parked next to the trucks, all equally helpless in front of the dal's magical lure.

Maa ki dal

In 1958, at the behest of the Eisenhower administration, the Greenbrier facility was designed to shelter the Congress in case of a nuclear fall-out. It was maintained as a fully operational self contained unit for 30 years, until Washington Post published an article revealing all, going against congressional requests to desist. The next day began the deactivation of the facility, and it was returned to the Greenbrier in 1995. Go read the article, its pretty cool.

The bunker was built under the West Virginia wing of the hotel, the wing built first to serve as camouflage for the bunker. The story was that an exhibition hall and two auditoriums were being built under the West Virginia wing. This was true, but these were actually parts of the bunker, that would be used for stated purposes. In case of nuclear fall out, they would be closed off into the bunker and become congressional offices and chambers for the House and Senate.

Greenbrier postcard

There were four entrances to the bunker, all shielded by thick steel doors built by Mosler safe company and filled with reinforced concrete.

vehicular entrance 30 ton door

The long hallway inside was lined with ledges piled high with military c-rations and later with ready-to-eat meals.

Pedestrian door with camouflage wall

The senators were to be evacuated to the Greenbrier by road, train or plane, then decontaminated and housed in dorms. There were slightly better rooms with twin beds for the leaders of the senate.

Dorm beds

From the outside, its hard to tell where the bunker is, with the elaborate layout of the place and all the landscaping!

Dark bunker wall in the background

We're at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, WV, and this place absolutely rocks!

Greenbrier resort

I was worried that it would be just another snooty place for the rich and the famous, but its not (not so far, anyway). Just lots of beautiful things and friendly, hospitable people.

I couldn't resist taking pictures even during our walk to the room.

hallway

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shiny things

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Back to the room, to find the bed turned down, soft robes laid out on the bed and more dark chocolate on the pillow.

Bed, unturned

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Tomorrow, we get to see the secret cold war era bunkers, built under the resort and recently opened to public. We're not allowed to take pictures, but I plan to write a Huge post.

Have a great weekend!!

Combine multiple shopping trips to the mall, busy work days shuttling between two community mental health centers and a crying uterus, and you get one very unhappy woman. I decided to get some comfort food, aka baba ghanoush from the only decent Middle Eastern restaurant in town. They were closed. It was raining. And I got a ticket.

Time to make tofu enchiladas.

Chile tofu enchiladas

Left over chile scrambled tofu wrapped in wheat tortillas and baked in thawed chili chocolate mole sauce. Its near impossible to make these babies look pretty, not that I cared by that time.

Leaving for the conference tomorrow..will try to take lots of pictures!

By Lakshmi, who had in turn been tagged by Vijay.

The meme--  to summarize your life in a six word memoir, with optional photo illustration. Then, tag six others.

Another tough one. I kept thinking, then went over to Vijay's blog for inspiration. Seemed like most people had chosen their careers to summarize their life. So I trolled the web for psychiatry, and came up with this.

I pulled habits out of rats.

Neat play on words, except for a little problem. I love the job, but its not my life. What about the books? The music? The food? The people? The travel? The most important thing in my life has always been to experience more, to learn, to have fun with it. :)

And they're Not rats, okay? So how about this..

I am a work in progress.

Accurate, but clichéd. Something picked off a tshirt. If you want class, steal from the famous.

I came, I listened, I learnt.

Uh huh.

Finally, inspiration struck.

Life is a temple of possibilities.

Temple-of-possibilities

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I tag You. Yes, you. Get on with it!

Confused

I get to go to work and see patients rather than sitting home with the newspaper (its NYT online, but still) and a cup of tea. Ugh.

 A called yesterday to remind me that we are going to this five diamond resort next weekend, where his research paper will be presented in a conference. They have several fancy restaurants, one with a nine course vegetarian degustation menu.

:))!!

Um, what do people wear in such places? The website says 'Jacket required for gentlemen.' Hey, what about the not-so-gentle woman accompanying the gentleman? I've never been to a formal restaurant here ( I know, I know, my education is sadly lacking). My wardrobe consists of two kinds of clothes- those that I wear to work (pants, skirts, shirts, the occasional sweet blouse), and those that I wear to go grocery shopping (denim, cargos, tshirts, casual shirts). Can I get by with dress pants and a girly shirt, or will I need to buy a dress?

Oh dear.

Is there any place in the world where people don't love fried potatoes?

When our deep frier (a.k.a. the simple wok) went on the stove for the first time in three years yesterday, hubby took the opportunity to throw in some cubed potatoes. It brought back memories of standing by the roadside in the rain, sharing one umbrella and one leaf-bowl full of aaloo-chat.

Aaloo chaat

Fried potatoes, tossed with chaat masala, chilli powder, cayenne pepper, garam masala and lime juice. Works great with roasted sweet potatoes as well.

The quintessential Indo-Chinese fusion meal.

Manchurians with fried rice

I can't make manchurians without missing mom..she loves these little dumplings of yum.

They are served as 'Chinese' food in India, but I'm not even sure if they exist in China; a google search turns up only Indian recipes on the first page..lol. Authentic or not, this is seriously delicious stuff. People make them out of mushrooms, chicken, fish, and our vegan version- gobhi (cabbage) manchurian.

Manchurians-
5-6 cups shredded cabbage
* Other vegetables like cauliflower, bok choy may be used, as long as they are finely shredded
1 cup shredded carrots
1 onion, finely chopped
2 green chillies, chopped
* We run all the veggies through the food processor at the same time, makes quick work of the longest part of the recipe.
6 tbsp all purpose flour, or more
3 tbsp cornstarch
salt and pepper to taste
oil for deep frying

- Heat oil in a fry pan/deep fryer.
- Mix all the ingredients together and fashion into lime-sized balls.
* If the mixture does not come together, add more flour.
* Don't let the ingredients sit- they will release water. If that happens, squeeze the vegetables to drain some water out before adding the flour and the starch.
- Fry in the hot oil until well browned.
- Drain on paper towels.

Manchurians

Broth-

6 cups vegetable stock
1 tsp oil
1 clove garlic, smashed
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tsp corn starch
2 tsp miso

- Heat oil in a sauce pan.
- Add garlic and let sizzle.
- Add the stock, soy sauce, vinegar. Bring to a boil.
- Then add corn starch dissolved in 1/2 cup lukewarm water. Stir until the broth thickens and looks glazed.
- Turn off the heat. Then take some broth out, dissolve the miso in it, and add it back.

Broth

Add the manchurians to the broth. Serve over fried or plain cooked rice.