1) Exchange of emails over the past few days with a girl from Rochester who's currently in India on the same program I was on (which made me miss India and, correspondingly, blogging).
2) Eating a dosa for the first time in the U.S. (...which made me miss India).
Regarding the first item, Julia was asking about classes at IES and DU, and as I was recounting my experiences to her and trying to make honest-but-not-too-biased recommendations, I realized how excited I am to go back to school. I haven't been in Rochester since December, and while I certainly didn't miss almost-daily precipitation and bitterly cold winds, I am looking forward to being back on campus. Furthermore, I'm eager to return to what I now appreciate as an extremely organized and engaging system of education. (Being a Teaching Fellow, probably with Ethan, one of my favorite Rochesterians - for a Prof. Brooks class, one of my favorite kinds - makes it even better!) Ask me around mid-October and I may have had enough, but right now I'm all start-of-the-semester excited and motivated. :)
Moving on to the dosas, though, since that's more of a story. Kevin and I were at the Museum of Natural History in New York last Saturday, and when we were done, it was dinnertime. We sat on the steps in front of the museum being indecisive, but only for a few minutes. We decided we wanted Indian food, and much to my delight, Kevin's iPhone located us a restaurant on nearby Amsterdam Avenue that served dosas!
The actual restaurant was an interesting mix of wood floors and furniture, sparse decorations, a book corner, and Hindi chants in the background. It seemed to be a coffee-shop-diner-meditation-room hybrid. Despite the misleading name of Hampton Chutney Co., they served dosas, uttapams (basically a dosa in pancake form), and sandwiches, along with a variety of specialty beverages and a few soups.
The dosas were delicious, though the tastes did not resemble an authentic Indian dosa; there was a distinct Western influence in my Masala Deluxe, which contained spinach, jack cheese, and roasted tomato in addition to the traditional curried potato. (My cilantro chutney, on the other hand, tasted exactly like something I would have received with a meal in Delhi.) Kevin's was an equally interesting combination of flavors: grilled corn, roasted peppers, roasted onions, arugula and jack cheese. Yum.
***
I may start posting here on a regular basis. I'm going to strongly encourage myself to get in the habit because most of the reason I've been silent this summer is due to tiredness. I'm hoping to create shorter, more frequent posts in the future - easily digestible, snack-sized updates on my life and my thoughts for those interested.
Enjoy the summer before it's suddenly fall!
Namaste.
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