Teach yourself fun in 21 days!

Last 3 weeks have been quite eventful. Colleagues from my last job, boss and a friend were here for an onsite visit. My boss is a connossier of food and drinks. Thanks to him, in the last 21 days we tried our hands at Italian, Mexican, Thai, Peruvian, Turkish & off course Indian cuisines! Only thing we probably missed was Greek.

Of all the dishes, I distinctly remember just one of them. A Turkish dessert called baklava. It gives me those lights and fireworks (if you have seen Ratatouille you'll probably understand what I mean). And then I got to know the history of it, from my boss, who is a mobile wikipedia, wikipedia may be wrong sometimes, not him. So here it goes. Baklava is the one of oldest desserts known to mankind. It was invented by some guys called Assryians, after which it was spread far and wide in the middle east to Europe, from Greece to Armenia to Turkey and the Arab world. Now you may ask why the Turkish took so much to it. Baklava uses pista(chio)s and honey, both of which are considered to cause arousal. I can understand why the Turkish love it so much, though that wasn't exactly what I was thinking, when I said it gives fireworks :P .The image here is definitely not doing justice.

Peruvian food was good too. I had a dish called Chaufa de Pollo, which is similar to a chicken fried rice. But the thing about this restaurant was that they used fruits and vegetables which looked straight out of Jurassic age. Corn seeds were 4-5 times the normal size, and rice looked more like wheat. They were probably using authentic South American vegetables. But I was happy with the fact, that there is one more culture that believes in good spicy food, other than Mexican, Thai & Indian.

Other than the food, we visited quite a few places. In fact I think I know places around in New Jersey and New York a lot more than Arizona, where I have been living for last one year! We drove to the last point of long island, a place called Montauk. Montauk, and many places near it, like the Hamptons( there are as many as North/South/East/Mid/Bridge/Beach Hamptons in Long Island!) are very old immigrant settlements. All of them had a distinct European feel, with windmills & vineyards. Montauk itself was impressive, with lush greenery (which is so common in NY countryside, I'm amazed) and blue beaches.

We were supposed to go to another beach called Rye beach, but we ended up going to a nearby place called Playland. This place is actually called Playland because it has a "fair" there since early nineteen hundreds. Off course now the "fair" is equipped new age rides, though some of them were still pretty old, one of the rides even having a wooden framework. But I stay away from such things, I don't like to play with gravity, and I'm glad that somebody (read Samba) agrees.

And yes, we did visit the popular places like the Statue and few places in Manhattan. The majestic view of Manhattan is plain astonishing. See it to believe it.

All in all, it was great fun.