The power went out so Rachel and I played in the dusky light until she was ready for her nap. I put her down and looked at my list of things to do:
-Email Melissa
-Work on Harman
-Write a blog post
-Make Andrew's graduation announcement
Almost everything on my list needed the computer to get done. Down near the bottom of my list was "decorate Josie's birthday cake." I had baked the cake the day before and I had already researched how to decorate it. All I needed to do was actually finish it. So that's what I did in the half-darkness of my dining room while I waited for the power to come back on.
Funny how the power goes out when it's stormy so you have little natural light to make up for the lack of electricity. Oh, well. I think my cake turned out alright, anyway. Josie liked it so much that she didn't want to have birthday candles ruin it. We sang to her without candles.
Since Josie is very interesting in all things India, I attempted to decorate her cake with traditional henna designs. I made fourteen cupcakes in honor of her fourteenth birthday.
I also made her a little cake that I hope says janmadina mubārak ho (Happy Birthday in Hindi). It was my first time writing in Devanagari script at all, let alone on a cake, so it's a little bit sloppy, but my mom was able to read it so I think I did alright even though I left off part of a diacritic on the /i/.
For dinner mom and David stopped by Many Lands and got some Indian food for us to cook. I made naan while my mom made briyani and a bean dish.
It was really good, but a little too spicy for our delicate American tongues. We mixed the briyani in with plain rice and it was still too spicy for half the family. As long as I used enough chutney, I didn't find it too spicy. It was delicious!
Andrew and David play with K'nex while waiting for dinner
DinnerRachel ate Froot Loops for dessert while the rest of us enjoyed the cupcakes and then she put her sticky fingers all over Grandpa's hair.
Josie and her cake
Henna cupcakes
Next time get korma... much more mild and nice. lol. There's one other thing that's not too spicy, usually, but I forget what it is. Popodums? They're fabulously tasty, too (I can never remember how they're spelled)... What kind of na'an was it... garlic and coriander, plain, or peshwari? :) Can you tell I live in England and there's an Indian take-away on just about every corner...
ReplyDeletePS if you can get mango chutney there, there's a super good chicken dish you can makes that's really easy. 1 jar mango chutney mixed up with a half pint of double cream and spread it over the chicken pieces, then pop it in the oven at about 350 til the chicken is done and serve it with rice... YUM.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember what kind of naan it was...certainly not plain.
ReplyDeleteWe had mango chutney with dinner :) so you can definitely get it here. I'll have to see if I can convince Andrew to let me try that recipe. It sounds yummy!
Those cakes looked amazing! You are really good at decorating them!!
ReplyDeleteIf it wasn't plain... was it sweet? With sort of a sugary mixture in/on it? That would be peshwari na'an then... Or if it tasted like garlic and had coriander seeds in it (the little black round ones)... that's garlic and coriander. :) So great that it's mango chutney!! I made the dish for Michael while he was over here and he really liked it, so he's very pleased to hear you can get the chutney there, as well...
ReplyDeleteThe cake is beautiful! I am seriously impressed. During the power outage the girls and I went to Barnes and Noble and I found a cool book called Hello, Cupcake. It has a bunch of cute ideas for decorating cupcakes. I REALLY wanted to get it but decided to hold out. You obviously have some mad decorating skills so you should check it out!
ReplyDeleteJust looked at that book on Amazon. Amazing...Just the front cover. :)
ReplyDelete