When the Hero facet strikes in

Do not attempt it if you are in a relationship. It can kill your partner!.. out of laughter!

As a habit, N called me today before coming home to check on the stuff I needed for cooking. He always does that despite him knowing what's missing in the kitchen ( onions, milk, tomatoes, etc ) But I guess he just needs confirmation. After all, being a husband is a demanding job and you have to make sure you do everything right. ( At least that's what I think he thinks)

Well, today, not being the first time, for sure, my lovely husband played hero again. He asked me what I needed, I told him bring this and that. 

That was an hour before he came home. Once here, and after I finished my sauna time, I proceeded to the kitchen and started to look for the ingredients, vegetables, to do tonight's dish. Soon I realized there was not the courgette I had asked N to bring. Hum? He had told me on the phone that he had courgette on his hands right then, so it seemed strange the courgette was not inside the grocery bag.

Next, I went to his office while exclaiming ' Honeeyy, what happened to the courgette?!' He then stood up from his chair, this shocked look on his face, his mind processing some lie for sure, or the way to tell me what he told me next.

First he started to laugh ( that was for sure a nervous laugh), and I just stood there with my hands resting on my waist, in front of him. He kept laughing more. I started to laugh this time. This has better be a good story.

Well, Mr Singham had left the grocery bag in the train compartment! He had put the bag above him in the luggage holder because he thought the train could be full ( but there were in fact empty seats next to him all the way) but he decided to play gentleman and felt thoughtful towards other people. Next, he falls asleep. After some 10 minutes, reaches the stop, gets up in his own hero-like way to do it, thinking maybe what style to drive the car next, how cool he'd look in front of the mirror with the sun shining his way. I am sure many wonderful thoughts crossed his mind which is why he totally forgot about his wife's courgette. 

He then drove all the way to the store here near our place, still totally detached from what had happened minutes before. He went in the shop and started to buy exactly the same things except for the courgette., which was not there. Now, once he gets home all happy to greet his wife,  he remembers something! yes. He had a deja vu! He remembered here that he had done the grocery already in the city centre and that he forgot his grocery bag in the train!! auch!

Yes, once in a while is nice to just fly with your imagination, think you are  a superstar, but then again we got to wake up!:)

N is known for this quality that in my opinion is so endearing.  Of course, at the same time a thought crossed my mind.... amnesia? 

Well, let God decide and let's thank him that until we are both 80 and 81 we have had an awesome time together till then. Forgetful or not.

The friendly intruder

Today after work, I decided to head to the center to my favorite green / organic shop Ruohonjuuri. It's a small shop with a wide variety of organic stuff, ranging from food to cosmetics.

Today's turn was shampoo/ body gel/ cleansing cream ( almond - which does not require tonic water after) and some incense sticks for the house, because I love to purify the house with smell and air.

On my way back to the bus stop, I spotted the same guy I have seen so many times before. It's a romanian guy that came to Finland in the hope of a better life. He is a beggar. Yet he is not the rude, mal-intenioned, give-me-all attitude owning person. In fact, every time I pass by him, he looks up at me and smiles.

I never give him money. I never do it here. They say they come from an organized crime gang. Like, there is this boss that forces them to beg and everything they make, they have to send it back to Romania. You know, there are the richest people in Romania in the poorest of neighbors. The reason? Go figure.

I call him an intruder, because he is obviously not from here and nor he wants to become part of the society, to be like everyone else. He was to remain in his position of a beggar even if it hurts, whether it's -30 degrees or +30. He doesn't want to adapt but he won't change his character either.

He must be around 40 but has the smile of a 5 years old. His puppy looking eyes show sorrow though. One day, there were these guys in front of me who passed him by and actually shouted something at him and I think they kicked him. He yelled. But it was a yell of a 2 years old saying '*why you hurt me*, * I don't understand** I am sitting here and you hurt me* * it makes me sad*

I kept walking just looking at his expression. Sadness was reflected from his eyes. He was very disturbed and ashamed for letting that happen to him. He didn't defend himself because he must think that is part of this game called life that he is been brought up to. But I still remember his eyes.......

.....They told me there and then that he is forever a friendly intruder.

The Lion in our house - Singham

So, as you all know, N has always been the one who purchases the Bollywood movies for us, or better to say, for me. For instance our movie library consists mostly of Sharukh Khan's movies, Madhuri's and Aamir Khan's.

So, for a change I decided to please my husband by ordering from Amazon.com.uk some Salman Khan's movies, for he is N's childhood hero. Yes, and N has been trying so much for me to like Salman.

But Salman is the spoiled child, prince from Bollywood. He's always got his way, had it easy from the beginning and his acting, in my opinion is not the best, even though he has been in many really cheesy movies, that I happen to LIKE. 

So, it was a surprise, of course, the whole Salman Khan library ( + Ajay Devgan's movie, to which I am coming to later). Luckily for me, because I am really impatient, the movies arrived just three days after I ordered them and I placed them nicely on N 's desk so that by the time he gets home the first thing he sees while seating himself on his desk are the movies.

I was not at home at that particular moment, I was out meeting the girls so I could not see his expression but surely he enjoyed the present so much he sent me an sms to say he loved the surprise.

And among them, naturally, was a new choice, an Ajay Devgan's latest hit, Singham (= Lion ). The first time I saw an Ajay Devgan movie ( Hum Dil de chuke sanam )** Spoilers ahead** I was completely sold by Ajay's performance. He plays the role of this guy who fell madly in love with a girl but the girl loves another person and when he finds out, instead of trashing her, he decides to help her find her love who now lives in another city. Together they travel in search of this guy but what they don't both realize is that SHE is falling in love with him now because of his dedication and selfishness towards her. So, yes, in the end they end up very much in love and HAPPY and the other guy ends up happy too, because in Bollywood movies, and specially since Salman Khan played ' the other guy' not bad end could have been made for him. So he blesses them both literally. He is an spiritual savior.

So, Singham, Ajay was my first crush and N remembers very much those feelings back then. Little by little though I discovered that Ajay was not the romantic guy, in fact,  he is the actor who does mostly action movies and, surely, for a reason! He rocks at it! So, since Ajay is not my real hero in life, and N is, we decided that from now on I'd call N  Singham! 

Here is the title song from Singham, the movie, this is the short version, the longer version is really awesome with really nice scenes. ( With Ajay Devgan)

Enjoy!

ps. Do you have a pet at home too? ;)

And let me introduce you to Salman Khan too

The surprise

So, the Sunday surprise, which really makes me feel ashamed, was to celebrate our 3 year anniversary. Yes, three years back on the same day N and I met for the first time and for the first time together we went to Flamingo - a shopping center here in Vantaa area, near our place. 

N had booked a spa treatment from Flamingo for us along with the water park recreation area. He told me beforehand the same day we went there, with my *eyes folded*, what the surprise was about. And good he did because it was me that packed the clothes and stuff needed for an adventurous day! :)

The Spa area of Flamingo Spa was beautiful!!!! I never thought it'd be that glamourous from inside, and everything was really well detailed, there was great service and the pools were just wonderfull. In the water park we had a great time trying every pool, the jacuzzis, the water slides, just child-like day!

The best part was the spa treatment! I had no idea what it was about because N wasn't sure either how to explain it :) but it surely was a nice surprise for both of us. It was very luxurious and very very FUN.

If this wasn't enough after 4 hours of swimming and delighting our senses in such a beautiful place, we headed to eat SLOW food, yes, we had hamburgers and chips and coca-cola! Well, I am really against that but  for this one occasion it was ok since we were really starving!

The next surprise was the movies! N had booked two tickets for TITANIC 3D. I actually thought that N is going to sleep through the movie but he didn't! We were so entertained and so touched by the end of the movie, everyone was literally crying in the cinema! It was a great experience indeed!

Yes, I feel ashamed to find out what the surprise was about. During our first year of courtship, we made cards to each other, we went to eat every month to celebrate meeting each other, yet for me, it was a part of the first year, second and third seemed to bring other things to share or celebrate about, like promotion at work, someone's else's birthday, a trip to India, and things like that.

But it's been three lovely years of knowing each other and we feel so grateful for having spent this wonderful time with our families and merging it into marriage.

This was definitely one of the best surprises I've ever had and I think N too. It is good you don't tell your spouse or friend what your surprise is about because you both will enjoy it more. 

So tell me, what is the loveliest surprise you've ever had?

Drive - Gourmet - Drive

Today, after many days of silence, managed to cook something new,  mushrooms in a sparkling wine ( since I didn't have the normal one at home :)) it turned out very lemony but good and fresh. The recipe is again from the site Honey what's cooking! N didn't like it so much, unfortunately, so he ended up eating last nights leftovers.  

We are watching Drive right now. We've seen the movie before, it left us this great impression, specially the opening scene that N likes a lot. I liked the first part a lot, the second it turns really violent but really heroic. It's a really nice movie though. Recommend it. 

This week has been full of many things; ideas, working out, making up, wishing and planning. Last weekend we celebrated my brother's birthday at his place. My mom made a cake and ceviche, a typical ecuadorian coast dish. I didn't try it because I am on my no sugar regime ( and ceviche had sugar because of the tomato sauce, ketchup :) But the cake I did try a liiiitle bit in honor of my brother turning again 1 year older than me :)

Been also reading the newspapers every morning while seating in the train. I usually avoid that because I don't want to know what's happening in the world, I don't want to worry my mind first things in the morning and try to enjoy instead some music. But this week is been different in the sense I am again discovering the fun of reading news ( of course not enjoying the bad ones) but the good ones and the gossiping and the columnists opinions :)

Waking up this morning was hard though. I wanted to stay in bed so badly. N woke up to prepare orange juice. It was very good! They say the first thing you need to get in the morning is vitamin C and that, my friends, we've been getting every morning now. 

This sunday N has planned a surprise for me so I am waiting to see what it is, he won't tell me! So i can't have plans for sunday, which I usually don't anyway, but anyhow, I can't plan anything  for that day:)  so let's see what happens :)

Tomorrow is friday and I am so looking forward this weekend. I've been quite relaxed through this week but I want to enjoy listening to music or watching movies from our very smart tv :)  ( although I've called him stupid sometimes )

A very RAW scene is about to be shown right now.......!!!!!!!!! I'd better end this post to see what's gonna happen.

Today's some pics of the week

Enjoy your life! Eat gourmet food and Drive!

Three apples and half beetroot

The best!

Today's dish, doesn't it look delicious?

Some wholegrain pasta

Parmesan cheese and voilá!

Friday night with decor

We don't usually watch TV. We think it consumes too much time, too much internal energy ( except, of course, when we watch hindi movies - that is art appreciation :) )TV on the other hand, offers brainless reality shows, endless series based on crime or fiction , and a few good programs like today's. Today is a favorite day because a program about interior and house design is on TV tonight.

It fascinates me to see how they build a house or reconstruct a place, the elements and colors they use to decorate a room, a space, a garden. It's very much intriguing.

So tonight is enjoying time with some decor tips and designs.  To celebrate this friday I made a new dish which I saw on the famous site Honey what's cooking? , it's like a lasagna dish except it's made with pasta ( wholewheat) tomato sauce, aubergine ( eggplant), parmesan and mozzarella cheese.

The food was very good indeed but next time I will add more tomato sauce since the bottom became dry after it cooled down a little.

Tomorrow's my lovely brother's birthday and we are going to pay a visit to him. My mom is going to be making an ecuadorian dish. N can't make it tomorrow since he is at school.

Here is the pictures of the day. Have a lovely and excited weekend!

Ratatouille night

Ever since I saw Rotatouille, the Pixar animated movie,  I've been wanting to taste the real french made ratatouille, but unfortunately I have never gotten the chance to taste it. That is, until today. 

Well, I guess my recipe was not exactly the original one. It was in this new recipe book that I purchased last month ( posted a picture of it here in this blog) and I added some indian spices because I thought that mere salt and pepper won't do the trick for me, but next time I should just try it with the original ingredients. 

Anyhow, the food turned out really good. It has this sweet flavor, I think mainly because of the paprikas. We enjoyed it a lot and finished it completely. Today morning I also tried another version of cauliflower and N loved it. I prefer last night's recipe much much better, though, but enjoyed it as well in my lunch break at work.

Today I was thinking that if a close person to you is going through a hard time, that is either a friend, or a family member, you end up also feeling bad for her/ him. I guess it's like a chain reaction, when your share of sorrow, worry or concern travels quickly within family members or closest friends. I had in the back of my mind this ' WHY' but the answer is because we LOVE. If we didn't love or cared for a person we wouldn't mind that person's feelings. But we do. We are humans and we care for our closest ones. 

What I am trying to say is, that even though your life might go great one day, some news in your family might worry you and that thought stays in the back of your mind. Action is required to help alleviate that person's situation. Because you see, you have two choices; You either help or you decide to ignore and hope for the best. As simple as that. In family vocabulary it would be ' Interfere' , in friend's circles it would mean advice, if asked. Sometimes without being asked too. 

Despite the good and not so good things happening in your life, one should always feel grateful for all the experiences, for the people we meet, for the things we learn, for the things we share, for the silence - which says more than words- for absolutely everything. 

To end up this post, take a look at our ratatouille :) It would have been nice I've had my chef hat with my cute mouse in it ;) 

Shining stars and Aloo Gobi

Today morning I woke up with a good feeling. It is not normal for me, in general, to wake up and know exactly what I am going to do throughout the day, but today it somehow felt different. I was prepared.

I guess the twist already happened last night while brushing my teeth ( you gotta do something in three minutes brushing, right?) so I started to plan the day, that is, I said to myself ' tomorrow is going to be a good day, you are gonna get the things you need from the store ( food) and then exercise at home, cook, watch tv, etc.' it gave me a powerful feeling because I owned the thoughts before the actions, I was not just gonna wake up and do things like a zombie but am actually doing the things knowing what i am doing.

You see, it usually happens that I DON'T plan my day ahead, I don't know if many of you do actually. I guess then, having lived with no plan for a long time just made me adjust my thoughts again so that I can start enjoying my days more. Because believe me, getting through the day is just not easy sometimes. But don't get me wrong. I am not talking about pessimism at its best, but just the normal routine that gets you bored sometimes, don't it? the job, the breakfast routine, the surfing on the internet, the grocery shopping, etc. Some people have hobbies everyday, they don't even have time to think, they act! but some of us just live a 'normal' life. 

While I was sitting in the bus, this was waiting for the cars from the right to pass by so it can turn left, sometimes though there is some driver that would make the sacrifice and stop and let the bus go first ( sometimes very long queues at that time in the morning. This morning though, the driver that would let us go first, flashed his car beam lights to us so that we might go. The lights were like these shining stars seen from far away, yet we were close but the sun hadn't risen completely yet so it made the lights look beautiful. 

This kindness created a poetry like situation and it made me feel glad. The rest of the day went by bringing to it pleasing surprises. For instance, despite being terribly tired, I managed to exercise and cook a completely new recipe. I prepared a dish with cauliflower, potatoes and tomatoes. I was amazed at the result! It is a nutritious and delicious dish! N is coming anytime soon from our main door and I am sure he is going to love it too! In fact he had been asking me to do it many times, but i always thought it was gonna be more complicated or the cauliflower is not gonna taste that great as they picture it in websites, but I am happy that I was wrong all the time! I can't wait to do the recipe next week too because it's officially become my favorite!

While cooking I was also listening to hindi songs and one in particular brought me happy memories. It was from our first trip to India. The last day we stayed at Mumbai with my mom and N, we decided to go to a new restaurant. We picked a five star restaurant that had top security with scanners and everything. That was the first time that I actually realized that this top hotels/ restaurants do have this kind of security because of terrorist threats, anyways, the place was amazing and yet strange. If you have seen WALL-E, the place looked exactly like that space craft, like a city of rooms, but inside was all green, lots of green plants, like a green garden. It was scary and beautiful. They had live music, live singing and this singer dedicated a song to our table since N had requested it. It's a beautiful song that every time we hear we go crazily romantic. It is definitely one of the high points in our mumbai trips.

To finish this post while husband is enjoying tonight's food next to me, I will post pictures of the day and some of last friday when N made a tomatoes sauce with paneer. Excellent as always!

Chef in progress

Everyday ingredients, tomatoes, onions, ginger and garlic

Paneer from indian store

All in place

Sauce is ready

Aloo Gobi, today's dish

Namnam!

The Happy Easter

Hi everyone

To start off this happy Easter long holiday, N and I headed off to center right after work. I got myself a pair of new winter and spring gloves and then found some new organic cosmetic. A moisturizing rose cream with rose water; Smells wonderful!

We met at about five ten and immediately after he found me from the organic shop, he told me there is a movie starting in five minutes in the theaters. So we run to the cinema and purchased 2 movie tickets for the movie The most exotic Marigold hotel. It was a very beautiful movie, in the sense it had real life situations, second it was shot in India :), it had really nice advice for the young to enjoy life, appreciate marriage and friends, in general, it's a glimpse at life from a new perspective. Or an old perspective, the perspective of the old. It leaves you a good feeling, a hope for your own life and life choices.

After the movie we went to eat to one of our favorite restaurants. It's been a long time since we last visited that place ( Before marriage last ) and N was longing for some butter chicken. I told him the butter chicken they prepare there is very sweet ( I remember that because I used to order butter chicken in every restaurant we've gone to to see which place makes it the best) and so this particular place was ' the sweet'. Me instead ordered some paneer cheese in a tomato sauce. I thought it was gonna be prepared the way they do in India, specially the one we tasted in Delhi, which was awesomely delicious! I've tried to do the same recipe here at home * Paneer Makhani* but the taste is very different, yet the taste is wonderful!

With that disappointment in N's heart we went to the grocery store to get us some food for Friday since all shops were gonna be closed that day and then headed home with our regular bus. 

On Friday we decided to watch the last new movie we had at home. I am sorry, the second last, with Madhuri Dixit, Salman Khan and Sanjay. It was good but could have been better if my date hadn't fallen asleep next to me on the couch :) In the night we started to watch 1942, A love Story. We watched only half and we are going to continue with the other half another day.

Today we visited my parents. After a long time we had a nice ride, the weather was very lovely, the sun was shining and the sky was very clear. We picked up my brother from the station nearby and then drove off to Nurmijärvi. My mom had prepared a nice lunch, chicken in the oven with rice and beans. she also made desert and pulla / the sweet bun for later and of course there is the customary chips and dip sauce available when watching a movie. This time we watched Maradona's movie. It was really nice and sad. 

N had also brought along some Indian snacks he wanted my sister and brother to try since they both like spicy food. So N prepared the dish in the evening and they all seemed to like it. He brought the left-overs home and he enjoyed them just now. I had some ecuadorian bananas with cheese :)

I've also started a no-sugar regime. Not only because of the weight factor but mostly because of the aging reason. Too much sugar in the body makes you age faster so I am just trying to go back to the time I avoided chocolate, sweet breads ( buns) and stuff. Let's see how it goes. So far so good, to tell you being at my mom's was very tempting today and they supported me at my decision instead of forcing me to eat :)

Here some pictures of our weekend. By the way, N cooked this friday, the food was special as always. Took some pictures there too.

How was your Easter holidays?

Peas Paneer Pulao

My fav book and fav chocolate cream

I found this book in Canada when visiting my loving aunt.

Enjoying Pani Puri 

While watching his live Cricket match

Solitude of mind

It's been 12 days since I last posted something. It seems like ages. The reason we haven't been updating anything is because many things have happened. I personally lost an uncle in Ecuador, I didn't feel like sharing happy moments until the time to grieve is over for me, at least so that I can do it without a bad conscience. 

But so many things have been happening lately. It's a beginning, like a new season, of discovering some things. N is crazy about this blog, *Honey, what's cooking?* and I read it for the first time today and I think it's really nice, because this blogger actually shows really nice pictures of her recipes, something I want to do in the future.  So N has been doing her recipes for the last couple of weeks. F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C, mind-blowing recipes mmmm.

N and I have been thinking about career choices. The best thing in a relationship, any relationship where you have a close friend and share everything is that you do actually share and talk, without having this feeling the other person is not listening for real. A conversation that would actually lead to some nice solution or just a beautiful thought.  What do we do? Kya Karun? ( that was supposed to be the same question in hindi, but with Ana's spelling :)  )

N has also purchased some really nice movies. Like *Rab ne bana di jodi*, a really nice movie with Shahrukh Khan and a newcomer at the time ( now she is very famous), the first part of the movie is really touching and moving, just the kind of drama and romanticism I like. N has always excellent choices when it comes to the movies and he KNOWS, every time, what I like. We have two new movies we still haven't watched. One with the newcomer, Anushka, the other with Madhuri Dixit, my favourite Bollywood actress/dancer. 

We are also on a verge of a project taking. That's to be seen later, but we are really excited. Believe me, it's not what you think. It's something else, but also big :) God will show us the path. 

N has been telling me to tell you about our wedding albums. I mentioned in my last post that we finally received our wedding albums after such a long time. The albums are amazingly beautiful. The official wedding album is a coffee table book/album. It's very big and the pictures in it look amazing! It's like an art book! We are so mesmerized by the beauty of it. We definitely want to have more albums developed from the same seller. When you come to visit us you will actually see that we are talking truth here. 

My guitar lessons are not progressing since I definitely have small fingers and it's really painful and makes no sense to my hand to stretch three fingers, it just can't-. So i did a research on the internet and apparently I am not the only one with this problem and there are smaller guitars for that *problem* . Some say though that it is possible with hard work, others just recommend to change to a smaller guitar.

This morning when we woke up there was snow all around. It was Christmas all over again. Beautiful white snow and a bright day. 

So this time of solitude has made us feel stronger and connected to ourselves to think about what we really want. Having time to think and take a break makes wonders sometimes.

So, what's the time you've been in solitude?