Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 10 Comments

Beach day on labor day – Capitola Beach

Over a year of living in California and towards the last days of summer we finally went to the beach. I had dreams of blue waves softly caressing the white sand on a perfectly sunny day. Instead I got grey waters on a windy September evening. Capitola Beach was a pretty small beach. I come from Madras which has the Marina Beach, the second longest beach in the world so I might be a little spoiled. Or maybe I had high expectations for Capitola. None the less the beach was decent enough to last me till next summer.

There were quite a few restaurants around the beach. All that was very nice but I missed eating hot molaga bajjis and sundal on the beach. How can it be a beach without molaga bajji?! Americans are so weird, man.

The ratio of the beach size to the number of restaurants was like 1 : 8. We had dinner in a cute Jordanian falfalel place. Now that’s one thing I like about California – no matter where  you go, you are never far away from a falafel.

Go Falafel!

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I had the saltiest salted caramel ice cream at the Village Creamery, a must visit if you’re in the area. They have over seventy five flavors of ice cream! Say whaaatt!!

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 10 Comments

Halalfest ’13

Last week I found out through Instagram that California was having its first halal food fest. Since food and I are BFFs I immediately searched for the location of said event and estimated how far it is from where I live. Half an hour? Not bad. An SOS was sent to Jay and Saturday morning saw me skimping on breakfast to make extra room for all the delicious halal food I was going to ingest.

We reached an hour and a half after the fest started. The stalls didn’t accept cash. We had to buy tokens that were sold at the two ends. In order to use time efficiently Jay and I each stood in one of the lines. The place was busy but as soon as the lines got smaller they ran out of tokens. We had to wait a good twenty minutes until they were replenished.

There were a decent number of food stalls – Indian food, Thai, South African and a BBQ place, cupcakes, shaved ice and bean pies. I felt the number of stalls for the amount of people that turned up was less. We had to stand in long lines to buy the food and longer lines for pick up. But I had come for my chicken wings and I would get them come hell or high water!

The South African chicken wings from New Africa Kitchen, Oakland were freshly fried and delicious. I gobbled them up while waiting in  line for burgers from the newly opened King’s BBQ and Grill, Fremont. The people making the burgers and the girls in charge were extremely efficient. I was looking forward to try the brisket but they were sold out.

We had a few more tokens left and ideally I would spend them on more meat but it was around 1.00 pm by then and the lines were insane! Instead we had a Caramel Scotch cupcakes at Rajabelle’s. The frosting was on point! So decadent! Definitely one of the best cupcakes I’ve had.

The last few tokens were spent on Hawaiian shaved ice which was a fancy version of the humble Indian gola, except you could get three flavors in one serving.

Overall I had a pretty fun time at the Halalfest. I just feel some aspects could have been better organized like the seating area and crowd management, but apart from that it was good for a first time event. I can’t wait for next year!

Below are some pictures I managed to click. There aren’t too many pictures of food as I was either busy eating them or buying them.

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Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 4 Comments

When I was in college I watched a lot of movies. It didn’t matter how B-grade they were, if it was on torrentz I would watch it. One of the movies I saw during this time was The Invention of Lying. The movie was an epic fail but today while I was thinking in the shower (the other place I do my thinking is on the bed) I recollected this movie. The movie was bad but imagine if none of us told lies. We would just tell people what we thought about them and lying isn’t even an option. Would relationships survive in a situation like this? No matter how much we love some one, how much of the truth can we handle?

Most of us may say small white lies, not for defending ourselves but in the belief that we’re protecting the other person from the harsh truth.  Its not easy being entirely truthful either. To be entirely truthful the person you’re answering to must be able to take in whatever you reveal to them or you must live a perfect life with no space for error. But we’re human and our life is a train wreck.

Maybe honesty is over rated. Maybe white lies are needed to keep the world running. Women need to be told their rear doesn’t look fat in that dress and we have to say “It was nice meeting you” when in truth it was awful. I guess that is just how the world functions and if it weren’t for this, the world as we know it would end.

Or maybe we should lead such perfect lives that the need for telling  a white lie or telling a truth that doesn’t hurt someone is unnecessary.

So what is better? Telling the small white lies in the belief that we’re protecting others, being truthful or leading the perfect life?

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 2 Comments

We celebrated Eid yesterday. No, I didn’t make biriyani. I know that’s like Muslim Wife Faux Pas so can we just move on already. Yes, I wore a pretty dress. I looked decent enough. We went out for Eid dinner. It was a nice day but it felt like my heart wasn’t in the right place and I couldn’t put my finger on what felt wrong.

My favorite thing of late is fairy lights. I love them. They look so pretty and make me happy. The street we went to for dinner was lined with these lights. It was probably the only festive thing I saw yesterday.

I’ve been in a funk the past couple of days. I feel exhausted, mind, body and soul. I’m trying to pull myself out but some days its like quick sand.

But I gotta say, I do whip up a mean cake. Like, MEAN.

So mean I had it for breakfast.

So mean I’m gonna have one right now.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 2 Comments

Why is it August already? Where is the year running to? Calm down, 2013. You will get where you’re going eventually, no need to sprint.

July was pretty eventful what with Ramadan and everything. I made some decent food and ate some delicious food. I had an iftar party, which was a first. Jay bought a huge box of mangoes so we had mango juice and mango lassi a few days in a row. I visited the beautiful Legion of Honor in San Francisco, one of the best Sundays ever.

I have a few personal projects planned for this month and a huge pile of books to be read. So August, please oh please be good to me.

***

Tip – Watching the Food Network while your fasting, NOT a good idea.

 

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 15 Comments

Crocaholics Anonymous.

I have big feet. At least by Indian standards I do, and it’s always been hard for me to find my size in shoes I liked. Comfortable shoes were even harder to find, thanks to my gorgeous flat feet. I would tear apart every shoe store in Madras from top to bottom in search of the perfect shoes in the perfect size. Shoe salesmen would give me dirty looks. One guy even told me my size wasn’t the “normal” size. The nerve of him! Safe to say, I stomped out of the store.

During college I went through a lot of shoes – sandals, ballet shoes, cheap sandals from Fountain Plaza, pretty ones from Lifestyle, polka dotted ballet shoes from Shoppers Stop, tough boy sandals from Nike, you name it. But none of them lasted long enough. I would see the wear and tear in a few months, and the fourth toe of my left foot would inevitable scrape against the base of the shoe.So the left pair of all my shoes would have a distinct mark. I know, I’m special.

Wedding shoes shopping was another tiring journey but at then end of it I managed to find a gorgeous pair that hurt as good as they looked.

Over the weekend while doing some much needed, therapeutic shopping I saw a Crocs store beckoning me in all its neon glory. I told Jay I’ve never tried on Crocs and I thought that the comfort factor of those shoes was just a myth. I had to find out for myself if it was true. So we entered the store, and I was in shoe heaven. I know all you “fashionistas” out there are like, “Omg, Crocs are soooo fugly”. But honey, you haven’t lived until you’ve lived in my shoes.

Crocs are generally expensive but I got my hands on the most beautiful pair for half the price! Yay for sales and retail and stuff! I think my new shoes perfectly encapsulate the weather right now. They are summery, yellow and so cheerful! I think I’m going to live in Crocs for the rest of my life ’cause these shoes are so comfy! It’s like walking on a baby’s bottom (sorry, baby)! They are made out of some rubbery material so no awful, skin peeling shoe bites and I must say, they look really, really good. So Crocs taught me one lesson : never brush of anything based on what others say, find it out for yourself.

Let’s all raise our glasses to Life, and the lessons she teaches us in the most unpredictable ways.

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Posted on by Zarine Mohideen

Put that samosa down! It’s Ramadan!!

Ramadan Kareem, everyone! This year is going to be my first Ramadan away from home, in a different country with a fifteen hour fasting time. This will also be my first year making **iftar and preparing for *suhoor, and I’m already starting to appreciate my mother for all the years she cooked it for me. I now realize it’s a hard thing to strike  balance between your spiritual side and well, keeping house. I try to “keep” my house decent enough. It gets messy every few days and I do get lazy but I try to get by.

I know I will miss home terribly during Ramadan but I don’t want to admit it. I will miss the food and the bit of forced friendliness that Ramadan injects, both in society and family. We have suhoor together and break iftaar as a family. I will miss my annual iftar potluck with my girls (especially the one year where we went a bit wild, you know the one I’m talking about, ***Kuki). I will miss all the tiny traditions that I’ve done subconsciously. I only hope to continue with them and hopefully, create new traditions.

I will miss planning my Eid outfit. But that’s cause I already planned it in super advance this year.

Oh, I will also miss the samosas. Mmm.. samosas.

Have a blessed Ramadan, people. I pray we all come out of it as satisfied and better people.

*suhoor : Meal had at sunrise during Ramadan (fasting) time.

**iftar : Meal had at sunset during Ramadan (fasing) time.

*** Kuki : My stalker. I would named you the other thing but I don’t want people who read my blog to think I’m a pervert. Also, hi.

Posted on by Zarine Mohideen · 1 Comment

Hello Interwebz,

Can you search in the vast expanse of your universe and let me know if there is an endless tunnel behind the washer where socks go to disappear?

Thank you,

Z