Mashed Potatoes recipe

I got this recipe off the internet too. It looks yummy and easy to prepare.

Ingredients
900 grams baking potatoes, peeled and quartered
2 tbsp butter
1 cup milk
Salt, pepper to taste

Method
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender but still firm (this should take about 15 minutes); drain.

In a small saucepan, heat butter and milk over low heat until the butter melts.

Using a potato masher or electric beater, slowly blend milk mixture into the potatoes until smooth and creamy.

Season with salt and pepper.

2. Almond Meringue Cookies

This is actually a German recipe, but has always been popular for Christmas evenings. As the ingredients are easily available (almonds, eggs, cinnamon), they aren't too difficult to prepare either.

Ingredients
3 egg whites
1 tsp grated lemon zest
300 grams ground almonds
1 cup confectioner's sugar
3/4 ground cinnamon

Method
Preheat oven to 325° F (165°C).

Grease and lightly flour a pan or cookie sheet.

Whip the egg whites in a large bowl until soft peaks are formed.

Sprinkle in the sugar slowly and keep whipping for around five minutes until the whites can hold a stiff peak.

Add lemon zest and cinnamon, and put in the almonds until everything is blended evenly.

Drop little mounds using a big spoon onto the baking sheet/ pan. Place an almond on each cookie.

Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

Traditional Christmas cake recipe

I got this recipe off a website. It looks simple and hence finds a place on my blog.

Ingredients
2 sticks plus 2 tbsp butter at room temperature
1 ½ cups dark brown sugar
4 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
1 ½ cups each currants, golden raisins, dark raisins
1 1/3 cups soft dried figs, chopped
1 ¼ cups dates, pitted and chopped
1 cup chopped, deseeded, dried prunes
1 ¾ cups chopped dried apricots
¾ cup blanched almonds, chopped
2/3 cup plus 4 tbsp brandy
2 tsp instant espresso mixed with 1 tbsp water



Method
Preheat the oven to 300°F. Grease a round 9- or 10-inch cake pan and line the bottom and sides with several layers of waxed paper.

In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar until thick and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Sift together the flour, salt and spices, then fold into the creamed mixture. Add the fruit, almonds, 2/3 cup brandy, and espresso, folding in well.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan, levelling the surface.

Place the pan in the centre of the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

Reduce the temperature to 275°F and bake for 3 ½ hours longer or until a tester inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean

Remove the pan from the oven, cover with first a kitchen towel and then a thick bath towel so that the cake will cool slowly.

When the cake is cool, prick the top with a skewer and drizzle with the extra brandy. Wrap in waxed paper and store in an airtight container. Keep in a cool place for about three hours before serving.

Schengen visa tips

If you are not a citizen of US, Canada or EU in most likelihood you'll need a visa to travel within Europe. Under the Schengen treaty, you need one visa to travel through 15 Schengen states. Remember, Switzerland is not a Schengen country, but if you have a valid Schengen visa, you can travel through Switzerland by train and can also make stopovers. However there is a time limit on these stopovers. Check out the websites
http://www.schengenvisa.cc and http://www.eurovisa.info for more details.

Some tips:

1) Have all your hotel reservations, airline tickets (confirmations) and visitor's health insurance in place. If you have health insurance by Kaiser Permanente, you don't need a visitor's health insurance. You also need to show your 3 most recent bank statements and salary slips.

2) Go to the embassy of the country that is your main destination.
Main destination is defined as the country where you stay the longest. In case you stay for same number of days in two Schengen countries, say two days, your main destination is the country where you first fly into.

3) In most cases, you get the visa in a day, but if you are applying by mail, apply early, atleast 20 days before. Some embassies, do not accept mail applications. Check the specific rules with the consulate website. Even if you apply in person, apply early. Some consulates (Italian embassy in San Francisco especially in summer is very crowded and the waiting period can be as long as 20 days).

4) Have the faxed confirmations from the hotels where you'll be staying. Some consulates have this as a mandatory requirement. If you are staying with friends, they need to send you an invitation letter. Check with the embassy website for more details. Hotels are generally quick in sending out faxed confirmations. Call them up and almost all of them will comply.

Good luck with your visa application!

Ryan Air blues

In my last vacation in Europe, I happened to book a flight on Ryan Air. I was tempted by their low fares. Before I booked the tickets, I did some research on the internet where I read experiences of some people who had used the airline. From what I read, there is no inflight service, and severe restrictions on the baggage weight. Also, airports from where this airline operates are normally far away from the major airports. However, if you are fine with no inflight service and have light baggage and if you can manage to find your own transportation to these far flung airports, Ryan air is okay.

Having read this material, I decided to go ahead and buy the tickets thinking that Venice might have just one airport. The actual cost of a ticket from Venice to Brussels was Euro 2.99 and Euro 20 tax. That was a less than cab fare in most places!

I had not read the fine print very well, and did not realize that Treviso and Venice are two different airports. The Ryan air itenary mentioned Venice as the airport and had Treviso in parentheses. For a first time traveller this can be quite confusing. Treviso is actually 40 minutes drive from Venice airport.

We first ended up at Venice airport and then ended up paying dearly for the cab, after I realized my folly. Also, when we got to Treviso airport the flight had left. So we were stuck in the middle of nowhere...literally nowhere. There were no hotels nearby and no cabs either. So we had to wait in the airport for the whole night.

We found some fellow travellers. So the night away, chatting and sharing jokes. We met this Algerian girl, whose name I still remember, Thilleli, who is a medical student at Padova( Italy) and was on her way to Algiers via Rome. We also met a group of Irish backpackers. Having met so many people, in the end there was no reason to complain. Afterall, every cloud has a silver lining...

In summary, unless you know the place you are going well and have friends who can drop you to the far flung airports, avoid Ryan air. You actually end up paying quite a bit!

Planning a vacation in Europe -- Some Tips

1) Plan in advance. If you are not taking a group tour or visiting friends, and are going by yourself, you need atleast a month to prepare an itenary and gather information about the places that interest you. To gather information, I spoke to many friends who have travelled or lived in Europe and used Lonely Planet's book "Europe on a shoe string". I would personally recommend avoiding group tours. I feel, they restrict you and I feel travelling on your own is more fun.

2) Once you've decided which places you want to visit, you need to make the hotel reservations. There is a large variety of hotels to choose from in European cities. I would recommend pensiones and bed and breakfast over major hotel chains. In my opinion, service is more personalized in pensiones and bed and breakfasts. Most of the owners of these places I dealt with spoke decent English and provided valuable information about local events, places to shop, eat etc. Chances are you might end up meeting some fellow travellers and end up swapping stories and experiences. You also want to make sure the place you are staying is close to major railway station. Even if you have to pay a little more, but you'll save big bucks on cab and most importantly you save time.

3) In Italy, if you are interested in staying with local families, use the website
www.agritourism.it. Other good resource is www.venere.com. Also if you just drop in these cities, the tourist offices located at the airports or railway stations help you to find an accommodation according to your taste and budget.

4) If you are travelling by yourself, hostels are a good option. They are clean and cheap and located in the center of major attractions. I don't have personal experience with hostels, but from what I hear, they provide a different kind of experience and are easy on pocket. Some of these hostels have curfews, so you need to check that out in advance.

5) Rick Steve's guide books are a good source of information about Europe.

6) If you are planning on visiting many countries, you can either rent a car or take a train. Both are good ways to travel and let you explore the countryside where the real beauty lies. I did not have very good experience with budget airlines especially, Ryan Air. Though tickets are very cheap there is a lot of fine text, and as a tourist try avoiding these airlines.

7) In Italy, beware of cafes as a lot of them are tourist traps. If you eat at the counter of these cafes, you pay almost half of what you would pay for eating outside.

8) Don't carry too much cash. Credit cards are widely accepted and ATMs are located everywhere. If you use Bank of America ATM card, double check if it works internationally. I had problems with my ATM card.

9) In France, if you are taking a cab, make sure the cab driver and you are in sync. It's better to write what you intend to say, especially since French is pronounced differently, drivers also understand it differently. We had problems with the cab driver. We had to go to Paris Bercy station, but were dropped at Bastille station. Blame it on pronounciation :).

That's pretty much it. Enjoy your next vacation in Europe!

My Skydiving adventure in Hollister, CA

To view the world from a parachute had remained an unfulfilled and now almost forgotten wish, too unlikely and somewhat bizarre to ever come true!

Not until I was introduced to Laetitia in Jan'05. She is a petite but high spirited and enthusiastic French woman from Lyon, who besides being a smart engineer is a very passionate skydiver. For her the first experience of a freefall (via a tandem jump), led her to enrolling in AFF (Accelerated Free Fall) program offered by a skydiving company in Hollister, CA. After successfully completing this program she is now a certified skydiver with 100+ jumps under her belt.

After several missed opportunities, I finally synchronized with Laetitia, her friend Silva and her roommate Nitin. The reality of the upcoming jump started to sink in and also the panic began to settle in. Jumping out of 15000 feet sounded crazy and absurd. Two days before the jump, I called up Laetitia and almost backed out saying I am too scared and I don't think I can do it. She then made me talk to a few of her friends and they all yapped about skydiving being a wonderful adventure. Laetitia finally told me "trust me everything is going to be fine and you'll really enjoy the experience but the decision to jump is up to you."

I decided to atleast go to the jump area, and we all drove to Hollister (south of Gilroy) on a bright Sunday in the last week of September. Hollister has a small municipal airport that serves as a base for the skydiving company's operations. After reaching there I did some paperwork and signed some legal documents that basically meant that if something happened, I'll be responsible. I paid for freefall from 15000 feet + videography + photography of my jump.

Now I watched some safety videos and read the Parachutist magazine to get a feel of this sport. I glanced at some photographs and the slogan caught my attention "CAPTURE THE MOMENT". Looking back, I can now say that the experience of skydiving is all about it.

Laetitia showed us around and then she put on her jump suit and quickly went for her first jump from 18000 feet along with Silva. I learnt from her that this jump requires skydivers to wear oxygen masks at altitudes over 15000 feet and it has 1.5 minutes of freefall. Nitin and I chatted with other skydivers and roamed around the place, clicking pictures. After about 45 minutes Laetitia and Silva were back and now it was our turn to skydive. We were now assigned our tandem masters (the expert to whom you would be literally "tied"). My tandem master was Kevin, a man who earns his living being a tandem master and jump instructor. He's been doing it for 15 years and loves this job. He explained me some rules and gave me some mock practice . Now I wore my jumpsuit and proceeded towards the airport. There I met a man named Friday, who was my videographer. At the airport Kevin once gave the instructions and I wore the cords around my shoulders, back and thighs. These cords would be used to "tie" me with Kevin. Since we were Laetitia's guests, she decided to skydive with us to boost our morale and entered our jumps in her jump log-book for her memory.

We all boarded the small Beechcraft plane, and now I was tied to Kevin. The plane took off and my pulse started to race. I told Kevin that I can't do this jump. He told me that I will be the first person out of the 4000 people who have jumped with him to bail out. The fact that I could trust my life with this guy comforted me. As I saw the plane sore higher I felt completely out of mind and told him that I've made up my mind to not dive. Kevin said I'll be fine but if I don't want to jump, it's upto me. But he anyways went head and double checked my cords and asked me to wear the goggles. I was still not sure if I wanted to go ahead with the jump. I looked at Laetitia who gave me a thumbs up signal and said "See you on ground". She again reiterated that I'll be fine. I simply shivered.

Now we were almost at 15000 feet. The plane door opened and out went Laetitia. Then the other skydivers followed. I was sweating with fear. Kevin pushed me to the door. I screamed and said, "No, I can't do it". Before I could say anything I experienced a strong wind. I knew Kevin and I had jumped. I let out a huge scream and then a few seconds later, I saw Friday taking my video. I looked down and felt the air around and Kevin patted my back. The view was was breathtaking and my fears began to subside. Now. I had nowhere elase to go but down, so I decided to to enjoy as I was totally into it. I began to relax and smile. (My video shows this funny change of expression on my face in a matter of few seconds)

And what an experience the freefall was. We were falling down at a speed of 120mph. To me it didn't feel as if we were falling at all with such high speed. It was almost a zero-gravity like feeling. I could feel the cool breeze hitting my face and I felt the thinness of air. Kevin pointed me to Monterey, Santacruz at a distance. Friday was still taking the video. I now spread my arms out like a bird and felt like one too. The objects on earth were getting bigger and bigger and the air was turning warmer. I looked around and saw expensive homes with swimming pools in the backyard, the cattle barn where we would land and highway at a distance.

The word looked beautiful and flawless from the top and with the decreasing altitude the flaws were more and more obvious. So true with people too. The more closer you get to someone, the more you notice the flaws. And these flaws and irregularity is what makes the earth and people so unique and beautiful.

Now I felt pressure at my back. I realised that the parachute was snapped open by Kevin. He showed me the altimeter. It read 4000 feet. I saw Friday and he opened his parachute and dropped a lot faster than us. After a few seconds I saw him on ground. After the speed and thrill of freefall it was now time to relax and enjoy the views. It was a beautiful day and I looked around and marvelled. Kevin and I now got a chance to have some mid-air conversations. He mentioned the homes I see below are $2 mn dollar and above and still have no privacy in backyards from parachutists :). Kevin now instructed me on landing position ans slowly we were getting more closer to ground. After 15 seconds we landed. I was out of breath, and glad to be alive!!! Laetitia and Friday welcomed me. They were all smiling and said "See, we told you that you would do it". I couldn't believe I had jumped from 15000 feet. What an experience it was...beyond description. We took the final round of pictures and video.

I then saw Nitin land. He was thrilled to an extent that he was jumping. Finally we went to the small pick-up van and sat at the back. I could not believe the last 15 minutes. I put my head on my lap and to take the experience in.

I never thought my wish would be fulfilled in this manner. It was just magical.

We came back to the office and Nitin and I spent the rest of the day with skydivers and later went to watch a landing. Laetitia and Silva went for 3 more jumps. At the end of the day we watched videos of the acrobatics these skydivers perform in air while freefalling.

As we drove back, I looked back and thanked for not succumbing to my fears and missing this opportunity of a lifetime to "CAPTURE THE MOMENT".