Pranav's Birthday Weekend

We knew we were in for a fun and festive few days during Pranav's birthday weekend. 

We started the celebration Friday night with a husband & wife birthday dinner at Avec, a fabulous Spanish-inspired restaurant on Chicago's West Randolph restaurant row.  We ordered small sharing plates of olives, burrata cheese with roasted beets and spiced pistachios, a lovely shaved fennel & grape salad, and roasted scallops.  Yum!  The food and ambience were perfect:

 

We then celebrated Pranav's birthday the evening after with friends and mini cupcakes at the Birthday Boy's favorite local hangout, the Pepper Canister.  Salut!

  

Cincy weekend trip: 2/18-2/21

A couple weekends ago we made a trip to Cincinnati because we hadn't been back since Thanksgiving, and it was Masiji's birthday!  We had a fun time at Union Terminal on Saturday checking out the new Cleopatra exhibit (some cool artifacts unearthed from the sea + lots of melodrama about the ongoing search for the Last Queen's tomb) and watching the IMAX film about Hubble.  After a tasty birthday lunch at Bonbonerie Cafe (and the best complimentary tea cookies ever), we picked up Simar, who had driven down from Columbus to give her mom a birthday surprise, and paid a visit to our little buddy Oscar, who was hanging out in West Chester for the day.  (Literally;  he has an awesome new swing-like device that hangs from the ceiling at his grandparents house.)  Oscar is cuter than ever and looks just like a baby Parmbir!  We love his "who ARE you?" expressions and his rock star hair.

Pranav spent most of the rest of the trip listening to Chachaji's stories, offering technology support to Cincy Mom & Dad ("Pranav, can you please fix our AppleTV/laptop/desktop/DVR?"), and playing Trivial Pursuit.  Our Trivial Pursuit box was missing its dice, so we used the virtual dice on Simar's cell phone instead.  After Simar's phone battery died, desperate times called for desperate measures, and we were forced to use Chachaji as an automatic number generator.  Whenever we pressed his forehead, he randomly would give us a number between 1 and 6.  After a Sunday brunch of crepes with sabji (by request) at Masiji's, Pranav headed back to Chicago via the Megabus.  He says he enjoyed his bus trip, which likely means he slept through most of it.  I had Presidents' Day off from work, so I stuck around for an extra day to check out the 1990 exhibit at the Reds Museum and (more importantly) to accumulate more tasty treats to bring back to Chicago.  Thanks to the Cincy crew for a fun family weekend!    

    

Stairway to Seven - Closed for Repairs

Almost. The Steelers offense had the ball with two minutes. Big Ben had done this so many times before, including in Super Bowl XLIII against the Arizona Cardinals. But when the Black & Gold started their final drive, something was off. The offense was not moving smoothly up the field. Mike Wallace seemed unclear on the play calls. Since Ben's arrival, the Steelers had successfully completed several game winning drives either in the fourth quarter or in overtime. Not this time, however; the drive stalled and the Green Bay Packers were champions.

The Steelers will be back; mostly likely in a year when nobody expects them to be successful. Most had the Steelers finishing either second or third in the AFC North this year to the Ravens and/ or Bengals, but they won their division, secured the 2 seed in the AFC, won the conference, and came within a touchdown (despite countless errors) of another Super Bowl Championship. We will, however, have to wait for #7.

So, I say congratulations to the Packers and their fans, particularly the Sangha and Lehn families in Milwaukee. As I mentioned to some friends with whom we were watching the game, had the Packers been playing anyone but the Steelers, I would have cheered for them and we may even have had a cheese-themed Super Bowl Party. Had they been playing the Patriots, I may have worn a cheesehead.

Despite the outcome of the game, we had a wonderful Super Bowl party at the condo. Homemade Pizza Company and a handful of close friends made for a festive Super Bowl Sunday; especially after a week of dealing with Snotorious B.I.G.'s aftermath.  Key party highlights included outstanding desserts from our guests to complement the pizza, Devin taking down one of our houseplants from the blindside, and and the VW Passat commercial.

New Orleans -- MLK Weekend

We spent the MLK holiday weekend in New Orleans; our first trip back to the city since we (kind of sort of maybe) got engaged there in 2009.  This trip was definitely chillier than the last, but certainly no less festive!  Cold weather can't put a damper on the fabulous food, music and overall New Orleans quirkiness that we love so much.   Some highlights from the weekend:

• Waiting more than an hour for one 12-inch $20+ grilled shrimp and fried green tomato po boy sandwich at Mahoney's Po Boy Shop.  And I don't mean waiting in line to order the sandwich ... I mean waiting for the staff to just make the sandwich after we ordered it!  Thankfully, it came out fresh as can be and teeming with great flavor ... Pranav clearly found it to be well worth the wait:

• More great eats!  Delicious and creative cuisine (and an odd waitress) at hidden gem Green Goddess, cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe du Monde (always standard; always excellent), a fancy dinner at Stella, and the requisite gumbo, shrimp creole, Pimm's Cups, etc.  Yum! 
• Taking a lovely guided walking tour of the Garden District and happening upon New Orleans legend Archie Manning (former quarterback of the Saints and father of current NFL quarterbacks Peyton and Eli Manning) pulling into his driveway and walking into his house.  Perhaps not the most unexpected place to see Archie, but we were really excited about it.
• Random note:  our Garden District tour guide was a wonderfully quirky character, Bob, who is currently researching the legendary New Orleans Cornstalk Fence, part of which sits resplendent outside a Garden District mansion, part of which has been painted and set up outside the Cornstalk Inn in the French Quarter (see picture below -- note the tacky yellow/gold paint on this segment), and part of which somehow found its way to Southern California.

• Amazing music:  toe-tapping to recorded tunes in the stores while we shopped, catching a set of traditional New Orleans jazz at Preservation Hall,  watching a couple of lively acts at the jazz club in our hotel lobby (so convenient), and stumbling upon the many talented street musicians in the Quarter.  The city literally pulses with phenomenal local music.  
• On our final day in the city, we came across this adorable little family band: a mother, father and daughter (see picture above).  A quick Wikipedia search later, we learned that the mother, Doreen Ketchens, is a celebrated clarinetist, and the father was acquitted of attempted murder a year or so ago after shooting a member of the Rebirth Brass Band, who allegedly was beating Doreen with an umbrella (!) during a spat following a jazz funeral.  Ridiculous??  Certainly.  But from everything we've been told about this city and its people, it's just another typical New Orleans saga ...

In an interesting twist, we're seeing the Rebirth Brass Band TONIGHT in Chicago.  And we can't wait for our next trip back to New Orleans!

New Years in Chicago

Bringing you up to speed on the events of 2011 ...

After a hectic couple weeks of traveling to Vegas for Soph's second birthday and to Pittsburgh for Christmas, we opted to stay in Chicago for New Years.  On New Years Eve, we put on our party gear, swung by our friend (and down-the-street neighbor) Mona's place for a glass of sangria, and then rang in 2011 for the second year in a row at at our friend Amandeep's apartment.  Amandeep had recently proposed to his fiance Vari, so we enjoyed hearing their proposal story (an involved tale including a homemade scrapbook, a white lie about family car troubles, etc.) and using the night's festivities to celebrate their exciting news.

 

New Years Day we hosted friends in our home for a chili party we marketed as the Khera-Kothari Chili Bowl.  Last year we had enjoyed having a small Cincinnati style chili get-together to celebrate the Cincinnati Bearcats bowl Game against Florida, so we decided to keep the chili party going this year, despite the Bearcats lackluster season.  This year's affair was much bigger than the original version: we had thirty-some friends and kids come by for various apps, 2 types of chili --vegetarian Cincinnati style and spicy Southwestern (PA) chicken -- with all the fixings, salad and English trifle.  Mihir Bakhru's little brother Samir and his friend Shank were in town spending the day with us, and we appreciated all their help before and during the party.  We also appreciated their restraint, despite their affinity for Ohio State, in choosing not to ridicule us (too much, at least) about Michigan getting blown out by Mississippi State in its bowl game.  Special thanks to Samir and Shank for serving as this year's celebrity cheese shredders.  Kiran Sangha had set a high bar during her 2010 cameo appearance, and, while the boys couldn't quite match Kiran's stamina and grace, we commend them for putting forth a valiant effort.

Here are a couple of our underage guests hanging out by our Christmas tree during the chili party.  Note the company we keep:  Shreyas is sporting a Bengals shirt and Devin is wearing a Wash U shirt. It's important to maintain the circle of trust, even with one's little friends.

On a  random note, we borrowed a page from Masiji's book this year and strung our holiday cards on a string.  Such a genius way to display the cards without taking up counter space or the entire outside of the fridge:

 

 

Act 1, Scene 1: Man and wife sitting in a condo, snowed in.

I have been wanting to start a family blog for the last few months, and what better time to start than during the great blizzard of 2011 (aka the Blizzaster, Snowmageddon, the Snowpocalypse, snOMG, Snowprah Winfrey, and Snowtorious B.I.G.), when Pranav and I are both at home in the condo, enjoying an extremely rare Chicago snow day!  Our working title for the blog is both a reference to Devil in the White City, Erik Larson's wonderful book about the intrigue and majesty surrounding Chicago during the 1893 World Fair, and this equally surreal and white version of Chicago in which we've suddenly found ourselves, circa 2011:  up to 20 inches of snow; cars and buses sitting abandoned on a closed Lake Shore Drive; and emergency personnel riding around on snowmobiles!  

We hope to use this blog as a way to share our adventures and musings with family and friends.  I'll go back and do a few posts from the beginning of 2011, and then we'll try to be good about keeping up with posting as we move forward.  You can look forward to a Super Bowl recap early next week, hopefully with some commentary from Pranav, who you'd think was preparing to suit up and play for the Steelers this Sunday, the way he's been getting increasingly anxious as the big game approaches.   

Special thanks to Chaita and Sandeep for inspiring us to start this blog.  To those of you who frequent The Khera Times,  our URL must look eerily familiar .... good thing imitation is the highest form of flattery.