{"id":574,"date":"2011-08-06T16:55:36","date_gmt":"2011-08-06T15:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/?p=574"},"modified":"2011-08-25T21:11:29","modified_gmt":"2011-08-25T20:11:29","slug":"wonderful-first-meal-at-my-homestay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/posts\/574\/wonderful-first-meal-at-my-homestay","title":{"rendered":"Wonderful First Meal At &#8220;My&#8221; Homestay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div id=\"attachment_151\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-151\" class=\"size-full wp-image-151\" title=\"Malti, our host, cooking dinner\" src=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MaltiDinner.JPG\" alt=\"Malti, our host, cooking dinner\" width=\"400\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-151\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Malti, our host, cooking dinner<\/p><\/div><br \/>\n<br \/>&#160;<br \/>\nIn a corner of the room, right next to the doorway, sat Malti, the wife of the family that Emilia and I were staying with.<br \/>\n<br \/>&#160;<br \/>\nShe was stirring some steaming potato curry in a pot which was resting over a fire powered by a single main log.<br \/>\n<br \/>&#160;<br \/>\nThe log didn&#8217;t fully fit into the tiny space so she&#8217;d lit it at one end and moved it up occasionally as it burned.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MaltiDinner (11).jpg\" alt=\"Malti preparing our dinner\" \/><br \/>\nMalti preparing our dinner\n<\/p>\n<p>We were served with rice, chapattis, dal and potato curry and there was plenty of it too. It all tasted great and was probably one of the meals I&#8217;ve worried about the least as I saw it all cooked in front me. The whole meal was cooked on just two areas of a log fire and the result was far beyond what I could have produced having four burners, a griddle, two ovens and a microwave at my disposal.<\/p>\n<p>Although it was available I managed to eat this meal completely without cutlery, using my right hand to pick up the dal and rice, but no matter what I tried I just couldn&#8217;t get the two to stick together. I&#8217;m sure Malti and her family must have laughed inside when the saw me using my hand as an ineffective spoon, as I couldn&#8217;t see how else to do it. The potato curry and rice was easy, but dal, now that&#8217;s hard to eat with your hands. They say that the experience of eating with you hands gives you another dimension to your meal and they&#8217;re right: you end up with burnt fingertips.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MaltiDinner (10).jpg\" alt=\"eating the delicious food\" \/><br \/>\neating the delicious food<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MaltiDinner (7).jpg\" alt=\"Jane being sensible and using cutlery\" \/><br \/>\nJane being sensible and using cutlery\n<\/p>\n<p>After dinner Malti wanted to dress up the girls and I prayed her husband wasn&#8217;t going to offer me the chance to dress up in his lungi in a Ghandi-esque style.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MaltiDinner (5).jpg\" alt=\"Sari central\" \/><br \/>\nSari central<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MaltiDinner (2).jpg\" alt=\"Amy and Emilia styled and posed by Malti\" \/><br \/>\nAmy and Emilia styled and posed by Malti<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MaltiDinner (3).jpg\" alt=\"Amy, Malti, Emilia after the dressing up session\" \/><br \/>\nAmy, Malti, Emilia after the dressing up session\n<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MaltiDinner (4).jpg\" alt=\"Malti enjoying chai\" \/><br \/>\nMalti enjoying a well earned chai<\/p>\n<p>During the rest of the evening we helped the children speak and read English and they tried &#8211; but failed, our fault not theirs &#8211; to teach us some Hindi. I showed the kids how to use my camera and then they must have spent ages taking lots of photos.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MaltiDinner (1).jpg\" alt=\"At the end of a wonderful evening\" \/><br \/>\nAt the end of a wonderful evening\n<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<br \/>\n<br \/>&#160;<br \/>\nWant to stay in a homestay and thinking of coming anywhere near Orchha (, Agra, Gwalior or Khajuraho)?<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.orchha.org\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/logo-friendsoforchha.png\" alt=\"Friends of Orchha\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<span class=\"facebook-like\"><fb:like layout=\"box_count\" show_faces=\"false\" width=\"45\" href=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/posts\/574\/wonderful-first-meal-at-my-homestay\"><\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#160; In a corner of the room, right next to the doorway, sat Malti, the wife of the family that Emilia and I were staying with. &#160; She was stirring some steaming potato curry in a pot which was resting over a fire powered by a single main log. &#160; The log didn&#8217;t fully fit [&hellip;] <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/posts\/574\/wonderful-first-meal-at-my-homestay\">&darr; Read the rest of this entry&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[17,25,26],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-food","tag-homestay","tag-orchha","uentry","postonpage-1","odd","post-author-kev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon-meandering.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}