(Wanted to save this recipe and this post I made for the WW community, so double posted it here)
I felt like eating Greek, and eating pizza, so today I kind of browsed around for a bunch of recipes and threw something together that was pretty yum, according to my mom. And it was filled with veggies and has a lot of room for customization (heck, i did!), so I thought I’d share it with everyone. Its a low point dinner, and can be lower too, and its super fast!
I didn’t take a picture, but next time I will :). This works for 5 pita pockets. Its my first time writing a recipe, so bear with the weird style!
Ingredients: Pita bread (I used Toufayan white pita pockets, 2 points for 2 halves), olives, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil leaves, spinach, feta cheese, mozzarella/parmesan cheese, tomatoes, crushed red pepper, oregano, garlic clove, tomato paste, and anything else you’d like to top your pizza with.
Method: Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray the pita pockets with olive oil cooking spray (0 points) and place in over for about 5 minutes. While its heating, in a seperate bowl, mix sliced olives (I used a total of 6 large ones), balsamic vinegar (2 tsps), oregano (to taste), crushed red pepper (to taste), and one minced garlic clove (or more if you’re into garlicky), and one teaspoon olive oil (you can skip that too if wanted), and lastly tomato paste (about as much as you’d like it to be tomatoey).
Smear this mix on the pita pockets. Now top with spinach, cut tomatoes, fresh chopped basil, and whatever else, about as much as each will take. Sprinkle some feta cheese on each (it was very little on each, maybe 1tsp), and if you want, sprinkle some mozzarella cheese (I used the weight watchers 2 points one, about 1 tsp on each).
Put it back in the oven for 5-8 minutes, or until cheese is all melted.
Enjoy!!
WW Points calculation: 2 points for 2 pita pockets, 1 point for the olive oil, and depending on how much cheese you sprinkle on, those points can vary. Mine was about 2 points total. Olives, according to the point tracker, are 1 point for 6 large olives, and I ate about 2 so it works out to 0. Everything else is 0! So I’d say per serving of two pita pockets, you’d get 5 points.
🙂 If anybody else has any suggestions to improve, do pass on!
“If your legs are tired, you stop. If you can’t walk, you sit down. If you sit down, someone might come to hold you up. That’s how we live.”
(Il Gun, in 두구셰요/Who Are You, as translated by Javabeans at www.dramabeans.com)
Fortunate Son, by 이송열/Lee Seung Yeol, on the OST of 두구셰요
I think that quotes’ pretty excellent. I’d like to quote the Korean here, but I’m afraid of misspellings that completely ruin the meaning and I can’t find the script. But thats fine. Because that translation is pretty great, and doesn’t it just mean so much? Isn’t that just how life is? Even if we’re cynical (like me) and even if we can’t really believe in people, I really do believe that people do come through and lift you up when you need them. I’ve seen it happen, and its happened to me, every single time. Thats how we all live, I think, by being lifted by each other. Isn’t that why we need each other?
If you’d like the opinions of hundreds of people on why this drama is just so terrific and has just taken over the lives of us k-drama fans (and maybe some have become fans just because its so terrific, y’all need to head over to Dramabeans. Because apart from her amazing summaries, there’s all kinds of discussion and thoughts and also the occasional fan girl scream going on.
두구세요 isn’t the best k-drama I’ve seen, but its pretty near to it. Its lovely. Its poignant, heart-breaking, heart-warming, funny, whimsical, witty, a little crazy and out there and when you get down to it, just very human. All its characters are flawed. The three leads have major issues (one is dead, the other has OCD and thanks to the dead guy is also half-crazy now, and the third is an angry youth whose suddenly orphaned and on the streets). And yet, its not depressing or frustrating. The story is hopeful, and the change in the characters is believable and warming, and the actors do an excellent job (special kudos to Yoon Kye Sang, who is also unbelievable handsome let me add, and Kang Nam Il). And its about courage, and hope, and being open, and willing to reach out and be reached out to, and letting change take its course and effect you. Strangely, through the idea of death and through a character who is dead, the other characters, and the viewer, goes through the realization of the delicacy of life, and how the important things that matter must be valued, and how its possible to begin loving life even if it seems forlorn. The dead, in a way, humanizes the living, funnily enough. And thats interesting, intriguing and really, really fun to watch 🙂
Not to mention there’s a very exciting stolen-paintings-evil-greedy-gallery-owners story running in the show, and the bad guys need to be struck down forever, and we must win! Soon (thank god for short k-drama seasons :)). And there’s a freaking amazing soundtrack, which just has to be, because its music directer Lee Sang Heon, who was also behind Que Sera Sera, and who always gets the best artists, like Yi Sung Yol, and W, and My Aunt Mary, and Loveholic, and has awesome background scores too. Genius.
‘Coz how can you not listen to this and remember Song Hye Kyo posing around on her trip, and wish you could pose around and look as pretty on your trips?
Right after I made my first post about my recent trip, I planned to make another describing everything I didn’t in my mousy mood. Because it was also one of the best and most important event in my life, returning home after such a long time. Its something I’d wanted so much it hurt, and then when I was there it was suddenly so strange to be there, so unreal. Things usually hit me much later anyway…the cause and effect time line is somewhat skewed in my system…so for some time it was like I’d always been used to this. Hadn’t I? I had always jumped away from traffic threatening to run me over, walked while minding the potholes and sewage water, and tried to make my way through the crowds. I think, in essence, that was me getting used to being back to who I was. None of this was shocking, because I wasn’t a foreigner, it just took getting used to to get back in the rhythm.
The best part, of course, was to reconnect. Re-adjusting was part of the reconnecting, and I was surprised at how well I did. At one point, I managed to live without electricity, with mosquitoes, and in questionable hygienic situations, being sick all the while, without any signs of the reaction I would have expected. Eight years ago maybe it wouldn’t even be a matter of consideration, but I was still somewhat pleased with myself that I could adjust. However, re-connecting with the people was the best. Sure, we had our gaps, our moments of awkwardness or ‘um, now how do I move past this uncomfortable situation without treading on toes?’, but those were few and far between, and with very few people. Mostly, it felt like time had failed to create a rift between the people we cared for the most. Like my childhood bff, D, said, it was like no time had passed between us. Hadn’t we always laid around like this? Gossipped about old classmates? Discussed movies and food and the city and the torture of waxing, all in one conversation?
I won’t discuss the family part so much (this being a public blog and all), but enough is said to convey how beautiful it was to just see everyone we could, relive the memories, and just discuss and catch up on where we were. It wasn’t always perfect, and we didn’t get to see everyone (and managed to offend many, but isn’t that always how it goes? ;)), but it was good enough :). And of course, one of the most exciting parts of the trip, which will go undescribed, was the meeting of people you’d always wanted to meet, and welcoming in beautiful, new parts of the family.
And then there was just the sense of realizing I was back in my own country and appreciating that to the fullest. Where service and being served is just a given. It was strange to have people open doors, serve your food and water, do your laundry, having a waiter stand next to your table the entire time as you tried to hide your disconcernment and continue your casual conversation. It was strange to realize that you weren’t expected to cook, clean, do any of the chores you usually did (and yet there was so much to do, but thats different!). Some of it was difficult to get used to (esp the constant waiter! eek, i’ll serve myself!), but other stuff I was too happy to oblige with (you can guess which). It was relaxing, and it was kind of a reminder of how hard we work here. Its not marshmallow smores here…in fact, its more sweet and chocolatey when you have somebody doing all the mundane things so you can focus on the important things in life. Like shopping.
And shopping was…well, fun. Styles change with the flick of a celebrity’s wrist, but thats okay with me because everyone’s going to be out of style here 😉 After being embarassed (but refusing to be ashamed) after my outdated wardrobe at the wedding, I stocked up on suits and whatnots, and ran after and shouted and urged and pleased with tailors as they kept failing to get it right (I still don’t understand why…), and then finally did (and that was the really fun part). I didn’t get to shop as much as I wanted to (or ‘needed’ to), but shopping and getting stuff tailored is an experience in itself. Don’t miss it. And no matter what anyone tries to tell you: stuff isn’t really that expensive. Sure, prices have tripled, even quadrupled, from eight years ago, but if you know where to shop and if you know how not to act foreignerly (or if your skin gives you away, take someone brown in a sari ;)), because its the people who get phoreigned who lose out.
Touring? Who has time for that? Granted I’ve barely seen most of the country. I’ll say it outloud: I HAVEN’T SEEN THE TAJ MAHAL. There. But touring takes a back seat when everyone’s inviting you to dinner and feeding you and you’re trying to visit everybody so you can stay in their good books. Its a lillll bit difficult. I was lucky, however, to have excuses to be in a lot of different cities this time. And we did make a little byway to Mysore, the city of breathtaking temples and palaces. Just a sneak peek at a picture post I hope to make again later. And I’ll have to make a whole different pictures post for the fantastic trip I had with P’s AWESOME FAMILY 🙂 to Shivaji’s Fort in Pune. We had THE best time (probably the most fun I’ve had in ages), and we saw the most beautiful things…birds, flowers, the most beautiful sights of the rustic land…and had the yummiest fresh food under the shade of some trees. Yup, that was quite some day. (Thanks!)
Srirangapatnam:
Mysore Palace (probably THE most beautiful palace I’ve EVER seen. It was just astounding)
Have you said hello to Mahishisura?
The famous Chamundeshwari Temple
(The Goddess Chamundi killed the wicked Mahishisura Rakshas (lovely pic above). The temple is in the Chamundi Hills)
The Goddess herself. Women (and Goddess) Power!
Last, but oh definitely not the least (how can it ever be the least), THE FOOD! Which is what everyone goes home for. Every foreigner. No matter what they tell you. Because can you get the same taste at any restaurant in the world? Can you get the same tandoori chicken, the same sweet corn soup, the same aloo tikki, the same saag and makki roti, the same peda and phetha and laddoo and gulabjamun? And the uncle chips, pudina flavor, which you’ve loved since you were about three? Can you get fed with the same love, care, pressurizing? Can you be filled to bursting point each meal, and then be offered some chai? Where else will your didi feed you sabji-roti with her hands, and where else will you eat the juiciest, sweetest, red carrots? Where else can mausis make your favorite foods and sweets and you almost cry because its just all so good and yummy and touching.
Now I’m hungry, and nostalgic and sad. And I didn’t take any pictures of the food. Oh darn.
This has TOTALLY made my day. Maybe my week. Its been a while since I did a search for 이승열/Lee Seung Yeol (I was in the habit of googling him often in search of new info earlier). Today, seeing the hits for my post on him (here), I thought I’d give it a shot. And I found a video of his live performance! Wonderful! I am not sure how rare this is, but this is the first one I’ve seen. If anyone else knows of any other, please let me know! Many thanks to gesa04!
He is performing 비상 (Bi Sang, or Fly High), which was on the OST of the Wonderful Days.
I think the entire performance is amazing, and his voice just sounds so much more wonderful and energetic live. I’d kill to go to concert! The band giving him company does a great job. He seems really focused and entranced, and its interesting how he sings really close to the mike. John Mayer does the same thing.
For the first time ever, I’ve been really jetlagged. For the past couple days I’ve been in a zombie state, and crashed randomly come 8-9pm. I think its the joint effect of being sick for most of the trip and getting little/no sleep, plus traveling constantly which makes for a terrible schedule. I don’t do well with randomized schedules.
While I don’t like writing about the personal bits of any trip, I will comment on the overall feeling of being back. Firstly, it wasn’t as shocking as I had expected it would be. Not until I got back to my home town, which was actually the only place which would be familiar anyway. And while it was very strange to be unable to identify the roads for a day or two, it was sad more than shocking. Sad in a ‘well, yes, ofcourse’ kind of way. It was expected. And then, when I did start looking beyond the new shinyness and development and saw those same roads and places I knew it was somewhat comforting and nostalgic for a little while.
But see, this has what has changed the most everywhere I went in India: there’s a lot of development. There are supermarkets, which sell everything from everywhere nowadays. There are malls and electronics stores and car dealerships, pizza huts and mcdonalds, all the sure-fire signs of a society becoming rich and growing Westernized with a zeal. There are a lot of things that I didn’t grow up with, that bring a lot of comfort to life and which are good to see. Everyone has a cell phone (and everyone means everyone. Even the rickshaw drivers. I think someone once saw a beggar with one).
But while this is great change in eight years, and while I’m really glad for it, it isn’t exactly what I imagined when everyone talked excitedly to me about how wonderful life has become in India. How everything is dramatically different. How its all comfort and sugar and spice. Because it wasn’t. You might not agree with me, completely understandably, and you might have your own reasons for it, but my eyes (ofcourse, jaundiced with activism), saw a somewhat different picture.
And I wasn’t looking at things pessimistically or critically. This is my country as much as anybody else’s, and I went with hope and eagerness. I hoped to be able to exclaim proudly at the wonderful changes and throw around compliments. But I didn’t get the chance to do that, because underneath all the fancy, dressy facade, nothing had really changed. Nothing that had formed the reason for my adaptation to this country. I didn’t leave because I wanted to shop in malls, or eat at Pizza Hut, or get a burger and then go to a giant multiplex. And those are also not the reasons I love America. Opportunity, respect (as a person not in the upper ranks of society and as a woman), the desire to not be faced by the hopelessness of life every day, the chance to be active in society and actually watch my actions create change…those factors are why I have adapted here.
While it may seem unfair and while its hard to hear and write about, these are the factors that are yet to change back home. I did not expect poverty to be eliminated, but I also did not expect the gap to have increased. While the middle class can now afford gigantic palace-like houses, the slums haven’t changed one bit. While the middle and upper classes may be getting better care in the hospitals (though that may be questionable with the reservation system, but thats for another time), the lower classes are still catered to by inadequate, dirty, and makeshift government clinics by overworked doctors and nurses (I should know this, I had to be rushed to one mid-journey and even while I was half-conscious, I was painfully aware that this was not where I should be). Beggar children still clamored and hung onto my arms. The rich still got away with murder (a car ran over four people at 5pm in the city. The driver was drunk, and presumably, from a rich family. The police came too late and I doubt any action was taken). The apathy has become stronger than ever, settled in like pollution and become a part of the environment. Natural human conscience, just plain goodness, is still biding its time somewhere else: my mother and I observed a large middle class family joyfully and greedily stuff themselves and their children while their children’s young caretaker (probably 7-8?), starkly brown and destitute against their rich, whiter, skins, sat right there morosely and hungrily. Not only was it unthinkable to buy her some food of her own, but the family was cruel enough to have her sit right there with their gluttunous family. I wished them all cases of severe appendicitis.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sitting here pointing out all the deficits I noticed, whining or complaining like the typical ‘NRI-foreigner’. Though it may come off like this right now, I actually hate the kind who sit around and describe the negative side of India and all that BS, like they dropped from heaven and don’t belong to the same place. I am from there, and I’m proud of it…so much of who I am is because of my culture, my traditions, my ethnicity, the values I was raised with in India. Like I’ve said, there’s a lot of good change. There are new roads and highways (Mumbai-Pune highway: amazing), there are new sources of employment, there are greater opportunities than there were eight years ago. The people who can afford it have the chance to live a fantastic life. I’m proud of all of this. But as a child of that nation, I also have the right (perhaps the duty), to observe that there’s a long a way to go. Everything isn’t fine and dandy, and as people who have it in our power to make changes there, we should be well aware of this.
I love America simply because there is unabounded opportunity for anyone who wants it and wants to work for it, and because there is an ingrown desire to cause change and better life. I’m upset at India only because there are all the tools for these same qualities–the nation is rich (don’t believe otherwise, its just corruption thats sucking it away) the economy is booming, a significant portion is getting richer and growing in many ways, the education is probably the best in the world, even the entertainment sector is growing and maturing–and yet with all this, there’s not enough where it needs to be. More importantly, there isn’t enough drive to make it change. I know (too well), that change doesn’t happen overnight. But I also know that you need the drive, the feeling, the sacrifice of apathy, to initiate change. When does that happen?
In one way, what everyone tells me is right. If you’re rich, if you can afford a house, a car (preferably with a driver), and servants, and have a nice chunk of income (all this isn’t hard to get), then life is absolutely great. Actually, better than America, since you don’t have to worry about cooking, cleaning, laundry, driving, any of the mundane and tiring chores of life. You can live life the way you want, you can socialize, relax, shop, travel, enjoy the simple pleasures. You just have to close your eyes to the woman begging at your window, and forget about the slums a minute walk from your house, and stay in your social circle. But I have great respect for the people I know who live this comfortable life, yet, have quietly but actively begun to cause change, participate in or create movements to improve the life of those who are far from this life. Who are actively trying to pull street children off the streets, who are trying to lobby for the betterment of life with housing projects, who may live the good life but haven’t closed their eyes to their maidservant’s much different plight.
In the end, I wasn’t impressed by the mega marts and the malls and the restaurants and the cell phones. I appreciated the comfort of life there, the time to relax and slow down, the chance to be catered to, to not have to worry about the dishes and the laundry. I was appreciative of all the positive changes (especially the Metro. That was pretty freakin’ amazing. Just to have any place in India lasting this long without betel stains and garbage on the tracks is laudable and its so convenient!). I was proud of the media and the youth which is clearly less tolerant than it was eight years ago. News isn’t hidden and suppressed anymore with money and threats, and the youth are the propellants of this new phase. The media gets to where the injustice is, makes it known, and joins the fight where the police force doesn’t. And while biases always exist, I feel the urge to trust media there much more than the suspicious sources that are trying to feed the nation fabrications here. I was happy that my friends have more opportunities and more ways to direct themselves to than there were when I was a child.
I also came back aware of what was lacking, and with heightened respect for all those working to fill these gaps in that kind of environment. I came back driven to join forces one day when I have the means and knowledge to do so. And I think thats why it was necessary to stay honest to myself. If I refused to acknowledge these deficiencies, I’d stay happily away from actively working for a solution (however small my contribution), and I want a chance to do that.
And I came back grateful for the life I had here. It isn’t easy. I’ve worked hard for it and I keep working hard, just like everyone else here. And this country can be crazy and difficult, with deep seated issues in its young psychology. But I’m proud to live here. It has taught me how to be a person who has ambition, aim, and the drive to help, so I can serve both where I came from, and what I’m a part of, and I’m glad for that.
Mitasha Muses 
