Chai anyone?

Two weeks ago we traveled over to my Mom and Dad's neck of the woods for my cousin's wedding. A friend of mine watched the girls while we went to the ceremony and reception. I have to admit, it was really nice to go to a wedding and actually enjoy myself instead of chasing my kids around. My kids are usually pretty well behaved, but let's face it. They are 4 and nearly 2 years old, and their attention spans are very short. So Todd and I had a date, and since that actually occurs about once every 7 years, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The next day we went to church with my parents, and then out to eat one of our favorite foods- Indian.

Now if you know anything about my family, you know that we are not meat and potatoes sort of people. Sure, my parents grew up on meat and potatoes, but somewhere about 10 years into their marriage, they really started to branch out into the joys of food that has more than just salt and pepper on it. My dad traveled to India in the late 80's and when he returned, he couldn't wait to share the traditional cuisine with his family. Being from a traditionally Dutch part of Michigan, that desire was nigh unto impossible to fulfill. So when we took a trip to Washington DC shortly after my dad returned, we got our 1st exposure to the types of food my dad ate on his trip.

I was 12 years old at the time, and I still remember walking the dark streets of DC in search of this restaurant. We kids didn't really realize it, but there was a huge gay pride demonstration going on (close your eyes kids!) and put that together with it being night time in an unknown city with 4 young kids, and I think my dad felt as stressed out as he did when trying to navigate his way through a swarm of people on the streets of New Delhi. Anyway, we made it to the restaurant safe and sound. While I don't remember much about what I ate that night, I do seem to remember that we all seemed to enjoy the meal. That was my first taste of the wonders of naan (a flat bread) and lassi (a sweet yogurt drink). And maybe it's just because I was 12, and my memory is a bit foggy at that point, but I don't remember any of us kids really hating that sort of food. Now that we are all grown up, we all get so excited at the mere mention of an Indian buffet. You just don't get those same tastes anywhere else. In fact, when I graduated from college, guess what type of neighborhood I moved to? Indian. I didn't move there for the food, but hey, I never complained about the convenience of it either.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Todd and I hadn't been to an Indian restaurant since I was pregnant with Emma, 5 years ago. So we were very excited to taste this yummy food again. When we got to the restaurant, it was around 12:30, and the place was packed. There was really no order to the place; someone took our name, but our confidence level was not very high that we would actually be called when a table was free. After waiting about 1/2 an hour, we finally got a seat. By this point, the kids were hungry and Ella was getting really tired. I quickly got some food for them, but since I knew that most of the food was spicy, I stuck with plain rice, naan, a little chicken, and some rice pudding. Todd and I fixed our plates and sat down to enjoy our meals, but right about that time, Ella decided she really didn't want to sit in her highchair. She started screaming , and wouldn't let anyone but Todd hold her. Emma began to make faces and started complaining about how horrible the food was. The only thing either of them would really eat was the rice pudding, and I couldn't keep it coming fast enough. Apparently, neither could the chef, because it ran out right in the middle of our personal caos. We ended up eating our food as fast as we could and high-tailing it out of there, trying to avoid any more embarrassing moments. I think it will be a while before we try to instill the love of Indian food in our children. We'll have to save that for our next date night.