July22, 2009 -- Indian dinner at Shoba's

What was envisioned as a cooking lesson taught by Shoba Havalad (lately profiled in the Pioneer Press locally as a superb Indian chef) quickly turned into just another raucous dinner with fabulous Indian dishes we all somewhat contributed toward and enjoyed to the bitter end!!
Shoba, always gracious, agreed to take on various Sweets and Lanes for an evening and so we gathered -- David and Trica, Morton and Claudia, Rhodri and Marilla, Sandy and Eva, and Megan -- to be educated, but mainly to be well fed. We became the blue team, the red team, and the brown team, the latter seemed to get distracted by wedding pictures early on, but rallied at the end.







All this took place in Shoba's recently remodeled kitchen in Glenview which has the look of a TV set, it is so perfect and stunning. Some of us manned the kitchen (or pretended to) while others escaped to the outdoor terrace to discuss the arc of life and responsibility -- not a frivolous group, this one!!


Shoba lavished special treats on us from paneer (fried cheese coated in some kind of fabulous spicy sauce and later a paneer curry) to chicken biriyani to catfish curry to mirchi kaa saalan (banana peppers cooked in roasted spices and coconut masala) to lamb cutlets and finally banana wontons. All these were enhanced with raita and a carrot raita, spicy garbanzo beans, and a tandoori shrimp over mango and cucumber salad.

We all waddled out, but quite happily, especially after discovering the trick to decanting wine is to strain it into a giant Pyrex measuring cup!!