Recipe of the month: Cinnamon Pancakes with Fresh Fruit

I love pancakes and I love fresh fruit. Combine them together and you can never go wrong. Pancakes are delightfully versatile in that you can combine them with a variety of sweet or savoury ingredients and they taste great. The best part about pancakes is how easy they are to make. I am sure there are hundreds of different recipes for pancakes out there but I always stick to this particular one. I have slightly modified the recipe to suit my taste. I make sure to measure my ingredients each time so the pancakes turn out consistently good.

My Great American Adventure

First and foremost, this is a super-duper photo heavy post (you have been warned). It isn't without reason though - considering the number of places within the vast country that I have managed to visit, I have that much to say and show you.

My first trip to the USA was in 2007 and came about after my husband was sent to Milwaukee  in Wisconsin on work for a year. My second trip was in 2009 when I went as a grad student to present a research paper at an International conference in Seattle, Washington. 

I have written this post in a journal style. This post has helped jog my memory and relive all the moments that made both trips truly special.

Here are some snippets of my experiences in USA.

Welcoming our World Champions!

ICC Cricket World Cup 2011

  

I am no sports fan. Let me get that out of the way. The only reason I watch any sports at all is because of the influence of my husband who is one of the biggest fan of sports that I know. 

The only reason I have written this blog post is to preserve a precious memory 😊 

As you many have heard before, cricket is not merely a sport in India - it is a religion! We take our cricket very seriously. Probably every little boy in India acquires a plastic bat and ball by the age of three. Drive through any Indian city on a weekend and you will most likely see groups of kids and adults of all ages playing cricket in empty fields, streets, backyards and narrow gullies. 

Cricket is the only sport we care passionately about and in front of which, all other sports take a backseat. Sure, we have an International football and hockey team, tennis greats like Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati, chess grandmaster and world champion Viswanathan Anand, Olympic medal holding athletes, promising badminton players and our own Formula One racing team, yet, when it comes to popularity, all the other sports pale in comparison to cricket. It does seem a tad unfair since the domination of one sport takes away credit from all the other sporting heroes who have time and again brought pride to our country. 

Cricketers in India enjoy the same level, if not greater popularity than celebrities do. They are always in the news, be it their on-field performance or off-field antics. Having said that, being a cricketer in India is not an easy job for as much praise and honor they are lavished with after winning a tournament, the same intensity of anger and disappointment comes their way after experiencing defeat. They can be worshiped and placed on a pedestal and the very next minute dropped unceremoniously to the ground. 

Major cricket tournaments always generate much hype and excitement in India. Friends and family get together to watch the match, the streets are devoid of traffic and usually empty, special prayers are performed to seek blessings for the team, the release dates of new movies are postponed and you don't anticipate any power cuts on those days. It goes to such an extent that any knock-out match featuring India in a tournament such as the World Cup which takes place once in four years can have most educational educations and offices declaring half day off 😄