Taste of Freedom

After the flag-raising ceremony yesterday, we had a great selection of vendors that set up shop in the quad for an all-you-can-eat extravaganza. To protect us from the rain, the whole quad was covered with a big shamiana.

At any good Indian function, you need somewhere to get your masala chai (though Dave stayed away from this and stuck to water).

The kids were excited about eating something different and out of the ordinary. They stood in long lines to get chicken, dosas, kebabs, naan, and many other delicacies.

This man was cooking up the kebabs which were quite tasty.

They also had a tandoor oven cooking so that we could have fresh-baked naan. It was amazing to watch him sticking his hand in to put dough on the clay sides of the oven to cook.

The aloo tikki was especially good, as evidenced by Beth's glee.

This vendor told us he'd been making this kind of bread for 22 years. He was quite adept at spinning the dough in the air like a pizza and then flipping it on the hot grill with his bare hands.

We also had plenty of sweets to sample including jalebis. These are a bit like the deep-fried funnel cakes of county fairs. After they're fried, they're soaked in a super sweet honey syrup mixture. The round ones are gulab jamuns. These are kind of like donuts that get the same soaking treatment.

It was a great meal with lots of variety. We may never get anything like this all in one place again unless we stick around here at Woodstock for another year (don't worry, moms and dads, we're not planning on it).

Dave and Beth