Split Pea Dal Recipe

“Dal (also spelled Dahl or Daal) is a preparation of pulses (dried lentils, peas or beans) which have been stripped of their outer hulls and split. It also refers to the thick stew prepared from these pulses, an important part of Indian, Nepali,Pakistani, Sri Lankan, West Indian and Bangladeshi cuisine. It is regularly eaten with rice and vegetables in southern India, and with both rice and roti (wheat-based flat bread) throughout northern India and Pakistan. Dal is a ready source of proteins for a balanced diet containing little or no meat. Sri Lankan cooking of dal resembles that of southern Indian dishes.”

– Wikipedia

I had always wanted to cook dal but I hadn’t had a clue about how to create the rich, thick texture until Alex kindly shared his recipe with me.

Tah dah – - -! It turns out to be a success, I love the subtle fragrance of the spices being mixed together, especially the taste of cumin seeds. I’m also glad that Max enjoys the new dish, it’s extremely easy to make and keep for the next day’s lunch box!

Friday is dal day!

Split Pea Dal Recipe – adaptation from Alex’s recipe

Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 45 min

Serves: 2 – 3

1 onion, chopped finely
4-5 slices of ginger
2 potatoes (about the size of a palm), sliced into small cubes
3-4 garlic cloves, crushed
4 cups of vegetable broth
1 cup of split peas, simmered in water for at least 30 min
1 tsp of mustard seeds
1 tbsp of cumin seeds
1 tbsp of chili powder
salt
parsley, chopped
dehydrated sea weeds, sliced
sesame

Heat a saucepan with maximum heat, add some oil, the chopped onion and sliced ginger. Stir fry until the onion turns brown. Add the potato and garlic, stir fry until the potato turns light brown. Season with salt.

Add the veggie broth. After it brings to a boil, add the split peas and cover the saucepan with a lid.When the mixture starts boiling, turn the heat to medium, add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and chili powder. Leave the mixture being heated for about 45 min. You may need to stir the mixture from time to time to make sure it doesn’t get burnt at the bottom.

Top dal on white rice or other grains of choice, sprinkle some chopped parsley, sea weeds, sesame or other vegetables.

Yogi and yogini, how do you prepare your dal?

x Tracy

Fall Colours in Montreal

Yeah we finally made it to Canada

While Max was working with his colleagues at McGill University and presenting his slide shows about computer science on Thursday and Friday, I was exploring this amazing university town alone.

The best way to explore a new place, I find, is walking and taking buses or subways.

Square Dorchester;
Cathedrale Marie-Reine du Monde;
Maple leaves;
Squirrel please don’t bite me!!!

View of Downtown Montreal from Mount Royal;
St Joseph’s Oratory;
University of Montreal;
Place Jacques-Cartier

Statue and and buildings in front of Notre-Dame;
Notre-Dame Basilica;
Interior view of the church;
Parc du Mont-Royal

I am very impressed with Montreal. The location couldn’t be better: it’s under a small hill and faces towards the ocean. When I was looking for direction, all I had to do was standing at a junction and looking for the views at both ends of the road. Montreal also holds a new town, an old town and several universities, the main streets look busy, affluent, prosperous in financial and cultural activities and sports games, yet the overall atmosphere is rather quiet and laid back compared to other metropolitans I’ve been to such as New York City, Taipei and London.

I was glad that Max was finally able to tour around the city with me on Saturday after his conference, and the weather was absolutely lovely — in the morning until late afternoon. After a whole day’s expedition we enjoyed lying down on the bed and watching tv (yeah I didn’t practice any asana or pranayama throughout the visit ;p). Guess what? Chinese soap opera was also on air!

We flew to Montreal from La Guardia Airport, but decided to take the train back to New York on Sunday. The gloomy weather was a bummer, but I still enjoyed the leafy, reddish and golden view outside the windows. At some point the train went past an area that looked like being surrounded by moors – which was a perfect complement to my reading of Wuthering Heights during the journey.

Goodbye Montreal!

x Tracy

Breaktime

After several months, I’ve finally finished crocheting a new cushion cover:

It looks like an up-sized pin cushion. The purple crochet pattern can be found here: Freesia Square. The four squares are sewn together into a bigger one, then I just crocheted the border around it.

I was also experimenting with fabric and yarn. I made a simple patchwork then sew the border with blanket stitch. The stitches serve as the foundation chain for crochet, and I was trying to create some pattern by using just single crochet.

Recently the temperature has dropped rather abruptly. Sometimes it’s gloomy and foggy, sometimes it can be showering the whole morning or afternoon.

But I think it’s the perfect time to light some candles, do some craft work, have some black tea and miss my dear old friends in England and Taipei.

What do you do when the season is changing?

x Tracy

Early Fall in Maine

Max and I travelled to Portland and Acadia National Park in mid-September. We used several means of transportation: NY -(Mega Bus)-> Portland -(rented car)-> Acadia National Park -(Amtrak)-> NY

It was a bit windy and chilly in Maine, so I didn’t get to wear the shorts and tanks I had brought along But I was glad that the yoga pants were keeping me warm! (Don’t you just love wearing yoga pants and running shoes all the time?!)

From top left, clockwise:

• the harbour in Portland;
• I was surprised to see a piece of the Berlin Wall in Portland;
• Portland was the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet and educator;
• On Peaks Island — we took the mail boats and went to see the small islands scattering in the Casco Bay;
• the licence plate of a mini-van that belonged to Fa Lun Gong — literally it means “quit the (Communist) Party”

In the afternoon we arrived at Acadia National Park, we hopped on a shuttle bus and went to Sand Beach. There was a trail on the other side of the beach, we climbed up the small rocky hill, it was fun! My knees were shaking when Max was taking my picture though!

We got up around 5.30am and drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain. It was extremely foggy in the early morning, and Max was complaining that the sun looked so flat!!!

Thanks to the dense fog, I discovered some beautiful spider webs at a harbour later that morning.

It took us about two hours to walk around Jordan Pond. At some point I spotted a tree that seemed to have been half-gnawed on its trunk… and some suspicious scratches on the surfaces of other tree trunks — were there beavers??? I kept looking, after quite a while I found something that looked like a nest.

Back in New York, our panda has a new friend! The first day they met they both went into the washer… And I look forward to bake some lobster-shaped Christmas cookies!

x Tracy

Adjustment Workshops with Guy Donahaye

Personally I love being adjusted, especially by a teacher whom I have been practising regularly with.

For two years I have practised in a Mysore style setting with three teachers on a regular basis, and I find the overall experience of hands-on adjustment highly beneficial. Sometimes the adjustment guides me to work towards a full pose, sometimes it reminds me of the alignment of the pose, sometimes it encourages me to explore the subtle aspects of the practice such as bandhas, breath, etc. Under such guidance, gradually I grow more and more independent from the teacher’s help, as I learn how to refine my practice and draw the attention inwards.

This amazing experience has constantly motivated me to study anatomy and the art of adjustment. In the past two years I had some experience in learning adjustment by taking intensive trainings and being an apprentice in a regular Mysore style class. When I knew I was going to move to New York, I was thrilled that I finally got the chance to meet Guy Donahaye, one of the very best Ashtanga teachers in NYC, and study with him in his adjustment workshops.

I took all the three workshops: Primary series foundation, Primary series refinements, Intermediate series adjustments. Learning to adjust from Guy felt like learning new poses in a Mysore style class:

After he had explained the alignment of a certain pose and demonstrated the adjustment twice on two different people, every one paired up and practised the adjustment through repetition and on different people. When we were practising, Guy was very attentive to what everybody was doing, he was giving assistance and answering questions with great patience. In some complicated poses, such as Marichyasana D, Supta Kurmasana, Pasasana and Kapotasana, he was either standing or sitting next to me, talking me through every single detail and guiding me with his touch — very much like teaching me a new asana in a Mysore style setting. And when I continued practising the same adjustment on other students, he might be helping someone else in the classroom but still kept checking on me until I was able to perform everything he had taught.

The workshops were limited to a very small number of people, and Guy’s assistant, Alex, was assisting too.

For students without any adjustment training, I think they had plenty of opportunities to ask questions, to focus on some of the fundamental, relatively simple yet effective adjustments by performing them on different bodies in a safe environment and reviewing the techniques every day.

For students with some adjustment training background, the workshops offered great opportunities to explore the more complicated adjustments, how to get deep into the poses safely and effectively for both the practitioner and adjuster.

Guy shared many wonderful experience in the workshops. He often talked about breathing — the adjuster, or the teacher, has to breathe consciously too. He had reminded me a few times about my breath when he was observing me adjusting a challenging pose, and made me see that when I lost my breath I started accumulating tension. Well, when a student forgets to breathe in a pose they can easily hurt themselves, and similar things could happen to the adjuster too when they are moving without breathing consciously — or worse, the student gets hurt at the same time. I believe the teacher’s conscious, deep breath is also important when leading a class. Sometimes when I talk too much in a class and become unable to breathe with students, I lose track of the rhythm of practice easily, and even feel distracted, overwhelmed by the stirring energy I have reflected to the whole class.

Some of the students I met at the workshops came from Boston, Ithaca, Buffalo; one of them even flew all the way from Hawaii. I plan to do Guy’s workshops again, maybe next year, even if that means I have to fly from Singapore to New York — needless for me to say how amazing these adjustment workshops are.

x Tracy