It is customary to celebrate month of Paush (mid-December to mid-January, 10th month of Hindu calendar) with variations of Pithe (rice crepes stuffed with sweet coconut). Like many celebrations, it is linked to harvest. The freshly harvested paddy along with date-palm syrup (nolen gur) are at foundation of pithe. We celebrated a little later this year while we recovered from the flooding.
Not that Pithe needs updating but it continues to get updated even in Bengal. Our experiments whipped up a kaya (coconut jam) smeared rice crepe with maple syrup roasted grated fresh coconut. The rice crepe is made with rice flour, coconut milk, and egg. We had coconut sugar at home and could have used that to sweeten the grated coconut but we chose maple syrup instead. The maple syrup replaced nolen gur, both are saps that can subsequently be hardened into sugar. Neither of the syrups is a replacement for other, but they are sprit sisters. Black seeds of cardamom perfumed the rice crepe batter as well as coconut stuffing. We had learned about kaya watching Ms. Beryl Shereshewsky try a singaporian toast. Our grated coconut filling was sweetened with maple syrup alone and not too much at that, so the kaya helped balance out the sweetness while enhancing the coconut flavor even further.
Heart of a pithe – more like an ear of pithe listening to sounds of rain.
Warrior’s plume (aka Indian warrior) are already in bloom in Edgewood. Would you believe that we managed to get off trail in this park, a park that we have visited over 50 times in last eight years! On the last leg of the hike, a short distance from the park entrance on Old Stage Road, we took a wrong fork on Sylvan trail and found ourselves on the residential Sylvan Way.
The weekends have continued to be wet. A drizzly weekend found us on another round of mushroom hunting. This time, it was private and public lots of Portola valley. We saw more banana slugs than mushrooms this time.
We have been getting out on paved roads when we can. Flowers are starting to bloom all around the neighborhood. This one is a particular favorite of mine, I believe it is a black tulip magnolia. Our star magnolia tree started flowering in early January to coincide with the month of Paush.
This particular tulip magnolia tree is still young and I can get close to the flowers and buds. The mature blossoms are as large as my hand, maybe even larger.
Backhaus bakery in San Mateo supplies bread and pretzels to Wursthall restaurant, Kenji Lopéz-Alt started this restaurant in 2017 when he was in Bay Area. We picked up a porridge and date loaf and a mini chocolate sourdough.
Full of chocolate indeed. Promptly eaten topped with softened butter and crunchy raw sugar. Yum.
A buried car on the Rambler trail in Belmont’s Waterdog Park. Bike tire imprints on muddy parts of Finch, Rambler, Elevator and Ohlone trails were a constant reminder of the park’s popularity.
Locomotoring 
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