Bollywood Dance

I haven't danced since the final year of college. But I always wanted to learn how to dance. When I heard about Mona Khan Dance Company from my SIL, I was eager to give it a chance. I signed up right away.

It was a 8 week session with an hour long class each week. It being a performance quarter, we also had a technical rehearsal before the final performance. The first day I reached class, I was very excited as well as scared whether I'd be able to grasp the steps. The teacher, Shipali introduced herself as well as the assistant teacher, Dhanashri. She told us we were going to learn the choreography for two songs-Rock the party (I had never heard the song before) and High heels.

I was exhausted after the first class especially since I hadn't been doing any cardio for a while. The teacher recorded the last 5 mins of the class and sent over a detailed email on the steps that we learnt in class along with the video recording. This was super helpful in remembering the steps.

After the first few classes, all the students decided to meet on the weekend to practice. It was fun meeting at a different house each week and dancing. There was a lot of food and chit chat along with the practice. It was quite tough to get everyone to come at a common time but we tried.

On the last class, we had a dress rehearsal.

We then had the tech rehearsal at Chabot college in Hayward. It gave us the exact feel of the final performance day. It was useful to mark our positions on stage and to get over the stage fear a little.

On the final performance day, Vishnu, SIL and BIL all came to watch the show.

I was pumped and happy about my hair, makeup and overall look.

When our performance started, there was some difficulty with the stage curtain and we had to stop and restart. That was a little unsettling but we managed to give a superb performance. Everyone gave their best and I'm very happy with the final result. Our 8 weeks of hard work showed and I surprised myself with my performance.

I've signed up for the next session (non performance) and I'm looking forward to improving my skills and learning some fun steps.

Cooking Event

I am not particularly crazy about cooking.But when our team organized an offsite at a cooking school, I wanted to try it out.

 

The event was conducted at the Draeger's Market in Menlo Park. A small section of the store is turned into a cooking school. We arrive there at 11.30am. The 15 of us were divided in 3 groups. 'Rustic Italian' was the theme for the day. 3 groups together was responsible for cooking up one complete meal. Keeping with the theme, the groups were appropriately named as 'Team Milan (my team, yay!),' Team Rome' and 'Team Venice.' Each team was also assigned a dedicated chef to help them.

Team Milan

Team Rome and Venice made a salad, grilled vegetable and dessert. 

Blending

Grilling

Our team was tasked with making 'Homemade Farafelle in creamy lemon sauce with peas and mint.' This was exactly what I wanted to make so I was thrilled. All ingredients were duly measure and prepped for us to work with. Our chef, Sukanya, had already kneaded some dough for pasta and also made a sample of the farafelle pasta. There was fresh flour, eggs and butter kept ready in the blender. All our team had to do was run the blender to get the dough kneaded. The next part was the most interesting. The dough was then put through a pasta maker and rolled multiple times to get flattened strips. These were then cut using serrated cutters and then pinched to make the bow-tie pasta. Everyone took turns to do this. Afterall we were making pasta for 15 people so we used all the help we could get.

Pasta making

More pasta making

I took up the job of chopping onions. I got started with it and chopped a whole bunch of them. Others busied themselves with zesting and juicing lemons, cutting cherry tomatoes and chopping mint leaves.

Chopping

Once all the vegetables were done, we moved on to make the sauce. Most were still occupied with the pasta so I took over the making of sauce. A large quantity of butter was melted, onions sauteed, heavy cream and spices were added. Post a few tastings and adjustments we were ready with the sauce. It was a fun experiment. With Sukanya in tow, I had no fear of going wrong.

Sauteeing

 

Once all teams were done, the final touch was provided by the chefs and post a 15 minute break, the meals were served. Unfortunately, I didn't click any pictures of the final product :( But it was a satisfying meal with the best dish being the pasta!

It is a fun place to be and can be an excellent team building activity. I hear kids host their birthday parties there although it is quite an expensive affair. Nevertheless I had a great time donning the Chef's apron followed by a delicious lunch. They even provided us a copy of all the recipes scaled down for 6.

What: Cooking class
Where: Draeger's Market 1010 University Dr, Menlo Park CA
Fee: $125