Someone's in the kitchen with Lhamo

Thanks to Lonely Planet, I decided to take a Tibetan cooking class during my stay in McLeod Ganj. I spent three wonderful mornings with Lhamo, a local Tibetan and learned how to make momos (dumplings), soup and bread.



The classes were great. Lhamo's a pro.



The momos were the best. We made veggie momos, spinach and cheese momos and brown-sugar sesame-seed momos.



We made the momo dough and rolled the momo dough.



Then we steamed the momos. Then we ate the momos. We ate them with a mixture of cabbage, soy sauce and ketchup. I asked if ketchup was authentic Tibetan food. Lhamo said in Tibet they would use fresh tomatoes, but he liked ketchup.



Day two: Soup!



First we made small momos then put them in a homemade soup broth.



Day three: bread!



This little pocket is full of veggies, spices and oil. We made the dough from scratch and knotted it and put in the oven.



Bread number two involved twisting.



And oily hands.



We steamed the twisted dough and veggie mixture and baked the knotted loaf. Everything was amazing.

I held off from posting and recipes so you'll have to visit Lhamo yourself when you're in the area. The classes were 300 Rs each or about $6 CAD. Not too shabby for a deliciously home-cooked meal that you had a part in making.

A walk through prayer flags

Everyday I was in McLeod Ganj I took a walk around the Tsuglagkhang Temple complex. The temple itself is the most important Buddhist temple in the city and the majority of Tibetans I talked with said they go to the temple everyday. The temple itself was alright, but I only went inside once. The rest of the time I just walked through the wooded area just below on a path. It was all quite inspiring in the morning light, surrounded by Tibetan prayer flags. I took a ton of pictures of the flags. Almost too many I'd say.












A part of the walk around the temple included a whole slew of prayer wheels. You're meant to spin the wheel clockwise and each time around is equal to one "om" which is just good for the soul, really.