50% Success Achieved

I do believe I have great ideas up my sleeve - it's just the implementation aspect - which is kind of tricky and I havn't been able to get a tight hold of it yet. Well, I can assure you guys, the goal isn't very far now. I can almost see the finishing line now. Didn't I warn you earlier that I am an optimist? One of my school teacher's said years ago that to be successful in life one needs to know the goal, the destination. The reason being that if you don't know where you want to go, then how on earth are you going to find the way. No SatNav/GPS can help you in that situation either :-). So, I humbly tell myself that I am 50% successful already, as I know my goal, my destination is clear to me. I need to just define a path to get there. A cafe in India - A cafe which becomes the soul of the people - a cafe that understands the soul of its customers, understands what makes them tick. A cafe - to which all the roads will lead to. I need to stop now - I could go on and on.....but, I can't take the risk of putting my blog readers to sleep, can I?

What else done one need to get a cafe going? Perhaps some money, a place, some staff, some food and ofcourse the almighty customer. I am sort of sorted on the food front, staff won't be an issue either. The most challenging areas are generation of capital and finding a location. We'll sort that too. Then ofcourse, I will need to call out to folk and invite them to be my customers.

Time to close this post and a little something for you on this hot summer's day. All my customers used to to love this (will tell you about this venture at a later date)


Mung and Vegetable Salad (for 2)

Ingredients
1 cup of mung beans (washed)
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1/2 red pepper, de-seeded and finely chopped
1/4 cucumber, de-seeded and finely chopped
1 cup coriander, finely chopped
1/2 pomegranate seeds
1 black cardomom
1 tsp chat masala (available in asian stores)

Dressing
sea salt
Juice of 1 lime
1 tsp finely chopped coriander
1" ginger, finely sliced (long slices)
1" green chilli, de-seeded and finely sliced (long slices)

Method
1. Boil the mung beans in water with the whole black cardomom until just cooked (al dente)
2. Once the beans are cooked, cook on high heat until all the water evaporates
3. Add the chat masala and cook on low heat for about 1 min. This gives a nutty texture.
4. When the beans are cooled, add all the veg
5. Prepare the dressing, by mixing all the ingredients of the dressing together
6. Add the dressing just before serving

Hope you enjoy this. Everybody I have made it for, absolutely loves it.