For those who are not aware, I am on a 52 weeks adventure this year where in I decide my own adventures! For more details, check out here!
This Sunday was the perfect weather to be out in the parks, grill and barbecue and of course spend time with a bunch of enthusiastic folks! And guess what? I did exactly the same with my Toastmasters Club Picnic.
There was breeze, there was food, there were chats, there was dance, there was yoga and yes there was a LOT of fun at the Welleby Park in Sunrise Florida!
We had 'Concours Plantation de la Cuisine Contest' with all the participants getting food in the side dish/salad and dessert categories. I had prepared rava dhokla or savory semolina bites with sweet mint chutney or dip. Dhokla is usually prepared with gram flour but this was my first attempt to replace gram flour with semolina. The dhoklas had come out really fluffy and yummy. Many of the folks could not guess that it was made of semolina :) Since it was prepared for the American palate, the spice levels were minimal.
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| Look at the gorgeous fluffiness :) |
We had good spread for the side dish/salad - cole slaw, greek salad, bacon brocolli salad, dhokla and for the dessert - chocolate cake, brownies, lemon poppy cakes, cupcakes, dry fruit ladoos and cookies.
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| The side dish/salad spread |
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| The side dish/salad spread |
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| The dessert spread |
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| The dessert spread |
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| The dessert spread |
We also had a Grill Master who made hot well prepared chicken hamburgers, hot dogs, turkey burgers and beef hot dogs.
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| Our Grill Master - Eric(a) Jacobson |
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| Hot dogs, anyone? |
Along with the food, we had the quintessential chats and catching up where everyone was raving about the delicious food and learning what is going in everyone's life!
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| Yummy food! |
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| Linda, why don't you visit us anymore? |
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| The catching up |
Post the food, the real fun began. I played a game called 'bocce' for the first time. It is a game where you try to throw a ball nearest to the smallest ball on ground. The team with the most proximity to the smallest ball wins. You need to play it to understand it better.
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| Bocce Champions ;) |
Bocce was followed with a 30 minute yoga session. I cannot thank Terry enough for the lovely guided meditation, kapalbharati and surya namaskar (sun salutation). When I told my dad about the yoga session he commented, "So you had to go thousands of miles away from India to learn Surya Namaskar and Yoga which originated in India and that too from an American!! Wow that is epic!"
It is indeed epic ;)
Then we had the fun part. Dumb Charades and some crazy music and dance. I still can't go up the stage and dance. I feel I am a lousy dancer. I am best dancer on the chair ;) meaning I will do all my dance moves sitting on a chair! Ask me to go to the stage and I am all shy. I need to work on that BIGTIME!
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| Me trying to enact the movie 'The Postman always rings twice' |
We ended the day on a high note and thoroughly enjoyed our day out in the park. Here is a video capturing all the crazy moments of the picnic -
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