August 13

 Back for an overnight stay before moving on to Sophia Bulgaria this afternoon. We did two more seminars on Prasadam last night and this morning. Its always a popular topic. Especially when I get talking about cooking for Srila Prabhupada.

 Upendra learning how to use Prabhupada’s three-tiered cooker:

Srila Prabhuapda’s Vyasapuja is coming up and the devotees were eager to hear what preparations he especially liked, so that they can cook them for his birthday.

So here are a few: Kachories, of course, especially with green pea stuffing. Here’s three Bengali preparations he was very fond of: shukta, neem begun, and batichachari. I guess you can get the receipes from either Kurma or from one of Yamuna’s cook books, Lord Krishna’s Cuisine.

I used to make a few fried preps. for Srila Prabhupada: Chira or flat rice, deep fried and mixed with deep fried green peas and small potato cubes, spiced with salt, pepper, red chili powder and diced fresh green chilies. And deep fried vada (bora), from urd dahl soaked overnight and blended the next morning, mixed with salt, pepper, red and green chili, all deep fried in small round balls. And a variation on the vada: instead of deep frying, make small patties and shallow fry on both sides.

Well, its back to Bratislava again.

Rather than take my own advice to ring up and re-confirm my booking, I simply followed the ticket and printout given by my travel agent and turned up at Bratislava airport at 3.30 PM ready for my departure at 4.30 PM. I was to fly to Sophia in Bulgaria via Munich, stay over night with devotees and then drive to Skopje, Macedonia the next day. However, when I arrived at the airport, there was no sign of my flight on the departure board. Inquiry at Lufthansa revealed that the flight had actually been cancelled in March, and that I was actually scheduled on a flight that had already left two hours before, at 1.30 PM. Somehow my travel agent had messed up and booked me on the old flight, and now, because I didn’t reconfirm, I missed the flight.

Not everyone was complaining though. Back to Bratislava temple and one last class in the evening, this time a general questions and answers, one about the soft and strict sides of Srila Prabhupada’s dealings, another about farm communities.

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