From Russian Soups to Chilly Paneer - Russian Wife in India

♨This will be interesting for me to look back and see how well I, a girl who spent 23 years of her life in her native country, realigned herself for new settings in just 4 years. It quite amazes me but time flew so fast I now perhaps won't be able to recollect those impressions as they were.
Every country has its unique "taste", so does India, one of the most savoury countries in the world. The food of Indian subcontinent is definitely something to pay attention to, to discuss, to love or to ... dislike. Take it or leave it. Nonetheless if you are a permanently living in India foreign wife, you will have hard time adjusting to Indian food if you cannot stand spices. I was lucky (as well as my D) to be one of those foreign wives to teach my taste buds to like spicy and oily table. The first meal I had here was an omelet we bought at the bus station cafe when we arrived from Delhi. It was yumm, but it had some little green rings of some vegetable in it - green chillies! I had to dig them out from the omelet following a timely advice by my D.

On my first day in the city I was settled in a paying guest (called PG here) facility with some Indian girls. That evening I was hungry and the girls helped to fetch some rice, it looked great, all vegetarian, and I digged into it and had two-three spoons at once... When after a while I realized that my tongue as well as ears were on fire! It was so spicy and felt like it burned all the insides.
The days later my D was taking me to the university canteen where I tried Indian paneer with gravy, which I enjoyed a lot however fighting with chillies in it too. But I started liking Indian food almost straight away and after a while couldn't imagine my meal without pickles or green chillies (I got ya!). See my old post.
The food transition for a Russian girl used to tasty but rather plain Russian soups, minimum salt  and pepper in her dishes, went smoothly. The only thing is that after some time I start missing my country's cuisine very much. In those cases I cook something rather Russian like soup or simply take a piece of bread and put butter on it and eat with tea or coffee. My tongue still craves for "simple" taste without any spices added.
A peculiar thing is that Indians like to eat fruits (grapes, watermelon, papaya, apples) with black salt and black pepper. After I tried it that way several times and my throat didn't thank me, I simply made a point that I prefer a pure taste of the fruits.
Another challenge for me at times (though I don't cook much) is to make a dish which meets my Indian husband's taste. He likes Russian food a lot especially the one prepared by my mom, but I know that he expects me to cook Indian style at least a little bit. As I am a rather independent person I asked Indian food cooking tips from my in-laws very rarely, choosing Internet as my teacher. I believe I managed to make something resembling Punjabi kidney beans and channa (chickpea) and even tried to make South Indian dosas and vadas! Otherwise almost whatever I cook turns out to be of a mixed Indo-Russian taste, I can't help it. Here is what Russian I tried to cook in India, not much but it made me happy:
Taste of Dacha - vegetables in a pan, my Mom's recipe.
Cooking the Crescents - Russian dish vareniki with potato.
Apple Pie - called Sharlotka in Russian.