Songs from unstrummed guitars

The waiting rooms at my doctors office were always brightly lit and there were colorful fishes in little aquariums that spread on the walls. Yet, we could all spell out the gloominess, the darkness, the hopelessness curving onto us, waiting for the next call, next scan, next surgery dates.

I would sit there on the edges of the cushioned seats like everybody. Everybody in that room had the same body language. None would look directly into the eye of each other. We all knew on what our life depended on. Our young faces with imaginary wrinkles from the stress. Yet, I never could share it with anyone.

My swarming big family was always there, hugging kissing..caring. I was the big one, the big sister, the big aunt, the big niece, the big brave face, always giggling and carefree. Like the painting where the girl with the wind in her hair, looking out a window of sunny colorful blooms. and yet I didn't have anyone to share this pain. I held it within myself, scared to switch on the lights, scared to face a mirror.Yet I had to act as the big shoulder. the Big Girl to everyone.

One day, the person who sat next to me never looked at me but she started to speak in some strange language only I could understand. Suddenly she started to tell me her woes, just like that, without a start, without any punctuations, just deep breaths in between. I responded equally with vigor. You know, I said, I cannot even share this with my mother, yet I am very close to her. I felt she wouldn't understand...she said yes...same here.

We just stared at the fishes again. Its that feeling of that single sock that didn't get into the wash bin. That handkerchief on the clothes line, forgotten to be picked up, left for the next drizzle. Your life hanging on to strings of hope waiting for turns. Everywhere, every time. Like waiting in a long endless corridor, hearing the ticking of a huge grandfather clock, a room where there are no windows. The strange talk I had with a total stranger at a doctor’s office was one of the moments I found my feet to stand up and brave the World again.

Sometimes its just hard to believe that one exist. I did things never imagined, brutal. I was sick, poked into, scanned, buried, cut open, insulted, ridiculed, rebuked, hurt, cheated on. Sometimes by the closest dearest ones.

And at one such lowest point, a few days ago, I re meet an old friend of mine. Not exactly a friend, but he was always there in my class, his presence felt only through his music. We rarely spoke to each other other than in a long bus journey when we were forced to take it together due to a sudden public strike.

He was the guitarist in our college, never attending classes but the constant face in every concert. The teetotaler who never enjoyed the college life but was with his music. Rarely do you meet people like that in our trade, where everyone were flipping vocabulary cards for GRE and TOEFL. His fingers were always folded ...pretending to play music, strumming his guitar whether he had the guitar or not with him. And he would grin at me with when I shake my head when he fake plays. In that long journey, when I asked a child who was standing near me to be seated on my lap, he stopped and told me never to give space which you cannot. As I saw his name again on an FB list, those words just boomeranged into my life again projected from the clouds.

Strangely, he is now a photographer. I couldn't believe his new profession. Yet, I never asked why he changed but I mentioned his guitar and he said, he plays that only rarely these days. He is in Mumbai now and he is the unsettled one in our batch. My other friends in FB are full with settleness, smiling children’s pictures, the last vacations they took, the whoami-seeme displays.

His page is clean, nothing but his amazing brilliant stunning photographs. He is singing the song of unsettleness. We didn't exchange pleasantries, he never asked me what I am up to these days, the usual questions. It was okay whatever I am and it was okay whatever he is now. We dint need to know. Then silence.

There it is again, a stranger, a strange incident...gives me the vigor to stand on my feet again. Have the wind in my hair again. And learn to undo the things I so wanted to. Just needed to listen to the music from the guitars that were never played.

With that, I am starting my blog again in a new format. All I know is I love to write and I want to use the same space instead of a new one. This is going to be like a mix of songs, stories, politics, movies, and then food. Like a day of your life.

To start one, I started with a chocolate mousse. There were days when I didn't know what a hand mixer was and stiff egg whites meant, stirring in eggs and getting your hand stiff. I have come a long way, where the mousse is as heavenly as the one I had at Ebony in Bangalore a decade ago.

I followed Sanjeev Kapoor's recipe. Didnt add whipped cream, instead melted some chocolate and made rolls.

INGREDIENTS
Chocolate 150 grams
Coffee powder 1 tablespoon
Eggs, separated 4
Butter 1 tablespoon
Vanilla essence 1/2 teaspoon
Sugar 50 grams

METHOD
Melt chocolate in a bowl over a slow heat, used a double boiler or chocolate would burn. Stir in coffee powder and two tablespoons of water as the chocolate starts to melt. Simmer until slightly thickened. Remove from heat and beat egg yolks into the mixture one by one until the mixture thickens. Beat in butter and vanilla essence. Let the mixture cool until tepid. Whip egg whites with sugar with a stand mixer starting slow and increasing to high until stiff peaks and fold into the above mixture. Pour into individual glasses and chill. Remember the egg is not cooked. So used good fresh eggs. Serve within the same day.

Dedicated : To all those strangers who left me with their songs.

Banana Bread

The first Sunday of every February, United States selects a new Pope. They shift the Vatican to a stadium, build up some holy smoke, chant, sing hymns, worship and reinforce the only religion they truly believe in -- American Football and the event is the great Super Bowl. In between they watch the most expensive commercials, true to the American capitalism and eat lot and lot of food, like any festival on earth.

We too had a SuperBowl party, though I dont know or I dont care to know heads or tails. I am only bothered about the food. I made BananaBread as a snack dessert amongst many other things.

This is the super moist super delicious bread (or is it a cake) I have ever eaten or made. My guests kept on asking me whether it is a cake. It is not a cake, but then again cake it is with the texture and taste. I am bowled over. Super bowled over!

I got this recipe from Betty Crocker website and true to what was written on there, it was all that and much more.

(Recipe slightly modified)
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
4 mashed very ripe bananas
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used Danon)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I use King Arthur's)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped almonds
1 tsp powdered cardamom seeds

Mix the butter and sugar until it is fluffy. Add the eggs and beat it well into the mixture. Add bananas, yogurt, vanilla. Mix it well. Then add flour, baking soda, salt and just stir in the ingredients. Add almonds and mix slowly. One important thing I learned about baking is after you add flour, do not beat it. Just stir and mix slowly. This makes very soft breads and cakes.

I used a spring foam pan. Grease the pan with butter. Pour in the batter and bake in a preheated oven in 350 degrees for around 1 hour or until a tooth pick inserted comes in clean.



Take from oven and wait for two hours before you slice it.

Rasamalai

Never in my life I thought I would like cheese, lest I cook with it. But here I am licking every cheesy bit of this super easy delicious dessert a 5 year old can make.

I got this recipe from RP, but her blog is now closed :(. RP, Open up your kitchen please....

But then, if she is taking a break, why dont I write about this 5 minute in making dessert your guests are going to fall in love with. Honestly, I never cared for rasamalai, but this has made me change a lot of tiny little spots on my taste buds.

Buy a can of Whole Ricotta Cheese (refrigerate it for a day). Drop it into a bowl just right from the refrigerator. This makes it less watery. Add sugar say, 1/2 cup at first, whisk cheese and sugar using a beater, check for sweetness, add more and more and more :-)

Then, empty all that into a baking pan. I have tried using cookie pans and the picture I have here is one from it, but i really think using a cake pan or a glass pan is better and you cut them after baking. Somehow it feels it tastes better. So bake it in 350 degrees for 30 minutes or 45 minutes until a tooth pick comes out clean.

Take from oven. Refrigerate it.

Boil two cups of milk and reduce milk to one cup, add strands of saffron and enough sugar, add pistachio or/and slivered almonds.

Cut them into nice squares and add the milk sauce. They just dissolve into your mouth.

Achappam

Think this is the only snack that's made with a hot iron dipped into hot oil in India. Most of the other snacks we pour the batter directly into oil. Also, it is a little strange that this snack is a favorite mostly among Kerala Christians. So I start looking for it, I find something similar in Thailand, then out of all the places Scandinavia and then rest of Europe -- all made with rosette stone. Aha! It would have been brought in by the missionaries. And the snack resembles the shape of a Rosette.

Achappam aptly named as a snack made with achu, which means mold.

This one is one easy recipe you wouldn't think from the complex shapes. I always thought this is going to be a very difficult one which I would never get right. I was wronnnggg. What you need is an achappam mold. I got this from Kerala. The mold dangles from the handle.

(Recipe adapted from K.M Mathew's pachakarama)

White rice flour powdered fine - 1/2 kilo.
Egg - 2
Freshly squeezed coconut milk - 2 cups.
Sugar - 1 cup
Vanilla Essence - 1 tsp
Salt - just to adjust taste
Black sesame seeds - 2 tsp
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp

Beat the egg well and add to the flour along with coconut milk. Dont pour the entire coconut milk at one go. Slowly add to the flour.

The batter should be thicker than the dosa batter but dippable and pourable. Add rest of the ingredients, adjust salt or sugar accordingly. If you add too much sugar, it wont come off the mold. So first dont add the give sugar. Try with some and then add and adjust.

The most interesting part is the making. You have to get this right with some practice, like, say 5 minutes :)

Heat vegetable oil with the iron mold dipped in.

The oil should not smoke, but should be hot hot.

Now, dip the mold into the batter, only half way of the rosette shape. Dont dip it completely. If you are unsure just dip it lightly. Then put it into the oil and just shake it a little bit or use a fork. If everything is good, a little shake and nudge is all it requires to come off the mold and into the oil. Then dip the mold again into the oil, and into the batter. The key is the mold should be hot and with the oil. So the batter will barely cling to it until we dip it again in oil so it will release.

Fry until it turns color lightly and take off from the oil and strain the oil from the snack using a tissue covered plate.

Deadly Rite

You must have already read about the stampede that killed more than a hundred people at Sabarmila, the second most visited religious place in India. Sabaramala, is in Kerala, my home state, the recipes posted here I flavor with.

This is not about religion or a belief of a certain ritual. But it is about a scam, a huge fraud, conducted ritually every year by the Govt of Kerala under the auspicious authority of Devawasom Board (Administration for Temples). Makara jyoti is lit by the Dewasom Board, by Kerala State Electricity Board and with the nod of Forest Department every year. Almost everybody in Kerala knows about this and we stay away wisely. If you notice in this stampede only two people from Kerala died and rest all from different states.

Whether you believe in religion or not is not what it matters. But this is a state sponsored scam to attract religious tourism to the state. Please be aware of this. Tell this to your friends. There is absolutely no facilities of crowd management or disaster management in these places. Please visit Sabarimala during non-peak times and wisely.

Jackfruit seeds and Mango

I was in the mood of a quick simple dish, that can wash away homesickness. And it would be Jackfruit seeds along with sour mangoes in a simple coconut gravy. Both are not in season, so I open my freezer.

Half kilo jackfruit seeds, cooked. I bought the frozen one from store. But if you have them fresh, you would need to peel the hard skin and the soft brown skin and cook them thorough.


Add 2 cups of mango pieces and enough water to the cooked jackfruit seeds and when mangoes are done, add 1 tsp chili powder, 1/4 tsp turmeric powder, coconut ground to a paste 1 cup and enough salt. As the coconut mix starts to boil, reduce heat to a min, wait for 5 minutes and take from heat. Mangoes should not bee too sour but enough to tingle your tongue.

Heat 2 tsp of coconut oil, when it starts to splutter, to this add 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 sprig of curry leaves, two dry red chili. Saute well and then add to the jackfruit mango gravy. Serve hot with boiled rice.

Ah! it smells like rain.