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.
Showing posts with label Write-up. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Write-up. Show all posts
Jan 19, 2011
Jan 19, 2010
Let them eat Bt Brinjal?
The infamous 'Let them eat cake' was never uttered, says historians, rather that was the impression given to the peasants by the French royal family and the extravagant imprudent queen Marie Antoinette.
But India's Environmental Minister, Jairam Ramesh and his team is conspicuously trying hard to push Bt Brinjal into the Indian agricultural community even with many Indian states rejecting the GEAC approval for the same. Brinjal originated in India and we might soon lose the natural seeds to the genetically modified seeds, if Bt Brinjal is slated to cultivate commercially.
I am no tree hugging environmentalist though I grow most of my vegetables without any pesticides and chemicals at home and plant trees at every inch on the fallen sky. I prefer organic any day, not for the fad but for health reasons and simply because I can afford to. India needed a Green Revolution for self sufficiency of food. In due course, we destroyed our soil with the rampant reckless usage of pesticides and eating meat is much safer in India than a vegetable these days. Now we are again trying the same with the genetically modified crops. We are still suffering from the environmental impacts of the Green Revolution, but surely environment takes a back seat compared to eradicating hunger. But now that we are self sufficient in food cultivation and can afford to have a system of safe and organic foods, why is the current Indian Government adamant on introducing the GM crops?
Genetically modified crops in simple terms is introducing certain gene to the seeds, so that the crop become resistant to certain diseases and farmers can eventually cut down the use of pesticides. These are different from hybrids where two naturally occurring seeds or plants are mixed to create a new one. Here, it is altering the DNA of the seed and a new gene is introduced. Sounds scary right? Wait until you hear about the Pusztai affair.
Árpád Pusztai, considered by many to be the leading expert on GM foods, was silenced with threats of a lawsuit after he unexpectedly discovered that rats fed an experimental GM food developed immune system damage and other serious health problems in just ten days. Pusztai later reviewed an industry-sponsored study and found that seven of forty rats fed a GM crop died within two weeks; others developed stomach lesions. The crop was approved without further tests. Smith, Jeffrey M. 2003. Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating.
European Union, Australia, Japan, some African countries have already rejected the GM crops for lack of clear evidence of food safety. So, we Indians should be the guinea pigs of this new food revolution? There are already strange health complaints by farmers who cultivated Bt Cotton, another GM crop and even people who stay near such farms are complaining of strange symptoms. Why is that these data is not looked into? What did we do to rectify these health complaints? Bt Brinjal is promoted by Mahyco Monsanto biotech, a joint venture between Hyderabad-based Mahyco and US-based Monsanto, along with University of Agriculture Sciences, Dharawad, and Tamil Nadu Agriculture University, Coimbatore.
The strange part of all this is why cant we get the labels on GM crops? US is adamant it wont label it's crop and says European Union should not too, since it violates the trade agreement? Why should we not let the consumer know how and where this crop was cultivated? What is harm in that and why not let us choose? We all know when multinational corporations have their say and when studies are sponsored by them, a lot of data gets hidden and what they want in business is what their scientists come up with.
There are two sides to any story and there are a lot of scientists on the other camp claiming genetically modified crops is perfectly safe for human consumption. Whom do we believe? Which study do we take in? and why Brinjal when we don't even have a Brinjal scarcity in India? Are we just apprehensive of a new technology?
Apr 30, 2008
Those forgotten mothers
There are not many lyrics sung in their praises, not many stories, not many artists cared for their love. We all grew up thinking mothers can love only their biological children, the image so implanted into our heads, we start to hate them even before we see them. Yet there are millions of them, million of lovely ladies, million of mothers with so much love you are surprised why they are loathed in every story you read.
I am so busy at work, I never get time to enter into food blog events, yet when I saw Jhiva for Love, I couldn’t resist. For I know a woman, who has served me every dish with love. If my mother taught me how to love, my mother-in-law taught me how to create and serve love, hot and tasty. I have written many times about my mother, it is high time I write about my other mother.
As soon as I saw the event details, it is she who came into my thoughts, for if not for her I wouldn’t even have this blog, for she is the one who taught me to keep the traditions alive even if it is for something as mundane as cooking. Then I read an article in a Malayalam blog about a daughter-in-law missing and loving her mother-in-law, and the author depicted it as a very strange thing. Well, well, well. If we daughter-in-laws don’t speak up now for them, when will we?
When I got married, I was naïve as in n-a-i-v-e. I got married young, very very young if you measure my mental maturity too. I was terrified of the whole idea of marriage, watching Sauson ki Zindagi kind of soap serials where mother-in-laws torture their bahus (daughter-in-law). In India, there is a thriving million dollar industry of soap serials running on just that theme. Take any soap serial and the theme is mother-in-law Vs daughter-in-law, like an India Vs Pakistan cricket match.
Family is the most important thing for me. Hence, I was terrified not in fear of her, but I was worried a small wrong word by me, a misstep by me will never be forgiven and I will destroy the peace of the family I am married into.
It was a completely different World.
The few days I stay with her when we visit home, I watch her cooking up excellent dishes, from the scratch, following the traditions, planning everyday intelligently, serving the dishes right on time, with the right amount of flavors and lots and lots of love. She prepares a huge feast in a short time and she does it like a musician with ease. It is from her I learnt that the finer detail is what makes a dish, a beautiful memory.
One time, the only time when I made a dish at my husband’s house was chicken biryani for one Christmas. Since it was a different type of oven I was not used to, it turned out be a disaster. There were so many guests gathered at the house, and I was at the verge of crying. She just smiled and hugged me. Then she took on the reins, swiftly managed the whole show and just fixed the dish here and there doing her magical tricks.
She runs behind me with a plate laden with food, feeds me urulas with her own hands, when I skip food to catch a train or a bus. She playfully frowns at me when I pout and complains fulllllll touching my belly after a sumptuous lunch. She always sits besides me while I eat, forcing me to have more helpings. Many have mistaken her for my own mother when we are together.
She writes letters to her son, asking him always to help me in the kitchen, share all the work and telling me to make sure he does (It is a whole different story, whether he listens to that or not). She taught all her children to be good human beings first. It is from these mothers men learn to respect women, from them they learn to be a good husband. I thank God everyday for giving me such a kind and a real woman as my other mother.
I am still learning, smaller things, yet so important about life and living, whenever I talk with her. Her prayers, her assurance, her strength and courage is the real light in our small family across many oceans, miles and miles away from her.
I dont have a particular dish to serve for the event except to say,
Mother, I LOVE YOU.
I am so busy at work, I never get time to enter into food blog events, yet when I saw Jhiva for Love, I couldn’t resist. For I know a woman, who has served me every dish with love. If my mother taught me how to love, my mother-in-law taught me how to create and serve love, hot and tasty. I have written many times about my mother, it is high time I write about my other mother.
As soon as I saw the event details, it is she who came into my thoughts, for if not for her I wouldn’t even have this blog, for she is the one who taught me to keep the traditions alive even if it is for something as mundane as cooking. Then I read an article in a Malayalam blog about a daughter-in-law missing and loving her mother-in-law, and the author depicted it as a very strange thing. Well, well, well. If we daughter-in-laws don’t speak up now for them, when will we?
When I got married, I was naïve as in n-a-i-v-e. I got married young, very very young if you measure my mental maturity too. I was terrified of the whole idea of marriage, watching Sauson ki Zindagi kind of soap serials where mother-in-laws torture their bahus (daughter-in-law). In India, there is a thriving million dollar industry of soap serials running on just that theme. Take any soap serial and the theme is mother-in-law Vs daughter-in-law, like an India Vs Pakistan cricket match.
Family is the most important thing for me. Hence, I was terrified not in fear of her, but I was worried a small wrong word by me, a misstep by me will never be forgiven and I will destroy the peace of the family I am married into.
It was a completely different World.
The few days I stay with her when we visit home, I watch her cooking up excellent dishes, from the scratch, following the traditions, planning everyday intelligently, serving the dishes right on time, with the right amount of flavors and lots and lots of love. She prepares a huge feast in a short time and she does it like a musician with ease. It is from her I learnt that the finer detail is what makes a dish, a beautiful memory.
One time, the only time when I made a dish at my husband’s house was chicken biryani for one Christmas. Since it was a different type of oven I was not used to, it turned out be a disaster. There were so many guests gathered at the house, and I was at the verge of crying. She just smiled and hugged me. Then she took on the reins, swiftly managed the whole show and just fixed the dish here and there doing her magical tricks.
She runs behind me with a plate laden with food, feeds me urulas with her own hands, when I skip food to catch a train or a bus. She playfully frowns at me when I pout and complains fulllllll touching my belly after a sumptuous lunch. She always sits besides me while I eat, forcing me to have more helpings. Many have mistaken her for my own mother when we are together.
She writes letters to her son, asking him always to help me in the kitchen, share all the work and telling me to make sure he does (It is a whole different story, whether he listens to that or not). She taught all her children to be good human beings first. It is from these mothers men learn to respect women, from them they learn to be a good husband. I thank God everyday for giving me such a kind and a real woman as my other mother.
I am still learning, smaller things, yet so important about life and living, whenever I talk with her. Her prayers, her assurance, her strength and courage is the real light in our small family across many oceans, miles and miles away from her.
I dont have a particular dish to serve for the event except to say,
Mother, I LOVE YOU.
Apr 24, 2008
Grocery Bill Event
It is happening. There is food ration even in the U S of A. Look where oil politics have brought this world into. People are struggling in many parts of the World due to this global food crisis. U.S is the most gluttonous nation of all. Even here, the crisis is creeping into our daily lives in alarming rates.
To be prepared, like everyone else the first thing that came to my mind is to check my grocery bill.
I buy my weekly supply of groceries on every Saturday. I am going to check my grocery bill from next week starting Sunday 27 April to next Saturday May 3rd. I will spend like how I do it in normal times. Then I will start the same thing the following week, pinching every penny, thinking about how to get the most of something, looking for cheaper alternatives, planning ways to cut short my grocery bill from Sunday the 4th to Saturday the 10th.
I will compare two weeks bills online on my food blog. I will update most days on what I cooked for these two weeks. This way I can share my tips with you and collect ideas. The intention is simple, this will make me and you and them learn how to live smarter in changing times.
If you want to join me, come along. Or you can just watch the show or do something similar in the following weeks.
To be prepared, like everyone else the first thing that came to my mind is to check my grocery bill.
I buy my weekly supply of groceries on every Saturday. I am going to check my grocery bill from next week starting Sunday 27 April to next Saturday May 3rd. I will spend like how I do it in normal times. Then I will start the same thing the following week, pinching every penny, thinking about how to get the most of something, looking for cheaper alternatives, planning ways to cut short my grocery bill from Sunday the 4th to Saturday the 10th.
I will compare two weeks bills online on my food blog. I will update most days on what I cooked for these two weeks. This way I can share my tips with you and collect ideas. The intention is simple, this will make me and you and them learn how to live smarter in changing times.
If you want to join me, come along. Or you can just watch the show or do something similar in the following weeks.
Feb 16, 2008
Mulberries
These are fruits you never get to buy outside, these are fruits you have to pluck right from the tree, hanging onto one of its branches, with cousins and nephews and nieces, your mouth exploding in violet and red. There are fruits like these that take you back to nature, to mothers. From the long winding verandha of the old house, my grandma would be watching us hanging like little bats from the tree. One of us would fall down and she would just hold us with her eyes, for she knnew we were safe. She would place huge sandbags around trees before each vacation, trees she knew we kids will cling onto like life, like life we just would want to climb and savor them and never think of a fall. But she knew better.
Jan 25, 2008
Koorkka Parade
Just 1500 square miles, blessed with the greenest green, richest soil, lushest rains. A semi-metropolitan culture that soaks in everything and integrates like weaving a beautiful saree of different color threads. No matter how many picturesque pictures you see, no matter how much coconut you add to your curries, no matter how much you try to recreate it, you have to live and feel Kerala. Kerala is a country on it's own with every mile giving you a different history and culture. It is not something you can export it to other countries and create a gathering and celebrate. Not even in Dubai where you can find the most number of Malayalee expatriates, you will get the real essence of Kerala.
This is one state where you will find the disparity of income among the rich and poor very low. This is one state where you will find the infant death rate almost nil, where you will find the poorest of the poor has a voice, know their rights, know how to read and write. This is one state where you will rarely see poverty in villages, but pristine villages roads and excellent infrastructure, with the newest home theater systems blasting and resonating on the slanting teak wooden roofs of old quaint houses. A state in a third world country living like a first world country not in luxury, but in thought process. This is why were are called Devils own people in Gods own country. We are known to be devils advocates questioning everything, be it governments, political process or a coke plant.
This might be the only place where students and people came out in support of Mandela or for America's attack on Iraq. Yes, we gather and protest not only for our state and country, but for World affairs. We are not just educated, but aware. You will find instant-intellectuals in the shack tea stalls, talking passionately about Global pollution to Benazir’s death. Do you know even though this is such a small state, yet it has the maximum newspaper readership among people, compared not with just India but with World? 70% subscribe to newspapers. Any surprise we are socially conscious?
Kerala is like tender coconut, you cannot package it. Drink it instantly pure and fresh.
Put aside all that and there is one thing she is best at.
She has one of the tastiest cuisines I have come across and they are so vibrant and rich. She has the choicest vegetable and meat dishes. Her cuisine even has Spanish, Arabic and European influences. The only thing she lacks is in desserts, but we sweet people make up for it :)
To celebrate her, a koorkka parade for RCI Kerala by Jyothsna.
Koorkka in Dal
Cook 2 cups of cleaned and washed koorkka with 1 cup of toordal with a sprig of curry leaves in 3 cups of water
Grind ½ cup of coconut, 3 pods of garlic, ½ tsp cumin seeds, 5 green chilies, ¼ tsp of turmeric powder and enough salt to a fine watery paste.
Add to the cooked dal and koorka. Boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
Sauté 2 tsp of coconut oil, splutter mustard seeds, red chili split, and 1 sprig of curry leaves and add to the dish.
Serve with rice or roti. Recipe Courtesty: Daly
Koorkka with Sardines
Koorkka Stir Fry
Koorkka with Beef
Koorkka from the Garden
This is one state where you will find the disparity of income among the rich and poor very low. This is one state where you will find the infant death rate almost nil, where you will find the poorest of the poor has a voice, know their rights, know how to read and write. This is one state where you will rarely see poverty in villages, but pristine villages roads and excellent infrastructure, with the newest home theater systems blasting and resonating on the slanting teak wooden roofs of old quaint houses. A state in a third world country living like a first world country not in luxury, but in thought process. This is why were are called Devils own people in Gods own country. We are known to be devils advocates questioning everything, be it governments, political process or a coke plant.
This might be the only place where students and people came out in support of Mandela or for America's attack on Iraq. Yes, we gather and protest not only for our state and country, but for World affairs. We are not just educated, but aware. You will find instant-intellectuals in the shack tea stalls, talking passionately about Global pollution to Benazir’s death. Do you know even though this is such a small state, yet it has the maximum newspaper readership among people, compared not with just India but with World? 70% subscribe to newspapers. Any surprise we are socially conscious?
Kerala is like tender coconut, you cannot package it. Drink it instantly pure and fresh.
Put aside all that and there is one thing she is best at.
She has one of the tastiest cuisines I have come across and they are so vibrant and rich. She has the choicest vegetable and meat dishes. Her cuisine even has Spanish, Arabic and European influences. The only thing she lacks is in desserts, but we sweet people make up for it :)
To celebrate her, a koorkka parade for RCI Kerala by Jyothsna.
Koorkka in Dal
Cook 2 cups of cleaned and washed koorkka with 1 cup of toordal with a sprig of curry leaves in 3 cups of water
Grind ½ cup of coconut, 3 pods of garlic, ½ tsp cumin seeds, 5 green chilies, ¼ tsp of turmeric powder and enough salt to a fine watery paste.
Add to the cooked dal and koorka. Boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
Sauté 2 tsp of coconut oil, splutter mustard seeds, red chili split, and 1 sprig of curry leaves and add to the dish.
Serve with rice or roti. Recipe Courtesty: Daly
Koorkka with Sardines
Koorkka Stir Fry
Koorkka with Beef
Koorkka from the Garden
Jan 17, 2008
A personal note on blogging
When I started blogging it was mainly because I couldn't find the simple Kerala recipes. If you have at least read three or more posts on Ginger and Mango, you know I am enchanted by the multitude of simple Kerala recipes.
I want to record them in English and when someone searches for kanji, I am ecstatic one of my blog pages show up on search. Someone once wrote to me, she was having fever and that she was in a foreign country and wanted badly to have some kanji and searched and she hit on my blog. Yes, thank you reader, that's exactly what I want too. Especially I love it when a non-Keralite says they tried the Kerala kuthari or the rice gruel. Ummaah!
To me blogs especially food blogs should be less sophisticated and should reflect one's own kitchen. I love to see pictures in the commonly used steel utensils and kadai than on pretty bowls. I don't think it should be about excellent dramatic photographs or professional writing or precise recipes. We have fantastic cook books for all that. To me, it is about individuality, love, passion and stories behind them. Cooking to me is all about expression of love. And who else can bring it forth to the blogs than us women?
To write a food blog, it is good to have a camera. Well, I didn't have one but when I switched to DSL, my service provider send me a small 3MB web camera with no flash. One couldn't even put a memory card in that thing and could take only 7 pictures with the internal memory. You could just click and take a digital photo. That's it. So I had to cook early and take a picture in the afternoon when I had full light. I rarely saved a post in the draft and what I would eat for lunch, I liked to immediately share it with you. It was like from the stove to the table to the blog.
Could I buy a decent camera? Of course I could, but I didn't want to. I had an old SLR with me and had given it to my brother. When I traveled or I needed one as a must, I borrowed one from my cousin. I was thinking I should be able to survive with this good for nothing camera too. I could write if I couldn’t put good pictures. I could excite you with a new ingredient for lack of good pictures. I could tell you stories. And that’s what I did.
Then, one fine day I saw Google Adsense. I thought If I put that on my blog and If I could get some money and If I buy a camera with that for my food blog, wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that be the thing to do? Wouldn't that inspire someone? And yes, that's exactly what I did. Though as an Indian syndrome, I was hesitant and shy at first to put ads. But I put them this year and I made money. Yes, I got my first Google check last month and was unimaginably happy. It was like how you would sell old newspapers back home, how you would sell fish from your fish tank to friends and make some extra change. I bought a Nikon L14 for the money I got. I have no excuse now for not having a good picture on my blog.
It was fun watching the piggy bank slowly getting filled up, sometimes as low as .02 cents, but I was patient like making koya by stirring milk on the stove for hours. If I had regularly posted it would have been much faster, but hey I got a life too right?
Thank you my wonderful readers!
I want to record them in English and when someone searches for kanji, I am ecstatic one of my blog pages show up on search. Someone once wrote to me, she was having fever and that she was in a foreign country and wanted badly to have some kanji and searched and she hit on my blog. Yes, thank you reader, that's exactly what I want too. Especially I love it when a non-Keralite says they tried the Kerala kuthari or the rice gruel. Ummaah!
To me blogs especially food blogs should be less sophisticated and should reflect one's own kitchen. I love to see pictures in the commonly used steel utensils and kadai than on pretty bowls. I don't think it should be about excellent dramatic photographs or professional writing or precise recipes. We have fantastic cook books for all that. To me, it is about individuality, love, passion and stories behind them. Cooking to me is all about expression of love. And who else can bring it forth to the blogs than us women?
To write a food blog, it is good to have a camera. Well, I didn't have one but when I switched to DSL, my service provider send me a small 3MB web camera with no flash. One couldn't even put a memory card in that thing and could take only 7 pictures with the internal memory. You could just click and take a digital photo. That's it. So I had to cook early and take a picture in the afternoon when I had full light. I rarely saved a post in the draft and what I would eat for lunch, I liked to immediately share it with you. It was like from the stove to the table to the blog.
Could I buy a decent camera? Of course I could, but I didn't want to. I had an old SLR with me and had given it to my brother. When I traveled or I needed one as a must, I borrowed one from my cousin. I was thinking I should be able to survive with this good for nothing camera too. I could write if I couldn’t put good pictures. I could excite you with a new ingredient for lack of good pictures. I could tell you stories. And that’s what I did.
Then, one fine day I saw Google Adsense. I thought If I put that on my blog and If I could get some money and If I buy a camera with that for my food blog, wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that be the thing to do? Wouldn't that inspire someone? And yes, that's exactly what I did. Though as an Indian syndrome, I was hesitant and shy at first to put ads. But I put them this year and I made money. Yes, I got my first Google check last month and was unimaginably happy. It was like how you would sell old newspapers back home, how you would sell fish from your fish tank to friends and make some extra change. I bought a Nikon L14 for the money I got. I have no excuse now for not having a good picture on my blog.
It was fun watching the piggy bank slowly getting filled up, sometimes as low as .02 cents, but I was patient like making koya by stirring milk on the stove for hours. If I had regularly posted it would have been much faster, but hey I got a life too right?
Thank you my wonderful readers!
Jan 6, 2008
An Italian Job!
When you want to really eat some pizza near Pisa, where do you go? Fly to Italy. Yes! Italy has always tugged at my heartstrings with her beautiful Murano glass, with her renaissance art paintings, with her Catholic hymns and songs, with her Sicilian gang stories, and mostly with her food.
(This was the first thing I shot on my first day. The only marketing gimmick I saw in the whole of Italy. Yeah, authentic 'Roman' water ;). We do that a lot in Kerala. hehehe.)
As I had written earlier, after Indian food, I love Italian food. It is not because they both start with an 'I' but it is because it is 'I' as in love. I have this nice warm image of their food cooked with much passion, pots stirred by the chubby little Italian mothers and grand moms. The sauces, the breads, the pasta, the 'ooo ma olive oil'. She reminds me of Kerala with her oil fanaticism. Just like a Malayalee would swear by the coconut oil, Italians would kill for Olive oil.
All we ate was street food and skipped the restaurants. This made our food costs much lower, got the real local flavor and could move between places much faster. So here are some quick shots I found interesting.
(Italy is dotted with small coffee shops like these, where you can get a quick drink or a bite to phonecards. They are called Tabacchi.)
(The rich fruit cake to the many Italian desserts)
(Pizza, Pasta, Rice, Panini, Sandwiches. Choice is unlimited even for a quick bite)
(Italian Gelato. I asked the shop owner whether what he served was the real authentic Italian gelato and he got mad at me. hehe. Maybe he is the Gelato Nazi there.)
(Sicilian fried rice balls)
I was in a small shop in a quaint little town in Florence, Italy and asked the shop owner whether I could take some freshly pressed olive oil in a plastic bottle. And that pleasant sweet man frowned at me. No, he threw up his hands in horror.
"You Americans, don't respect Olive oil", he said. "Never store olive oil in plastic bottle". Ha! I wanted to show him the Olive oil in plastic bottle that lines up in Wal-mart to Costco. He told me I could take some Chianti wine in a plastic bottle, but not olive oil.
--These olives are from November, you know we had a bad season for olives. So the price is little bit up. This will be very bitter. As olive oil ages the bitterness goes away. But we Italians love the bitterness. Only in Tuscany you get the best olives. Up North it is too cold and down south, it is hot.
(This is the shop where I bought some freshly pressed olive oil. All those barrels are wine.)
He was excited to explain to me in his broken Italian accented English. Being so used to pushy cunning salesmen, Italian shop owners were a surprise. They were sweet and kind, telling me what I shouldn't buy and sometimes even telling me the shop I should really explore and not waste time at their shop. You could just stand and talk to them for hours and they would never ask you to buy anything. It was like good old times where you never 'buy' but you build a relationship with the store.
(Roasted Water chestnuts on the streets. I was reminded of Indira. This is the first time I am having them and guess what does it taste like? Roasted jackfruit seeds. Jeez! I am too much of a Malayalee as I always try to find parallels with Kerala food. But really it tasted like roasted jackfruit seeds. If not, I would tell so, right? :) )
(Where else to have the famous Tiramisu other than in Italy?)
(Look at that Salami! - It was perfect)
(All this for nine Euros. Didnt I tell you street food was cheap?)
(Italian Olive trees dot their parks and their streets are dotted with orange trees. Even their tiniest homes have grape vines hanging on small trellis. They are passionate. Aren't they?)
Italians buy their wine, oil, cheese locally. They have not yet embraced the supermarket-everything-made-in-some-far-flung-place-colorfully-packeted-and-marketed system. They bring their old bottles to buy wine, or else if you want a new bottle you are charged one Euro more. Life looks much simpler there reminding me of India a lot.
(Well, Isint that coconut? Do they eat coconut slices? Didnt I tell you Italians are from Kerala? :-). This is a small fruit shop)
As we know, slow food movement started in Italy and it clearly showed when you visit restaurants and small coffee shops. They really eat, not shove it down the throat with a large coke.
My biggest surprise was the less or minimal use of plastic while serving food. Even at the smallest quick coffee shops, we got everything in china. No plastic plates, no plastic spoons and no plastic mugs.
--Wow! So, you mean you really clean the plates and don't throw them away? Really? We do that in U.S only at organic stores.
--Organic?
--Oh that's the new fad in U.S, never mind
(Well, pizza it is and pizza it will be. Tuna toppings. Pizza tastes heavenly in Italy. I have heard this a hundred times while in U.S and yes I do agree. After this the Pizza here tastes like cardboard)
After the daily travel and being a tourist for weeks, back in the plane to U.S all I could think of was having a plate of kuthari rice with some fish curry and I was repeating this recurring dream to my husband dear. When I travel, I am on full alert and hardly get any sleep and I can do this for weeks, but when I am really home I hit the bed for a deep slumber. I slept straight for fourteen hours and what do I find when I wake up? He had prepared some fish curry and rice. He, who rarely enters the kitchen except for an occasional coffee and still gets confused by salt and sugar, Well, that was the best part of my vacation.
(Back home with the real olive oil and some crisp Sicilian bread)
(I hate it when someone gives wrong information about India or her food, so please go ahead and correct me If I have given any wrong information)
(This was the first thing I shot on my first day. The only marketing gimmick I saw in the whole of Italy. Yeah, authentic 'Roman' water ;). We do that a lot in Kerala. hehehe.)As I had written earlier, after Indian food, I love Italian food. It is not because they both start with an 'I' but it is because it is 'I' as in love. I have this nice warm image of their food cooked with much passion, pots stirred by the chubby little Italian mothers and grand moms. The sauces, the breads, the pasta, the 'ooo ma olive oil'. She reminds me of Kerala with her oil fanaticism. Just like a Malayalee would swear by the coconut oil, Italians would kill for Olive oil.
All we ate was street food and skipped the restaurants. This made our food costs much lower, got the real local flavor and could move between places much faster. So here are some quick shots I found interesting.
(Italy is dotted with small coffee shops like these, where you can get a quick drink or a bite to phonecards. They are called Tabacchi.)
(The rich fruit cake to the many Italian desserts)
(Pizza, Pasta, Rice, Panini, Sandwiches. Choice is unlimited even for a quick bite)
(Italian Gelato. I asked the shop owner whether what he served was the real authentic Italian gelato and he got mad at me. hehe. Maybe he is the Gelato Nazi there.)
(Sicilian fried rice balls)I was in a small shop in a quaint little town in Florence, Italy and asked the shop owner whether I could take some freshly pressed olive oil in a plastic bottle. And that pleasant sweet man frowned at me. No, he threw up his hands in horror.
"You Americans, don't respect Olive oil", he said. "Never store olive oil in plastic bottle". Ha! I wanted to show him the Olive oil in plastic bottle that lines up in Wal-mart to Costco. He told me I could take some Chianti wine in a plastic bottle, but not olive oil.
--These olives are from November, you know we had a bad season for olives. So the price is little bit up. This will be very bitter. As olive oil ages the bitterness goes away. But we Italians love the bitterness. Only in Tuscany you get the best olives. Up North it is too cold and down south, it is hot.
(This is the shop where I bought some freshly pressed olive oil. All those barrels are wine.)He was excited to explain to me in his broken Italian accented English. Being so used to pushy cunning salesmen, Italian shop owners were a surprise. They were sweet and kind, telling me what I shouldn't buy and sometimes even telling me the shop I should really explore and not waste time at their shop. You could just stand and talk to them for hours and they would never ask you to buy anything. It was like good old times where you never 'buy' but you build a relationship with the store.
(Roasted Water chestnuts on the streets. I was reminded of Indira. This is the first time I am having them and guess what does it taste like? Roasted jackfruit seeds. Jeez! I am too much of a Malayalee as I always try to find parallels with Kerala food. But really it tasted like roasted jackfruit seeds. If not, I would tell so, right? :) )
(Where else to have the famous Tiramisu other than in Italy?)
(Look at that Salami! - It was perfect)
(All this for nine Euros. Didnt I tell you street food was cheap?)
(Italian Olive trees dot their parks and their streets are dotted with orange trees. Even their tiniest homes have grape vines hanging on small trellis. They are passionate. Aren't they?)Italians buy their wine, oil, cheese locally. They have not yet embraced the supermarket-everything-made-in-some-far-flung-place-colorfully-packeted-and-marketed system. They bring their old bottles to buy wine, or else if you want a new bottle you are charged one Euro more. Life looks much simpler there reminding me of India a lot.
(Well, Isint that coconut? Do they eat coconut slices? Didnt I tell you Italians are from Kerala? :-). This is a small fruit shop) As we know, slow food movement started in Italy and it clearly showed when you visit restaurants and small coffee shops. They really eat, not shove it down the throat with a large coke.
My biggest surprise was the less or minimal use of plastic while serving food. Even at the smallest quick coffee shops, we got everything in china. No plastic plates, no plastic spoons and no plastic mugs.
--Wow! So, you mean you really clean the plates and don't throw them away? Really? We do that in U.S only at organic stores.
--Organic?
--Oh that's the new fad in U.S, never mind
(Well, pizza it is and pizza it will be. Tuna toppings. Pizza tastes heavenly in Italy. I have heard this a hundred times while in U.S and yes I do agree. After this the Pizza here tastes like cardboard)After the daily travel and being a tourist for weeks, back in the plane to U.S all I could think of was having a plate of kuthari rice with some fish curry and I was repeating this recurring dream to my husband dear. When I travel, I am on full alert and hardly get any sleep and I can do this for weeks, but when I am really home I hit the bed for a deep slumber. I slept straight for fourteen hours and what do I find when I wake up? He had prepared some fish curry and rice. He, who rarely enters the kitchen except for an occasional coffee and still gets confused by salt and sugar, Well, that was the best part of my vacation.
(Back home with the real olive oil and some crisp Sicilian bread)(I hate it when someone gives wrong information about India or her food, so please go ahead and correct me If I have given any wrong information)
Mar 3, 2007
Chikoo
Chikoos are in season again. Yay!
If there is a fruit I could grow in each and every inch in my yard, it would be a sapota or as I call it chikoo tree. I am not sure whether it is scarce in India, but I have never had enough of it.
It is a fruit from Mexico, popularized by Spanish and then by me :-)
Excerpt
A rich source of digestible sugar, the chikoo is rich in protein, fibre and minerals like phosphorus, calcium and iron. Isn’t it funny to know the 'chewing' part of the chewing gum comes from the stem of this tree?
I remember going to a friend’s house, and they serving me with plate full of chikoos. There were some six medium sized ripe fruits. I couldn’t resist and by the time they said, ‘have’, I finished all of them without even thinking it is someone else’s house. Oh, I am still embarrassed about it.
My husband hates it which makes me more than happy since I don’t have to share this with anyone. I have never tried to convert him to a chikoo fan, specifically due to this :-)
A ripe fruit is soft to touch. You just need to part into two, by pressing your fingers on the fruit and slowly opening it up. Scoop out the flesh with your mouth. Mmmmm.
If there is a fruit I could grow in each and every inch in my yard, it would be a sapota or as I call it chikoo tree. I am not sure whether it is scarce in India, but I have never had enough of it.
It is a fruit from Mexico, popularized by Spanish and then by me :-)
ExcerptA rich source of digestible sugar, the chikoo is rich in protein, fibre and minerals like phosphorus, calcium and iron. Isn’t it funny to know the 'chewing' part of the chewing gum comes from the stem of this tree?
I remember going to a friend’s house, and they serving me with plate full of chikoos. There were some six medium sized ripe fruits. I couldn’t resist and by the time they said, ‘have’, I finished all of them without even thinking it is someone else’s house. Oh, I am still embarrassed about it.
My husband hates it which makes me more than happy since I don’t have to share this with anyone. I have never tried to convert him to a chikoo fan, specifically due to this :-)
A ripe fruit is soft to touch. You just need to part into two, by pressing your fingers on the fruit and slowly opening it up. Scoop out the flesh with your mouth. Mmmmm.
Feb 5, 2007
Update of my blog
Last week, I complained about a bug in my old blog to Google and bam! They nicely deleted the whole blog. Whoa! That too on a weekending Friday. Grr…
I had two parties to attend. One on Friday and another one on Saturday. But what did I do?
I searched searched and searched, saved the cache, reposted, published. Phew! It took me 48 hours of work to bring most of them back. So, my posts are here, yes in this blog and let us all forget about the old blog with the old address (injimanga.blogspot.com)
After couple of them, I was thinking. That’s enough. Let the posts go. I am not going to do this painful process again. But then I read one or two comments and I get my energy back. Yes, your comments really made me post them back again. I have retrieved and posted the comments also. Some posts I am still unable to get it. My search string is not getting any results. But most of it, yes I recovered. (Some of the posts might have bad links, if you read them and cannot find, please do leave me a comment there. Thanks.)
So, what does this teach me again and again? Even If I am a restless character and do this and that together, don’t play with posts and google accounts.
My dad used to have stamp and coin collections. He travels a lot and almost had around 60 or 70 countries in his collections. One fine summer holiday morning, his daughter had this bright idea, to help her dad.
I got a bucket full of soap and water and put the stamps and the coins. I wanted to clean them all. So, I left them there for a day. The stamps dissolved and the coins got rusted.
How old was I? I was twelve. (Yeah, then stupid and even now stupid!) .
Same thing I did here too. But thankfully, this is internet and there is google cache and I could retrieve them all.
Hugs and kisses to you all for having the patience to suffer my stupidity.
So, what does this mean? You all have this great wonderful opportunity of going through my old posts again! Hahaha.
Note: I see a lot of new bloggers and I haven’t got time to go through their blogs. But whoa! So many new bloggers in just two months. Also, I see a lot of good old bloggers stopped blogging completely. That really makes me appreciate the bloggers who have been here for a long time, posting recipes almost everyday and hanging on to this for all of us. Thank you guys!
I had two parties to attend. One on Friday and another one on Saturday. But what did I do?
I searched searched and searched, saved the cache, reposted, published. Phew! It took me 48 hours of work to bring most of them back. So, my posts are here, yes in this blog and let us all forget about the old blog with the old address (injimanga.blogspot.com)
After couple of them, I was thinking. That’s enough. Let the posts go. I am not going to do this painful process again. But then I read one or two comments and I get my energy back. Yes, your comments really made me post them back again. I have retrieved and posted the comments also. Some posts I am still unable to get it. My search string is not getting any results. But most of it, yes I recovered. (Some of the posts might have bad links, if you read them and cannot find, please do leave me a comment there. Thanks.)
So, what does this teach me again and again? Even If I am a restless character and do this and that together, don’t play with posts and google accounts.
My dad used to have stamp and coin collections. He travels a lot and almost had around 60 or 70 countries in his collections. One fine summer holiday morning, his daughter had this bright idea, to help her dad.
I got a bucket full of soap and water and put the stamps and the coins. I wanted to clean them all. So, I left them there for a day. The stamps dissolved and the coins got rusted.
How old was I? I was twelve. (Yeah, then stupid and even now stupid!) .
Same thing I did here too. But thankfully, this is internet and there is google cache and I could retrieve them all.
Hugs and kisses to you all for having the patience to suffer my stupidity.
So, what does this mean? You all have this great wonderful opportunity of going through my old posts again! Hahaha.
Note: I see a lot of new bloggers and I haven’t got time to go through their blogs. But whoa! So many new bloggers in just two months. Also, I see a lot of good old bloggers stopped blogging completely. That really makes me appreciate the bloggers who have been here for a long time, posting recipes almost everyday and hanging on to this for all of us. Thank you guys!
Aug 14, 2006
My India, My Country
When idea-girl Indira came up with the theme of Independence, I wanted to write about some food that would be equally pleasing to North, South, East and West. Nah! I was not at all successful. I think we might agree on Kashmir some day, but not on a common food likeable by all of us.
The thought of food made me think of a great man who fasted seventeen times for all of us. Without him we Indians cannot mention the word freedom. Without his non-violence and leadership our freedom would have been a lot more bloody and our country would have turned a hell. Without his guidance and willpower, our leaders would have been lost with a huge country with so many different languages and cultures.
When British left us, we were robbed to the last penny. Famine and violence were everywhere.When they left us, they wished, we ‘uncivilized’ Indians would fight among ourselves and would disperse and they could laugh at that.
We might be a little poor, we might be a little corrupt, and we might have lot of follies of a nation celebrating only the 60th Independence Day.
Yet, we are surviving…beautifully! We are having the last laugh.
India has gained respect in the eyes of others. We didn’t do that by bombing another nation or demeaning another country. We did it with our passion and internal strength. For that, I am a lot thankful.
Thinking of fasting, it occurred to me that Gandhiji ended his fasting with nimbu pani. Yes, a simple sweet lemon juice.
So, I made lemon juice…in a different way. It is called bonji in Trivandrum, Kerala. The fun part is equal amount of sugar and salt is added. It gives the lemon juice a very special taste. It is mainly available in small shack teashops. Since sugar is beaten well to dissolve with a steel spoon against the steel glass and it makes a taka taka noise and this process is called bonji adikkal which translates somewhat to beating bonji :-)
To celebrate our hard-earned freedom we need something sweet. Distributing sweets to near and dear is our common way of celebrating any happy occasion across India.
So, I made payasam. Kerala's own 'Pal Payasam'. God's own Country's special!
This sweet dessert is made with matta red rice.
Bring 3 cups of milk to a boil. Add ½ cup of sugar. Add 1 cup of washed rice. Let the rice cook in this. Add 1 tsp of cardamom powder.Heat 1/8 cup of ghee. Sauté 2 tbs of raw cashew nuts and 2 tbs of raisins. Add to the payasam.
Serve as a dessert.
Freedom is sweet. Wishing and hoping every child on this earth would enjoy freedom!
The thought of food made me think of a great man who fasted seventeen times for all of us. Without him we Indians cannot mention the word freedom. Without his non-violence and leadership our freedom would have been a lot more bloody and our country would have turned a hell. Without his guidance and willpower, our leaders would have been lost with a huge country with so many different languages and cultures.
When British left us, we were robbed to the last penny. Famine and violence were everywhere.When they left us, they wished, we ‘uncivilized’ Indians would fight among ourselves and would disperse and they could laugh at that.
We might be a little poor, we might be a little corrupt, and we might have lot of follies of a nation celebrating only the 60th Independence Day.
Yet, we are surviving…beautifully! We are having the last laugh.
India has gained respect in the eyes of others. We didn’t do that by bombing another nation or demeaning another country. We did it with our passion and internal strength. For that, I am a lot thankful.
Thinking of fasting, it occurred to me that Gandhiji ended his fasting with nimbu pani. Yes, a simple sweet lemon juice.
So, I made lemon juice…in a different way. It is called bonji in Trivandrum, Kerala. The fun part is equal amount of sugar and salt is added. It gives the lemon juice a very special taste. It is mainly available in small shack teashops. Since sugar is beaten well to dissolve with a steel spoon against the steel glass and it makes a taka taka noise and this process is called bonji adikkal which translates somewhat to beating bonji :-)To celebrate our hard-earned freedom we need something sweet. Distributing sweets to near and dear is our common way of celebrating any happy occasion across India.
So, I made payasam. Kerala's own 'Pal Payasam'. God's own Country's special!
This sweet dessert is made with matta red rice.
Bring 3 cups of milk to a boil. Add ½ cup of sugar. Add 1 cup of washed rice. Let the rice cook in this. Add 1 tsp of cardamom powder.Heat 1/8 cup of ghee. Sauté 2 tbs of raw cashew nuts and 2 tbs of raisins. Add to the payasam.
Serve as a dessert.Freedom is sweet. Wishing and hoping every child on this earth would enjoy freedom!
Jul 31, 2006
My comfort food
Comfort Food is all about nostalgia to me. It is all about getting that heavy feeling in my heart while savoring it. The sad part is that while growing up; I never realized that what I was eating right then would be my ‘comfort food’ later in my life. You would never realize that in some years, eating a certain food would bring tears to your eyes and you would feel like hugging the food right in front of you.
When Revathi posted the theme, I first didn’t know what my comfort food was. So many different foods back home made by my mom displayed like a slideshow in my mind.
Then I realized,It is not what food it is, it is that feeling you get.
I get it in when I eat food packed in a sautéed banana-leaf by my mom.
I get in when I eat it inside a train half way away from home listening to the sound of the train and trying to eat it balancing on the lap, with a book open and the wind trying to blow it all away.
I get it when I know my mom has packed three times the food I normally eat, to compensate for the long days ahead at college or work away from home. I stuff myself, wishing I was a Camel.
I get it when I lick my fingers for the last bit of it, wiping it on the newspaper that covers the leaf and throwing it away on the tracks and longingly looking at it again through the rusty window bars.
It is that special taste, none else can experience with you.
When Revathi posted the theme, I first didn’t know what my comfort food was. So many different foods back home made by my mom displayed like a slideshow in my mind.
Then I realized,It is not what food it is, it is that feeling you get.I get it in when I eat food packed in a sautéed banana-leaf by my mom.
I get in when I eat it inside a train half way away from home listening to the sound of the train and trying to eat it balancing on the lap, with a book open and the wind trying to blow it all away.
I get it when I know my mom has packed three times the food I normally eat, to compensate for the long days ahead at college or work away from home. I stuff myself, wishing I was a Camel.
I get it when I lick my fingers for the last bit of it, wiping it on the newspaper that covers the leaf and throwing it away on the tracks and longingly looking at it again through the rusty window bars.
It is that special taste, none else can experience with you.
Jun 22, 2006
Momma Meme
“My mom is not a great cook...”
If she ever reads that, she is gonna kill me, literally, with one scornful look. haha. Hell hath no fury like my mother scorned :).
She would make sure we kids ate all kinds of vegetables, no fussing over that. She uses only the freshest vegetables and cooks them in minimal oil. She is very meticulous about it, almost like a nutritionist. If we ever say, “We don’t want this”, pat would come the reply. “I am not running a hotel here for you to order. Eat what I give you."
She is a super fast learner in everything from cooking to even using an instant messenger. She just looks at a dish and tries to make it, since too proud to ask someone for a recipe. Sometimes they are a big flop (but she would never admit it), and sometimes they are a major hit. If we ever say it is major hit, then she would try to teach the person who first made it. Hehehe.
She was a stay at home mom, but yearned to go out and work. She was brilliant in academics, but chose to take care of us little devils. She would wake up early at 4 in the morning and work, work, work until 12 midnight for us. But she made sure, we would hear about it every single day, especially at dinner time. She won’t let us waste a bit of rice or curry and we would have to completely wipe the plate clean.
“Your dad and I work hard for it.” Then one of us smarty pants would remark, “But you don’t work!”. Instantly, the person who made that smart aleck comment would realize, it would have been better, if he or she were born dumb.
She would never let us skip a meal. We can be mad and angry at the whole World and the outer World too, but she would spank us, if ever refused to eat. “Do you know how many kids are there on the streets waiting to get at least a morsel of this?” We were never ever allowed to even say, “I am not eating food today” at our home.
Food from outside was a big No at our house. “You don’t know how they make it. They sometimes spit in it”, she made us kids believe that for a long time. But still sometimes, we would love to have something from outside especially during train journeys. When a vendor approaches, we would longingly look at him and then our mom, like watching a tennis game. This will continue (sometimes the vendor also joins in) until he leaves and then she would make a face and roll her eyes at us.
She makes the best tea I have ever tasted and never been able to replicate. She loves teas, and she drinks up to ten glasses a day. It is like alcohol for her. If she is sad, she drinks tea. If she is happy, she drinks tea. That was the only thing she let us have from outside. “How come?” and the retort would be, “Tea is very hot, even if they spit, the water is boiled.
”She never served any alcohol, even wine, at our house. Even though all her brothers and other families enjoyed alcohol, it was a big na na at our home, only at our home. I too extracted that promise from my husband during the initial days of our marriage, much to the dislike of his and my friends. It is so hard to stay like that especially in U.S. So, it is official that, “No drinking at L.G’s house” :-), even though I have to listen to lengthy sermons from our friends on the benefits of it, during every party at our house.
The first thing she asks when we call her up is, “Mole, what did you eat?” I have this habit too and unconsciously ask my friends the same.
She makes the best fish curry in the World. We used to have fish curry in the morning (even with idlis), lunch and dinner. She was crazy about fish. She would say, “Malayalees and Bengalis have the most beautiful skin and eyes. Why? Because we eat fish!” Since we never saw anyone other than a Malayalee, we believed that until we all went outside Kerala :-)
She always waits for us all to finish eating (even now) and then sits down on the floor with her legs folded towards her chest (I have never seen her at the table) with her food in a steel plate with all the left overs. Usually, she gets the fish head or the bone part, since she would forcefully make us all eat the best parts. Then she slowly mixes the fish curry and rice with her fingers and instantly we all would circle her and ask, “Can I have one urula amma”. That is the best food I have ever tasted in my life.
My dad would scold us, saying. “Your mom hasn’t eaten anything from the morning. Stop digging in her meal.” and she would say with so much love in her eyes.
“aargghh....Daddy, they are kids. Never ask them to stop eating.”
This is my mom’s recipe for the best fish curry in the World. (Any objections to the word ‘World’ is overruled!)
Fleshy fish cut into 2 inch pieces – 3 cups
Shallots diced – ½ cup
Green chili diced – 4
Ginger diced – 1 tsp
Garlic diced – 6 cloves (if small Indian garlic, use 12 cloves.
Red Chili Powder – 2 tsp
Coriander Powder – 4 tsp
Black Pepper powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Kudampuli - 3 (Kudampuli is not kokum)
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
Add salt and mix all the above in a pan along with the fish. Let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes.
Cook the fish in medium flame by adding 2 cups of thin coconut milk (or coconut milk without the cream).
Do not cover. When fish is cooked, take off from flame and add ½ cup of thick coconut milk or cream of the coconut milk. Cover.
Heat 3 tsp of coconut oil; splutter 1 tsp of mustard seeds, 1 tsp of diced shallots sautéed until brown and add 3 red chilies split and ½ tsp of fenugreek seeds. Add to the fish curry.
Serve with love.(All the time I read about memes, I wanted to do one badly and when I was finally tagged by couple of people, I got so lazy...:-))
Thank you all (Garam Masala, Nabeela, Priya Bhaskaran, Vineela) for tagging me. Many thanks to Garam Masala for this meme
I have no idea whom to tag this. I wanted to tag Sarah at least, but she also was tagged. No chance to tag for late comers? Can I declare the meme ends here? :-)
If she ever reads that, she is gonna kill me, literally, with one scornful look. haha. Hell hath no fury like my mother scorned :).
She would make sure we kids ate all kinds of vegetables, no fussing over that. She uses only the freshest vegetables and cooks them in minimal oil. She is very meticulous about it, almost like a nutritionist. If we ever say, “We don’t want this”, pat would come the reply. “I am not running a hotel here for you to order. Eat what I give you."
She is a super fast learner in everything from cooking to even using an instant messenger. She just looks at a dish and tries to make it, since too proud to ask someone for a recipe. Sometimes they are a big flop (but she would never admit it), and sometimes they are a major hit. If we ever say it is major hit, then she would try to teach the person who first made it. Hehehe.
She was a stay at home mom, but yearned to go out and work. She was brilliant in academics, but chose to take care of us little devils. She would wake up early at 4 in the morning and work, work, work until 12 midnight for us. But she made sure, we would hear about it every single day, especially at dinner time. She won’t let us waste a bit of rice or curry and we would have to completely wipe the plate clean.
“Your dad and I work hard for it.” Then one of us smarty pants would remark, “But you don’t work!”. Instantly, the person who made that smart aleck comment would realize, it would have been better, if he or she were born dumb.
She would never let us skip a meal. We can be mad and angry at the whole World and the outer World too, but she would spank us, if ever refused to eat. “Do you know how many kids are there on the streets waiting to get at least a morsel of this?” We were never ever allowed to even say, “I am not eating food today” at our home.
Food from outside was a big No at our house. “You don’t know how they make it. They sometimes spit in it”, she made us kids believe that for a long time. But still sometimes, we would love to have something from outside especially during train journeys. When a vendor approaches, we would longingly look at him and then our mom, like watching a tennis game. This will continue (sometimes the vendor also joins in) until he leaves and then she would make a face and roll her eyes at us.
She makes the best tea I have ever tasted and never been able to replicate. She loves teas, and she drinks up to ten glasses a day. It is like alcohol for her. If she is sad, she drinks tea. If she is happy, she drinks tea. That was the only thing she let us have from outside. “How come?” and the retort would be, “Tea is very hot, even if they spit, the water is boiled.
”She never served any alcohol, even wine, at our house. Even though all her brothers and other families enjoyed alcohol, it was a big na na at our home, only at our home. I too extracted that promise from my husband during the initial days of our marriage, much to the dislike of his and my friends. It is so hard to stay like that especially in U.S. So, it is official that, “No drinking at L.G’s house” :-), even though I have to listen to lengthy sermons from our friends on the benefits of it, during every party at our house.
The first thing she asks when we call her up is, “Mole, what did you eat?” I have this habit too and unconsciously ask my friends the same.
She makes the best fish curry in the World. We used to have fish curry in the morning (even with idlis), lunch and dinner. She was crazy about fish. She would say, “Malayalees and Bengalis have the most beautiful skin and eyes. Why? Because we eat fish!” Since we never saw anyone other than a Malayalee, we believed that until we all went outside Kerala :-)
She always waits for us all to finish eating (even now) and then sits down on the floor with her legs folded towards her chest (I have never seen her at the table) with her food in a steel plate with all the left overs. Usually, she gets the fish head or the bone part, since she would forcefully make us all eat the best parts. Then she slowly mixes the fish curry and rice with her fingers and instantly we all would circle her and ask, “Can I have one urula amma”. That is the best food I have ever tasted in my life.
My dad would scold us, saying. “Your mom hasn’t eaten anything from the morning. Stop digging in her meal.” and she would say with so much love in her eyes.
“aargghh....Daddy, they are kids. Never ask them to stop eating.”
This is my mom’s recipe for the best fish curry in the World. (Any objections to the word ‘World’ is overruled!)
Fleshy fish cut into 2 inch pieces – 3 cups
Shallots diced – ½ cup
Green chili diced – 4
Ginger diced – 1 tsp
Garlic diced – 6 cloves (if small Indian garlic, use 12 cloves.
Red Chili Powder – 2 tsp
Coriander Powder – 4 tsp
Black Pepper powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Kudampuli - 3 (Kudampuli is not kokum)
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
Add salt and mix all the above in a pan along with the fish. Let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes.
Cook the fish in medium flame by adding 2 cups of thin coconut milk (or coconut milk without the cream).
Do not cover. When fish is cooked, take off from flame and add ½ cup of thick coconut milk or cream of the coconut milk. Cover.
Heat 3 tsp of coconut oil; splutter 1 tsp of mustard seeds, 1 tsp of diced shallots sautéed until brown and add 3 red chilies split and ½ tsp of fenugreek seeds. Add to the fish curry.
Serve with love.(All the time I read about memes, I wanted to do one badly and when I was finally tagged by couple of people, I got so lazy...:-))Thank you all (Garam Masala, Nabeela, Priya Bhaskaran, Vineela) for tagging me. Many thanks to Garam Masala for this meme
I have no idea whom to tag this. I wanted to tag Sarah at least, but she also was tagged. No chance to tag for late comers? Can I declare the meme ends here? :-)
Jun 12, 2006
Food of the Gods
Some people claim, Chocolate is the Food of the Gods.
I object, my Lord. It is, Tender Coconut! (Known as karikku in Malayalam)
Fresh Tender Coconut has life restoring capacity and it is so pure, it can be
substituted for I.V fluid. When you have it, have it fresh in normal room temperature. Not refrigerated. Even an hour or so refrigeration will cause its taste to disappear.
Tender coconuts, as the name implies are coconuts plucked before they turn mature. They are 90% water.Kerala, which simply means ‘the land of coconuts’, is abundant with this ‘Food of the Gods’. Every home, even the smallest one will have one or two coconut trees.
My dad would pluck 6 tender coconuts for all of us in the evening when he comes home from work, and after drinking the pure water inside, we would eat the soft flesh with jaggery. Drinking this pure and sweet water is like taking a shower under a natural waterfall. So soothing! So refreshing! There is nothing cooler than this, especially on a warm summer day.
Yet, when you are easily provided with such natural nectar, people go dumb and go after products like coke and pepsi, which to me, is like slow poison if consumed daily. In Kerala too, these products started to slowly poison people’s drinking habits, but a controversy gave us the much needed jolt and in protest, now we have Tender Coconut Stalls all over Kerala.
Excerpt: In fact, more and more doctors now recommend tender coconut drink for many of their patients. It is found to be effective in urinary ailments and also recommended as a very go,od substitute for saline glucose. This drink helps to keep the body cool and applying it on the skin helps prevent boils during the prickly heat of the summer. It is also used to help remove the rashes caused by small pox, chicken pox and measles. It is also considered a close substitute for blood plasma since it is sterile, cool, easily absorbed by the body and does not destroy red blood cells. To quote Morton Satin, Chief of Food and Agricultural Organisation's Agricultural Industries and Post Harvest Management Service: "It is a natural isotonic beverage with the same level of electrolytic balance as we have in our blood. It is the fluid of life, so to speak."
It is so delicate, attempts to package it has failed miserably. Though you get tender coconut in packages, it is never ever the same. I would rather have a frooti instead.
You cut the top portion of the tender coconut,put a straw and slurp up the water or you pour the water in to a cup and drink it. Then you cut open the tender coconut into two. Then scoop out the flesh with a spoon.
While ordering for tender coconut, ask for the ones with a little flesh. It is not sweet, if it is complete water and with no flesh. Also, you lose the taste and the quantity of water, if the flesh is hard too.
pic : soft flesh of tender coconut (this is the right softness) So, order one next time you see a vendor , on a bicycle with a load full of coconuts and enjoy Life!
I object, my Lord. It is, Tender Coconut! (Known as karikku in Malayalam)
Fresh Tender Coconut has life restoring capacity and it is so pure, it can be
substituted for I.V fluid. When you have it, have it fresh in normal room temperature. Not refrigerated. Even an hour or so refrigeration will cause its taste to disappear.
Tender coconuts, as the name implies are coconuts plucked before they turn mature. They are 90% water.Kerala, which simply means ‘the land of coconuts’, is abundant with this ‘Food of the Gods’. Every home, even the smallest one will have one or two coconut trees.My dad would pluck 6 tender coconuts for all of us in the evening when he comes home from work, and after drinking the pure water inside, we would eat the soft flesh with jaggery. Drinking this pure and sweet water is like taking a shower under a natural waterfall. So soothing! So refreshing! There is nothing cooler than this, especially on a warm summer day.
Yet, when you are easily provided with such natural nectar, people go dumb and go after products like coke and pepsi, which to me, is like slow poison if consumed daily. In Kerala too, these products started to slowly poison people’s drinking habits, but a controversy gave us the much needed jolt and in protest, now we have Tender Coconut Stalls all over Kerala.Excerpt: In fact, more and more doctors now recommend tender coconut drink for many of their patients. It is found to be effective in urinary ailments and also recommended as a very go,od substitute for saline glucose. This drink helps to keep the body cool and applying it on the skin helps prevent boils during the prickly heat of the summer. It is also used to help remove the rashes caused by small pox, chicken pox and measles. It is also considered a close substitute for blood plasma since it is sterile, cool, easily absorbed by the body and does not destroy red blood cells. To quote Morton Satin, Chief of Food and Agricultural Organisation's Agricultural Industries and Post Harvest Management Service: "It is a natural isotonic beverage with the same level of electrolytic balance as we have in our blood. It is the fluid of life, so to speak."
It is so delicate, attempts to package it has failed miserably. Though you get tender coconut in packages, it is never ever the same. I would rather have a frooti instead.You cut the top portion of the tender coconut,put a straw and slurp up the water or you pour the water in to a cup and drink it. Then you cut open the tender coconut into two. Then scoop out the flesh with a spoon.
While ordering for tender coconut, ask for the ones with a little flesh. It is not sweet, if it is complete water and with no flesh. Also, you lose the taste and the quantity of water, if the flesh is hard too.
pic : soft flesh of tender coconut (this is the right softness) So, order one next time you see a vendor , on a bicycle with a load full of coconuts and enjoy Life!
Apr 26, 2006
Julia Child of Kerala
Well, there were days when I used to think boiling water and making tea made me a good cook. I was in Bangalore staying in a house with a kitchen (earlier, kitchens never existed in a house, only the dining table) and had to learn to cook the hard-hard way.
I didn’t know sambar needed toor dal. I had seen vegetables floating in it and thought oh ok, sambar is easy - cut all vegetables, add water, cook. I thought the yellow tinge is from the turmeric. And I even had the guts to serve it to friends. They never came back, of course. Oh I could curdle the curd curry to shame. I would add 3 tsp of turmeric to 1 cup of curry, and I thought my mom was really stingy in using her spices. I could boil the curries to death until you see one big sorry mush. I could make egg curry in water. Yes, I would add 2 boiled eggs, 4 tsp of garam masala (No, I cannot be stingy like my mom) and 4 cups of water and had the audacity to call it egg curry. I didn’t even know sugar won’t dissolve in cold water. I would add sugar to tang with ice cubes and would serve the sour tang. I would splutter mustard seeds on every curry. If you just had a spoonful of curry in your hand too, I would splutter mustard on them. I liked the "sshhhh" sound of it and the smell. That sound was like lunch/dinner bell back home.
I would call up my mom and ask for recipes, and she would yell at me saying "Oh My God! Who told you to cook? I am scared you wont switch off the gas stove properly. Don't even go near the kitchen. It is dangerous."
My mom had told me she too learned cooking the hard way. As a new bride she made chicken, she put chicken on the stove and started chatting. Well, the chicken charred, but her friends stayed. They said carbon is good for the body and ate the charred chicken. My friends were not that nice. Well, like mother like daughter, eh? Well, my mean friends started teasing me like anything and I was adamant I will learn cooking. I went to a bookshop at Brigade Road in Bangalore and got the first book I saw.
I started to cook, slowly. The hard part was to translate all the English to Malayalam. I knew the vegetables only by Malayalam names. But I learned. My friends returned slowly with a wide grin on their mean faces. They would eat my curries and laugh like anything. They didn’t leave abruptly like the first time.I had never even heard of a Mrs. K.M. Mathew then.Then, one fine day I found her and then I started to love cooking, started to cook in a better way. She even taught me how to bake delicious fruit cakes.Mrs. K.M. Mathew is without a doubt the Julia Child of Kerala. Mrs K.M Mathew has authored around 21 cook books starting from 1953 I guess.
Her cooking style is Central Kerala.It is a known fact that, if you give even papaya skin to women in central Kerala, they would cook up delicious dishes in minutes. Well I am too from central Kerala,but there are exceptions for everything you know.
In U.S I was introduced to this frail old lady through my television set. She was honest and funny in her cooking shows without any airs. I loved her! If she drops something on the floor while cooking, she would say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter, just wash it and use it”. She would say, use real butter, we need flavor - not margarine or cheap imitations. She lived to 91. So I know it is not the butter or the so called fats, it is ‘moderation’ that is going to make you live healthy.
My friends came for a get together last year and I prepared lunch for them (I am good at heart you see, even when their mean laughter were ringing in my ears). After lunch, they said, “Hmm…you have learned to cook”. Well that’s the ultimate compliment I can get from those mean brutal hearts!
When my aunt visited us last time, she nearly had a heart attack seeing me cook. " Mole, you didnt even know a spoon from a fork, and look at you now" - Well,well..ahem..I put on a humble face even when my head was hitting the roof :-)
I didn’t know sambar needed toor dal. I had seen vegetables floating in it and thought oh ok, sambar is easy - cut all vegetables, add water, cook. I thought the yellow tinge is from the turmeric. And I even had the guts to serve it to friends. They never came back, of course. Oh I could curdle the curd curry to shame. I would add 3 tsp of turmeric to 1 cup of curry, and I thought my mom was really stingy in using her spices. I could boil the curries to death until you see one big sorry mush. I could make egg curry in water. Yes, I would add 2 boiled eggs, 4 tsp of garam masala (No, I cannot be stingy like my mom) and 4 cups of water and had the audacity to call it egg curry. I didn’t even know sugar won’t dissolve in cold water. I would add sugar to tang with ice cubes and would serve the sour tang. I would splutter mustard seeds on every curry. If you just had a spoonful of curry in your hand too, I would splutter mustard on them. I liked the "sshhhh" sound of it and the smell. That sound was like lunch/dinner bell back home.
I would call up my mom and ask for recipes, and she would yell at me saying "Oh My God! Who told you to cook? I am scared you wont switch off the gas stove properly. Don't even go near the kitchen. It is dangerous."
My mom had told me she too learned cooking the hard way. As a new bride she made chicken, she put chicken on the stove and started chatting. Well, the chicken charred, but her friends stayed. They said carbon is good for the body and ate the charred chicken. My friends were not that nice. Well, like mother like daughter, eh? Well, my mean friends started teasing me like anything and I was adamant I will learn cooking. I went to a bookshop at Brigade Road in Bangalore and got the first book I saw.
I started to cook, slowly. The hard part was to translate all the English to Malayalam. I knew the vegetables only by Malayalam names. But I learned. My friends returned slowly with a wide grin on their mean faces. They would eat my curries and laugh like anything. They didn’t leave abruptly like the first time.I had never even heard of a Mrs. K.M. Mathew then.Then, one fine day I found her and then I started to love cooking, started to cook in a better way. She even taught me how to bake delicious fruit cakes.Mrs. K.M. Mathew is without a doubt the Julia Child of Kerala. Mrs K.M Mathew has authored around 21 cook books starting from 1953 I guess.
Her cooking style is Central Kerala.It is a known fact that, if you give even papaya skin to women in central Kerala, they would cook up delicious dishes in minutes. Well I am too from central Kerala,but there are exceptions for everything you know. In U.S I was introduced to this frail old lady through my television set. She was honest and funny in her cooking shows without any airs. I loved her! If she drops something on the floor while cooking, she would say, “Oh, it doesn’t matter, just wash it and use it”. She would say, use real butter, we need flavor - not margarine or cheap imitations. She lived to 91. So I know it is not the butter or the so called fats, it is ‘moderation’ that is going to make you live healthy.
My friends came for a get together last year and I prepared lunch for them (I am good at heart you see, even when their mean laughter were ringing in my ears). After lunch, they said, “Hmm…you have learned to cook”. Well that’s the ultimate compliment I can get from those mean brutal hearts!
When my aunt visited us last time, she nearly had a heart attack seeing me cook. " Mole, you didnt even know a spoon from a fork, and look at you now" - Well,well..ahem..I put on a humble face even when my head was hitting the roof :-)
Nov 25, 2005
Injimanga or Mangainji
This new thing which I tasted inspired me to create a blog in its honour (well, I was looking for a nice name to create my food blog too).
I think it is actually called mangainji, but I liked the injimanga name better and the ammachi who introduced me to it, called it so.
Injimanga pickle. Peel,scrape and add some chilies and some lemon juice. Make it like cut mango pickle with little bit more vinegar. My friend has planted it and soon after she can give me some, I will get my own garden grown injimanga.
To techie types, injimanga is something like PDA/cell phone combination or a tablet PC kind of,the thing is it tastes good and is healthy unlike those! You can say tata to mangoes in a cut mango pickle.
InjiManga/MangaInji is called Aam Haldi in Hindi which translates to mango turmeric? Google tells me it is in the family of turmeric. I don't know whether this is a manmade hybrid some botanist thought of. Need to ask some good agri. fellow next time I go back home.
~*~
http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/INDIRA - This is for you. I don't think I have ever got this much mesmerized by a blogger. I visit it every single day. Every single dish she posts makes me want to make it immediately. Even though, she is a total veggie, I can’t blv I crave for her veggie dishes.I think we have too many similarities. Before, I write about similarities, let me write about the dissimilarities.
She learnt cooking at home from her mom. She has good excellent basics.I learnt cooking from cookbooks. I have no basics. My mom is not a good cook either and she wouldn’t let us work in the kitchen at all. So my basics are so poor, I have to refer cook books for anything and everything. My point is Indira is an excellent cook, whereas I am a poor cook.
She likes cats. I like dogs. I think cats are too proud.
Indira is crazy about organic stuff. I am too. I buy organic milk, eggs, meat etc.
She is crazy about traditional cooking. I am too. I always go in search for only authentic cooking. Therefore, she likes Italian cooking. I too like since I too find Italian dishes are authentic. (I don’t like recipes which doesn’t ooze love...)
She is crazy about traditional Indian cookware. I am too, I get clay cook pots, much to ire of my husband, to all kind of Indian stuff when I visit home.
Her in-laws cook better. My m-i-l is an excellent exceptional cook; I try to learn stuff from her the few days I get time with her. I am very embarrassed actually, since she is too good a cook. The way I cut vegetables itself she understood I don’t know how to boil water ;). But she is nice and sweet, she just lets me watch.
She is an avid food TV watcher. I am too.
She never uses food colouring, or any artificial stuff to make her recipes look good. I hate people who do that. Its like plastic flowers. I hate them both.
She doesn’t like canned food, store bought frozen stuff. She makes and tries to do everything from scratch. I am too. I wouldn’t give canned food even to my dog.
She likes ONLY healthy cooking. I am fan of it. I dont blv in making doctors richer! ;-)
She likes politics and is quite emotional and sensitive about it, maybe all that heat from the chillies. I am too.
The way I am going to post the recipes, with pictures is all inspired by Indira's blog. All credits to her.
Today: Read a lot about IIPM controversy, an IIM guy quitting his precious job for principle like blogs are not naive techie stuff anymore even back home.Aside: Cant blv the spellchecker with blogspot couldn’t figure out the word blog...hehehe.
I think it is actually called mangainji, but I liked the injimanga name better and the ammachi who introduced me to it, called it so. Injimanga pickle. Peel,scrape and add some chilies and some lemon juice. Make it like cut mango pickle with little bit more vinegar. My friend has planted it and soon after she can give me some, I will get my own garden grown injimanga.
To techie types, injimanga is something like PDA/cell phone combination or a tablet PC kind of,the thing is it tastes good and is healthy unlike those! You can say tata to mangoes in a cut mango pickle.
InjiManga/MangaInji is called Aam Haldi in Hindi which translates to mango turmeric? Google tells me it is in the family of turmeric. I don't know whether this is a manmade hybrid some botanist thought of. Need to ask some good agri. fellow next time I go back home.
~*~
http://www.nandyala.org/mahanandi/INDIRA - This is for you. I don't think I have ever got this much mesmerized by a blogger. I visit it every single day. Every single dish she posts makes me want to make it immediately. Even though, she is a total veggie, I can’t blv I crave for her veggie dishes.I think we have too many similarities. Before, I write about similarities, let me write about the dissimilarities.
She learnt cooking at home from her mom. She has good excellent basics.I learnt cooking from cookbooks. I have no basics. My mom is not a good cook either and she wouldn’t let us work in the kitchen at all. So my basics are so poor, I have to refer cook books for anything and everything. My point is Indira is an excellent cook, whereas I am a poor cook.
She likes cats. I like dogs. I think cats are too proud.
Indira is crazy about organic stuff. I am too. I buy organic milk, eggs, meat etc.
She is crazy about traditional cooking. I am too. I always go in search for only authentic cooking. Therefore, she likes Italian cooking. I too like since I too find Italian dishes are authentic. (I don’t like recipes which doesn’t ooze love...)
She is crazy about traditional Indian cookware. I am too, I get clay cook pots, much to ire of my husband, to all kind of Indian stuff when I visit home.
Her in-laws cook better. My m-i-l is an excellent exceptional cook; I try to learn stuff from her the few days I get time with her. I am very embarrassed actually, since she is too good a cook. The way I cut vegetables itself she understood I don’t know how to boil water ;). But she is nice and sweet, she just lets me watch.
She is an avid food TV watcher. I am too.
She never uses food colouring, or any artificial stuff to make her recipes look good. I hate people who do that. Its like plastic flowers. I hate them both.
She doesn’t like canned food, store bought frozen stuff. She makes and tries to do everything from scratch. I am too. I wouldn’t give canned food even to my dog.
She likes ONLY healthy cooking. I am fan of it. I dont blv in making doctors richer! ;-)
She likes politics and is quite emotional and sensitive about it, maybe all that heat from the chillies. I am too.
The way I am going to post the recipes, with pictures is all inspired by Indira's blog. All credits to her.
Today: Read a lot about IIPM controversy, an IIM guy quitting his precious job for principle like blogs are not naive techie stuff anymore even back home.Aside: Cant blv the spellchecker with blogspot couldn’t figure out the word blog...hehehe.
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