Dutifully digressing as always.
I have lots to write on a recent holiday my husband and I enjoyed in New Zealand. This involves a lot of wordy descriptions and very scenic pictures. It will take a while to sieve my vocabulary and find all the right words and match it with the correct picture to make it a worthy post. And that is why, I am taking the escape route and keeping it for a ‘longer’ winter’s day and sticking to some random rambling in this post. By the way, Australian winter has become somewhat a warm joke after a week spent amidst glaciers and snow capped mountains.
I don’t cook too much out of my imagination. Not because I don’t have any imagination. I guess different people who know me would dispute this point at various levels..oh! but I digress! I like trying out established recipes because I know I can expect a certain kind of taste and most of the times it’s very reassuring. If you are not able to proceed beyond the ‘most of the time’ part for you are pinned to that sentence by some insane curiosity (the same kind of curiosity which led you to wonder why auto rickshaw drivers sit on only one of their butts and drive in a slanted way or why people pronounce chicago as cheecago or why for the love of god don’t they stop Dr. Phil from airing his shows or for that matter even making one ), then let me tell you it’s because some people have no idea what they are cooking.
I have enjoyed many a afternoons browsing recipe sites and videos and so far I quite like 2 websites. One is called vahrevah.com and the other is Manjula’s kitchen. Look, I am not talking about the Grey’s anatomy of culinary science like Tarla dalal and Sanjay Kapoor. Manjula and the guy from vahrevah are pretty new and they do a very neat job. What I like about them is their humble and very native beginning. Accents are raw and typify the states they come from. I love the way Sanjay pronounces vahrevah. ‘va’ of vahrevah sounds like ‘wo’ of wok. and why is that all good chefs are called Sanjay? Majula cooks Jain food and Sanjay patronizes garlic. Manjula teaches you to make fluffy rotis that are so round that they would put any engineer’s measured drawings to shame and Sanjay teaches you how to make Dal makhani they way Chola Sheraton makes it.
There is another point I want to express and it’s not because I am racist or prejudiced or anything of that sort. North Indians are big on presentations and appropriate cutlery use. You would always find them presenting their dishes in artistically painted porcelain bowls and nibbling the food with great finesse from the edge of a shiny spoon to prove to the audience how great it tastes. On the other hand for us South Indians, it’s all about the food and just the food. Stainless steel vessels suffice for us and we can’t wait to get our hands on our grub. It isn’t because we are anywhere less savvy but just that our food requires all four fingers and a well operating opposing thumb. When it comes to food we are not ashamed of the way we eat because our food simply tastes finger-licking good.
I lumbered through that point just to convey that when Sanjay made bharvan bhindi, he didn’t wait another second to mix the spicy bhindi with plain rice and eat it with his bare hands on a very famous show. There was something very familiar and homely about that move and it made me want to revisit his website and try more of his recipes. Anways, these days I think of nothing but food and that’s because my dietician wants me to try a 1190 cal diet. Do any of you even know what that means??? I breathe twice and 500 calories is already inhaled. It’s 2 tsps of fat, 2 cups of milk, 2 other dairy products, 6 servings or carb and that’s nothing since 3 tbs of oats is one serving of carb, 2 fruits, 21/2 cups of veges and 2 cups lentils a day. If it sounds like a lot….IT ISN’T!!
Those readers who stumbled upon my blog by chance and then had the misfortune to stumble upon it again and again wonder why all my posts end abruptly. It’s because I only meander in most of them without any real focus and all of a sudden I decide to stop rambling and saunter off somewhere else. Simple and so farewell for now.
The power of silence
Have you ever had moments when you felt you heard or said a lot more in silence? When the thoughts in your head seem louder and clearer to you? When you start noticing people and things around in greater detail and you understand them better for that quiescence? In India, one would probably have to go to a distant ashram or a hill station to experience this stillness. Where I live, noise is a novelty. And it is in these moments of silence that I discovered so many new thoughts and feelings.
In my home, turning on a switch sounds like the big bang. After my husband leaves for work, my world is usually enveloped by silence. The noise of the outside world hardly permeates inside and I have hours to myself to sit and reflect on everything. Sometimes I think of the past and the things I would like to change or relive. Sometimes it is the future and what I must do. What I have come to understand is that I need to learn to tap the real power of silence and use it well and not trifle it away in meaningless thoughts and emotions.
So may great people have so much to say on it. “Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel of dull discourses and foolish acts, a balm to every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment”- Henry David Thoreau; ” A silent mouth is sweet to hear” – Irish proverb; ” Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence and silence is full of music”- Marcal Marceau; ” There are time when silence has the loudest voice”- Leroy Brownlow. I love reading these quotes again and again, for I know now how true they are.
I believe I want to reach a point in my life where it is not words that compel me to understand or imagine, instead the lack of it does; Where my partner and I can converse comfortably in our silence and we are better off for it. This is a silent niche I want to build where I grow quietly into a better person and realise that I have made a mark and said a lot all by saying nothing at all.
Random thoughts
Lately, it has been irking me that I have a cousin whom I have never seen or spoken to hidden somewhere in the US. My aunt left for the US many many years ago and she got married there. Her son was born and every now and then we would hear about his antics and his progress. Over time, even that slowly trickled out. I find this estrangment such a paradox in a time where our world is shrinking and the so-called technology is bringing us all under one umberella. Not that we haven’t tried from our end but as they say…you can only take the horse to it’s trough but can’t make it drink. In Tamil, we usually describe families as a sack of tamarind or a sack of gooseberries. This is because when the sack is opened and upturned, the tamarind would all fall out but would still stick to each other and stay together whereas the gooseberries would roll out in different directions far from one another and lose contact. Sometimes it feels like we weren’t even in the same sack to start with.
Oh well! this depressing note is no way to start off a new blog. So I shall add some happy thoughts.
I am going on a week’s trip to New Zealand. My husband and I spent the weekend making an elaborate yet a clear plan for it. Now a big Excel sheet lies in front of me defining our week ahead. They say the best holidays are those decided on-the-spot but I think an organized mind is also a relaxed mind and since we were looking for a week of relaxation, nothing seemed more appropriate than to be organized. I have to openly admit that I will not be bungy jumping. Queenstown might be the adventure capital of the world but my adventurous streak ends with watching other jumpers. Ski-diving seems a floss-breadth less scarier. Why? Because misery loves company and if the jump is going to be miserable, uncomfortable and petrifying for me, I will atleast have company. One a placcid note, I am looking forward to the canoe ride down the Avon river, the cruise to Milford sound and ofcourse the walk on the glaciers itself.
My friend delivered a baby and she is the cutest, chubbiest thing I have seen in a while. Fresh and pink and wrapped in fluffy purple blankets with hearts on them. To think this pretty dollop came from just two cells undelines the miracle of pregnancy and child birth for me. The relevance of so many cliches is finally dawning.
This salad recipe is by far my favorite as the preparation is hassles-free and it tastes simple yet delicious.
Ingredients:
Moong sprouts- 2 cups
Roasted peanuts- 1/2 cup (I like my salad crunchy)
Onion- 1 small
Tomato- 1 small
Lime- 3 tbs (If you like it tangy as I do)
Salt/ Pepper/ Sugar (a pinch) and Cumin powder- To your taste
Method- Chop up the tomato and onion and mix the lot in a salad bowl and well….bob’s your uncle!!
Ofcourse you could garnish it with corriander and maybe even add lightly sauteed panner pieces for that variation and extra protein.
I exit for now, leaving you readers with this healthy recipe.
