Food Blog

I must confess, I love eating. Which is one of my woes because loosing weight is becoming a loosing battle for me everyday, and I cannot stop eating! This is how my life sucks.

So anyway, I want to start a food blog, of things that me/my hubby cook. Simple and easy to make stuff. But I want to do it with friends.

If you think you would be interested to join the group and contribute to recipes that you love making, please be my guest and comment on this post. So when I create the blog you will also be able to put your recipes on it easily. What say?

Thanks

Anu

Dushera!

Growing up I loved this season a lot. First it marked the end of quarterly exams and beginning of quarterly holidays. I hate going to school and the promise of a ten day long vacation just made me happy. Of course the last day of vacation always made me sad and me, along with all my friends would look for Varuna's interference in bringing the monsoon a little sooner to our parts of the world. Which of course meant more days off from school and more play time with friends who lived around our house.

Then it also meant the coming of Deepavali. All I can say is that I have a few really favorite festivals and Deepavali ranks very high on it. I mean who would not like to go and burst fire crackers, dress up, eat amazingly good food, and hang out in the house for at least three days depending on what day D actually fell on.

I have been getting super nostalgic offlate. I think it has to do with the fact that my daughter is almost two now and when I take her to places, I explain everything in context with what I knew as a kid. For example, yesterday we walked into the Temple. The first thing to the left I saw Golu. Golu is arranging dolls based on a myth or some really cute dolls in small steps. It is definitely very Tamizhian to do it but I am not sure if any other states also celebrate Navratri in this particular way. So, I showed it to Babs and I explained to her what it is all about and immediately I could only think of my days past when I was a little kid totting along my mom from one house to another.

Golu

Mom used to dress me up in nice pavadai sattai (silk skirt and blouse) every day in the evening and we would at least visit a minimum of two houses a day. And this was the norm for the nine days. Some one or the other would invite us and we would sometimes have to go to as many as five houses on a single day. Of course only women were invited and my brothers would wait for me eagerly to bring in the dhonnai (bowls made from lotus leaf) filled with goodies, of which channa dal was the most common item. Each person trying to outdo the rest will always put a spin to things they give to us.

My daughter Babs wearing a typical South Indian pavadai sattai

First it was me accompanying mom because my brothers wanted my dhonnai. Then it was me taking mom in my two wheeler because we were now in Chennai and we could not just walk to friends house. Bigger city meant more travel. I used to wear my pavadai dhavani now (half-saree).

And then I had to drive mom around in my car. I was big enough to get my License to drive. It was so much fun. I miss those days.

I also miss seeing cars decorated for Ayudha Pooja. What a site it would be. It was also the day when most of the road accidents would happen owing to the large number of pumpkins that were broken to ward off evil eye.

Check out the decoration on the lorry. Cars will be decked up sometimes with small banana plants on either side. I am not kidding, people go really crazy to ward off evil eye.

We also had to put our books and pens and other things that would help us in life down next to god and take a break from work until the next day. I always had my math text and my Hero pen kept before God hoping that I would clear math...well that was until I was in my 9th.

Typical Saraswati Pooja setup. This is how it would look at my home too.

There was always holiday homework that we would have to do and obviously I would not have done it. And it would be this one day when I would need to take it out and work on it but amma would say a big NO to studying of any form. I would then sit up late to finish it off before school started the next day and then the wait for Deepavali would resume.

Phew...Long post...but this was a part of my life in India. Chinna Chinna Aasai...

Love

ART

Pictures above are not from my camera and are copyrighted to the following websites:

Golu: theiyers.net

The Lorry: photographersdirect.com

The Pooja: Priyaskitchen.wordpress.com

Varayo Vennilave...

There was a time in my life when Brother and I would be next to our radio at 9 every night. It was time for a popular Tamil music show. I think it was called Geeth Mala. Also, there was the Sri Lankan radio channel that had real good Tamil music that we would tune in for. We would rarely miss it. We used to listen to comedy cassettes on our two-in-one and record our voices on a cassette to play it back when we would get bored during summer. We also had a record player in our house.

We would put our name down for the latest Tintin or Asterix that our lending library had acquired and would fight over it with other kids.

My friend would knock on the door very loud at 8 on Wed and Fri nights. It was time for Chirtahar or Oliyum Oliyum. We did not have TV and my neighbors across our door did. We would all watch TV together eating fruits and chatting. We would also see a program on animals called World of Science or World of Life together diligently.

Of course cricket, tennis and other sports were watched at the club which was just a stone throw away. Together we would cheer, boo, and cry. The club's canteen was always open to fill our happy or sad tummies. At that age I would go to the club to hang out with other kids than to watch TV.

We would go every Saturday night to the Open Air Theater in the club to watch movies, again we always made it into a picnic and fun event.

What fun memories. Our entertainment was plain and simple.

My dad got our first TV in 1989, and our township got cable TV the same year. They would transmit one movies a day and then had some random Russian and Chinese channels that sometimes had subtitles. The movies were fun though.

In spite of having TV in our house now, we would still go and watch it at our friend's house or they would come home. We wanted the company, the camaraderie and loved spending time together. Since TV programs were scarce those days, with Krushi-Darshan (Farmer's Vision) airing at prime time 7.00pm, we would all have dinner and go and hangout outdoors. Our parents would sit on the culvert outside our house and chat, while I would play with kids my size and my brother would hang out with his friends a little ways away. But, we were all together policing the place.

TV never ran the whole time. We had a lot of talk time and one on one interaction. We played a lot outside and enjoyed our time in the sun and rain. Crime rate was so low and life was so much simpler.

Now, things are so different. People are upset and frustrated if the TV does not work, if their favorite program does not get recorded on the DVR or if gmail goes down for half a day. Those days all this was non-existent. I cannot imagine I am saying "those days," already. But they are those days aren't they? Today this is an entirely new life.

For people born in my generation we have seen things go from walk man to a french fry size music player, from writing long letters to typing out words in a short form in e-mail. It was not a bad transition because we lived through it. My child might not know what a walkman is or what a radio/transistor looked like but she already knows what an i-phone is. I only wonder how my parents and yours kept abreast with these changes. Because, sometimes it gets difficult for me to catch up. I can only do either gmail or facebook or twitter at one time. Some people are at all three places at the same time. Phew.

I wonder how I lived those days. How could I have possibly entertained myself with just voice that came over a radio. How could I have written those 14 page letters to my friend in REC Trichy? How did I have the patience to wait for a reply? How could I watch Oliyum Oliyum that played one new song and 10 super old songs? How could I watch Rini Khanna read news on TV with barely any images? or watch a weather report that was outdated by 8 hours? When they said the storm will come tonight, the storm would already be over my house. But those days are simple...

I miss those days...

I remember a scene from the Tamil movie Autograph when Cheran will be riding on a bullock cart. The person driving the bullocks will ask him why he chose this mode of transport when he has so many choices. To which Cheran tells him, "I want to enjoy it before it becomes extinct and will only be present in the history books of little kids." Isn't that so true? Our life is not what it was and will never be because things that were a part of our childhood is not there any more!

In the end...its the memories that carry us ahead...

Selai Kattum Pennuk Oru Vasam Undu...

That is the first line of a song from the movie Kodi Parakuthu which stared Rajni and Amla. Well if you know me then you would know that I am a staunch thalaivar fan. I have always been one. The line tells that there is a special beauty for a girl who wears a saree. And oh my god! Do I agree with that or what???

Well the past weekend saw all my friends in sarees. It was beautiful. The color sarees bring to any celebration can be matched by none. It is stylish, classy, makes you look skinny, adds a glow to your face, and in all that it still comes out as being sexy. WOW! No wonder our country's population has no stopping point :)

When I was in school and college, I could never drape a saree myself. I never even tried. I would tell my mother and she would have one of her friends come and help me into a saree whenever I wanted to wear one. My mom draped a saree really well, but only for herself. She could never do the same for me. She would fumble. It was funny that we would both get into an argument and I would land up wearing a salwar suit. So from then on I had someone drape a saree for me. And I never learnt how to do it.

When I moved to the US of A, I was a bit lucky because I knew friends who knew the magic art and I tagged along, but when I moved to Dallas, I was alone. I had to figure it all out myself. I would call my sister-in-law over the phone and ask her to give me step by step instructions. It never looked right. I hated it. I slowly started to pay attention when friends helped me out.

Today after 30 plus years of existence, I could finally do it for the wedding this weekend. I got into my saree in less than 10 mins and I cannot tell you how proud I felt. I am the kind that is super comfy in a saree. I can run, dance, and do loads of masti in one but just could never figure out how to drape one. Now I have that conquered too! I feel so happy. And I am looking forward to more saree draping demanding occasions...bring it on people!

Love

ART

Alright! I will admit it!

I have said it here, and if you know me personally, you know that I can make small errors...like dropping a glass full of water or breaking a mug while taking it out of the cupboard.

But I am not irresponsible. I always return things to owners, I never forget important things and I keep my belongings to myself just fine. Well, that was until this weekend! In all the wedding Hungama for Sam-Shal's I lost/misplaced by Car keys and I have not been able to recover them yet. Numerous calls to the hotel and after bugging everyone I am still clueless...er keyless.

Thank god, as a forethought G and I had left a key with SD for a "just in case we lock ourselves out" deal and it came in handy. G got to go home with the duplicate house keys and bring our car keys.

I missed the reception dancing completely because I was running around trying to look for my lost keys. I felt really bad because I loveeeeeeee dancing and it was one of those rare receptions where G danced. G is not known for dancing. He is more of a verbal entertainer. But this time he got to dance and I could not even be there :(

The good part is that I was there for most of the reception which was super entertaining but at the end of the day I became, in Narsi's words, a Chabi-guma!!!!!!!

Love

ART

PS: Narsi, who cannot speak Hindi, called SD once a Chabi-guma because SD had misplaced his keys. It was hilarious because you should have also heard the accent and the emotion that went into it! And Narsi was there with me on that day when I was searching for the keys and aptly told me, so today you are the Chabi-Guma!