The Laurentis Syndrome!!

Ahhhh!!! I have been afflicted with the "Laurentis Syndrome". It is not curable unless I have some freak accident and forget anything that happened to me before now. But fear not it is but an illness of the mind and not of the physical self. It happens when you watch too much of a particular show on Food network. In most cases it is usually the 30 minute thingy with so-sunny-it-gives-me-a-glare Rachel Ray. In my case, it is from this show called "Everyday Italian". The host is this person called Giada de laurentis.

I am not sure when I started doing this, but I did some day. My dear "Guinea Pig" came into the battle ground one day with a wierd look on his face and asked me who I was talking to. To my horror I realised "Myself!!!". I made an effort and actually caught myself doing it again snd again and again until it became so normal that when I don't talk it probabaly forebodes a spicy dinner from a spicy lady. This is what I do. I start out by tying my apron and describing my dinner to myself. "We are going to have some real tasty basmati rice with roasted onions a little something we call pulao and garbanzo beans with a rich, delicately spiced tomato gravy". And then I describe how I roast the rice in a dab of buttter so that the nuttiness in the rice comes out and how I spice it with a turn of the ol' pepper mill. The onions are roasted to a deep golden brown and added to the rice. I then put a spoon in my mouth all the while thinkin to myself " Mmm..roasting the rice really brings out its delicate aroma and that nutty taste in the rice. I then make my chole, describing how the tomatoes should be nice and ripe and the whole nine yards. I am still describing each and every ingredient and its respective aroma, and flavour. I mean I never knew corinader leaves had an earthy taste or curry leaves had a wee bit of spice in their taste. Or the fact that Shrikand was so creamy it just slides down your throat and the dal in the sabhar gave some texture to it and made it more thick and brought together the spices in it. Geez, who would have thought cooking was so mentally exhausting. Honestly though, I am actually enjoying the whole describe as you go cooking thing I have been doing. I have started taking my time and appreciating each ingredient that goes in and what it does to the food and I have even strted to taste the medley of flavours that each ingredient adds to the food. I know the whole talking thing makes me look like a looney, but hey I've never denied the fact that I am one.

Ok Got to go, My take is coming up..hehe

Making Memories, Fulfilling Dreams.

I was away for a month (Hopefully the absence was noticed!!!) Went home. Given the fact that my grandparents haven't been doing very well, I wanted to go. I wanted to get a taste of my grandma's Mysorepa and tamarind rice. I wanted to feel the soft fluffy beard of my Grandpa. I wanted to give my Grandma a leg massage and sit next to my Grandfather's rocking chair and hear his stories. I wanted to be there. And now that I am back I want to go back again more than ever. Life is funny.
I had a nice time. I guess there is some added pleasure in everything that I do when I go back home. Everything I do , or say I have to make sure I file it in moments to be remembered. It is like "Cud chewing" I eat in everything at one go and then once I get back I bring back each and every moment and slowly squeeze the memories, smells and sights in them till they are dry and colourless. But then by that time it is time to go back again. I do the darndest things when i go there. I take some sort of an apparel and get it ironed there. The person uses the old coal iron and the smell it leaves brings me back memories of school days. I bring back a packet of meera shikakai. It reminds me of Sunday mornigns at home and hw my dad used to rake his fingers through my hair every time I clean my hair. I bring back something from my mothers dressing table to remind me of her. I guess I am a little wierd. hehe.

I do have good news. I am finally going to take a critical step towards my dream. I am going to study political science. I have got admission and I am starting next week. Yey!! The thing is it is not one of those straigthforward dreams, or something that I have had all my life. I took interest only about 5 years back. The complication was that I was a major in Biology. So I had to work from the bottom up, little by little and claw my way to this step. And now that I am here the view is hazy, a lot scary and totally thrilling. I think of it as a huge achievement in terms of what I have done so far with my life and my dreams. It took a lot of guts to get here and I am crossing every finnger to make sure I come out the other end more alive than I have ever been. But for now I am just glad I am back warming my seat, coffee in hand and clacking away in my shoes.....

Holidays, Home sickness and Everything else.

I was away for a month (Hopefully the absence was noticed!!!) Went home. Given the fact that my grandparents haven't been doing very well, I wanted to go. I wanted to get a taste of my grandma's Mysorepa and tamarind rice. I wanted to feel the soft fluffy beard of my Grandpa. I wanted to give my Grandma a leg massage and sit next to my Grandfather's rocking chair and hear his stories. I wanted to be there. And now that I am back I want to go back again more than ever. Life is funny.
I had a nice time. I guess there is some added pleasure in everything that I do when I go back home. Everything I do , or say I have to make sure I file it in moments to be remembered. It is like "Cud chewing" I eat in everything at one go and then once I get back I bring back each and every moment and slowly squeeze the memories, smells and sights in them till they are dry and colourless. But then by that time it is time to go back again. I do the darndest things when i go there. I take some sort of an apparel and get it ironed there. The person uses the old coal iron and the smell it leaves brings me back memories of school days. I bring back a packet of meera shikakai. It reminds me of Sunday mornigns at home and hw my dad used to rake his fingers through my hair every time I clean my hair. I bring back something from my mothers dressing table to remind me of her. I guess I am a little wierd. hehe.

I do have good news. I am finally going to take a critical step towards my dream. I am going to study political science. I have got admission and I am starting next week. Yey!! The thing is it is not one of those straigthforward dreams, or something that I have had all my life. I took interest only about 5 years back. The complication was that I was a major in Biology. So I had to work from the bottom up, little by little and claw my way to this step. And now that I am here the view is hazy, a lot scary and totally thrilling. I think of it as a huge achievement in terms of what I have done so far with my life and my dreams. It took a lot of guts to get here and I am crossing every finnger to make sure I come out the other end more alive than I have ever been. Will be doubly glad to have your best wishes. (Smiles).
I am back and it feels good to be in my seat, blogging....

The Heart needs a Home..

For as long as I remember Home for me was where I would wake up to my Dad's monotonous voce droning out my dreams, where my mother's filter coffee spread its tantalizing addictive scent into all around and where I would scramble and fight with my brothers and where my father and I would literally leap to the door at the sight of the paper. I still have a feeling that he stood for a minute longer each day to see who won, or deliberately aim the paper in differeant directions. It was where I came home to my mother's dinner, to my Father's scrabble and news nights every night. That was where my heart is. After what seemed like a lifetime I moved to a place which was now referred to as my home and I moved further where I was expected to make my home. The funny thing about heart is it dosen't follow directions, it comes with its own set of directions, which often means it wanders around when I try to settle and make itself comfortable in people's mind and houses when I don't want to. Just beacuse I was instructed to make my home and refer to people as my parents didn't mean that I wanted to do it or I was prepared. There was however a comfort level I got into with increasing familiarity. It didn't happen in sequential manner, it happened. I have made my home now, far far away from the little place I had called home, and a distant cry from the big world contained in a tiny room which seemed to exapnd with friends and the walls that held my secrets tight. The wind is different. It seemed to carry the conversations I had and was a part of my bandwagon of mates. Over here it just seemes to be suspended in midair. I am not sure if it listens to the woe betide me stories or laughs at my rib cracking thoughts I speak aloud. The moon seems a little different too. But amidst al these I have slowly learnt to call this place which I scrub and scrouge, where I trip over the stairs, where I play Uno with my equal (Not better, equal) half and where the smell of the weak brew I pour down my throat tries its best to waft gracefully. I feel a twinge when I leave the place to fly home. I feel homesick before I leave and glad when I am back. Does it mean I like the place where my heart was a little less. Is the place where your heart used to thrive for 20 odd years your true home or the place where your heart learnt to adapt? Is it even possible to live in two worlds and call them each your home? My home is with my mother with whom I learnt to love, cook and paint. It is with my father who made the rest of my life. It is alos with my love who I gave my heart to and willingly followed him to the end of the earth to make my home where he went. My home is with these people and my heart learns to love them all in its own different way

The case of the Disappearing Friend!!

I have a friend who is rapidly disappearing, one is almost disappeared and another who is thinking of taking the plunge. They have it in their minds that they need to look shriveled and not healthy, lose weight rather than eat healthy and exercise and most importantly think about it all the time. Why do people go on diets? For one thing it is too much of a strain on the brain, trying to calculate all those calories, trying to figure the percent fat, protein, carbs in each food then trying to figure out how much calories you need today. There is one important reason that my math teacher failed to insist upon when she was waxing eloquently about the lifelong gains that we would have see from studying mathematics. And the second thing is it wastes too much time. ou go shopping for groceries, stopping at each and every aisle for minimum of 10 mins examining the ingredient list, calculating, comparing, with furrowed brows rapidly scan the list, grab another compare the two then grab yet another one and compare that with the previous two, then put don all three and grab a fourth which has the words whole grain, complete grain, bird seeds or tastes like mud written on it. I am not by any means critiscing people for taking care of their weight or being careful about what they eat. In a rapidly growing country in ways other than the economic sense, it is very very essential for good food habits to be cultivated. But sometimes there is a tendency to take things to the other extreme. I am not sure if we were naive or unworldly or just plain ignorant, somehow in India I was never exposed to the weighty problems of excess adipose tissues. I have always been going around as my doctor so subtly put it "a slightly larger frame" but a lot has to do with genetics. Don't think I am just taking the easy excuse. I know my genetics especially when they are walking around as clear as daylight. Maybe it had to do with all the walking I did or the proper 3 mother made meals a day, I never found it to be a problem until I came here. I cook, so watching the TV and gulping the indiscernible contents on the plate seems like fun. But I have not been barraged with the reduce weight in minutes ranging from 15 to 120, and a wide varitey of contorsions to which if I subject my body, I am promised I can loose all my belly fat and tone each and every muscle in just under a month...GASP!!! but then they also ask me to stick to whole wheat bread, no milk products, no carbs, limited fat and most importantly a whole lot of green salad. I am vegetarian true blue one who eats milk and milk products, but even for me a green lunch is as tasty as chewing on a piece of rotten bark. As my very learned father said, there is a reason why we stopped walking on four legs, so that we could take a break from grazing. There is fun in pouring some gingelly oil, grinding coconut, jeera, red chilli, coriander seeds and a little hing. Chopping some onions till they brown up and throwing the spinach into it with the ground stuff along with a handful of boiled lentils. That is what I consider food and I have my parents backing me up for it. My parents were pretty liberal when it came to foods, no fuss, no hold backs, they are and were very active people and found no reason to stop eating good food. There is ofcourse the famous incident when my mother valiantly proclaimed that she was going to go on a fruits only diet for one meal a day and she figured dinner was the best. So for three days she munched on a every fruit my father laid his hands on in the fruit shop. My father being the man he is showed his supoort by doing the same. So life went on. One night my dad wakes up at around 2.00 to go grab a drink, when he spots the kitchen light. Alarmed he tips toes slowly to see my mother furiously mixing rice with "Onion Sambhar and making curd" She exclaimed and declares she is officialy back to eating normal food. She couldn't do it anymore. Imagine my suprise when I wake up to nature's screaming and find my mom and dad in the dining room with a candle light so as to not wake up anyone digging into food and some leftover cake for all the days they didn't eat dinner. My father calls it the most romantic dinner in his life and my mother mouth full nods. As you can see there is a reason why I like my icecream and like eating it too. I do restrain myself every now and then that is and excercise regularly given the fact that there is nothing here in "Walking distance". But I just can't figure out why people would refuse to eat a perfectly good pizza, or a beautiful "Chunky monkey" or "Dulche de luche". I am not saying hog, I am saying know what you want and eat what you want not what you wish you had or how much you wish you could eat. I find Good Food Indian or otherwise had sitting down on a table with family and friends is the best diet there ever was, and don't forget to eat the fruits in the end.