Month: July 2015

“What is this – balla, balla? What is your name really?” asks the elderly nun of a cheeky fourteen year old grinning up at her.

She, the nun that is, has just come to our school from the parent convent in Vijayawada and is flummoxed by my friend’s surname – a Punjabi “Bhalla”. She doesn’t quite believe that someone can have a name quite like that (‘balla’ in Telugu means a bench!). She checks the register and finds it’s for real and as though to make up for her faux pas earlier or maybe it was the cheeky grin that did it, the ‘Bhalla’ becomes her favourite – can do no wrong whatsoever blue-eyed girl! Our Bhalla exploits this to the full – thinking up and carrying out all sorts of mischief, secure in the knowledge that all she has to do is smile endearingly at the “sister” in question and all would be forgiven!

This was around the time we had graduated to class 9 – one of the seniormost in the school and also graduated to the rowdy ‘last bench’!

This particular sister in question, was very fond of storing a little cache of unshelled peanuts in her capacious pockets and popping them in, slowly shelling them, during the Social Studies class that she took – right after lunch! Now, we’d have just had lunch, so the peanuts did not torment us with any induced hunger pangs… but the idea of a teacher wandering around, shelling peanuts and eating them with impunity seemed grossly unfair! We had to do something!

The Bhalla girl (as the good sister liked to call her) was my benchmate on the last bench. She had the aisle seat and I was in the innocent place just inside. The sister (must have been longing for a siesta rather than taking a class of pesky teens through the geography of India!) used to lean on the wall next to her favourite and crack her peanuts open, swaying gently from side to side rather like a ship in full sail with gentle breezes rocking her side to side at sea! She moved, Bhalla – girl sees her opportunity. Quick as a flash, out comes a tube of Feviquick and she smears it liberally on the wall – behind the sister. The sister, having cracked a few nuts open, leans back to enjoy them with a sigh of contentment, beaming benevolently down at her blue-eyed girl. Chats with her occasionally, looks over her shoulder and helps her with her class assignment  and is generally a happy soul on a somnolent afternoon….

…the assignment is done, papers are gathered and the sister moves off… rrriiiipppp… goes her veil… the glue has dried well and truly during the sister’s extended sojourn on the wall and now a part of the cloth covering her head has torn off!

She splutters in indignation and turns a baleful eye towards our bench – the culprit must obviously be here! The Bhalla? No way, she is too innocent (if only she knew!!)… must be that pesky Chenji who sits next to her and asks all kinds of questions! The thunderclap falls on me, despite my protests of innocence!

But there is a funny side to it – the sister with a torn veil, spluttering away in indignation is a sight guaranteed to bring joy to any heart – unfortunately I hadn’t learnt to master the art of inconvenient giggles and am uncermoniously led away to the “Office” for punishment! Ah well, I did giggle!

And with that in mind, let’s make something that resembles the good sister’s veil… the

MASALA DOSA WITH MYSORE TYPE CHUTNEY

For dosa, follow this link.

FOR GREEN/WHITE CHUTNEY

• 1 cup fresh, grated coconut
• 1 tbsp – fried gram dal/putani/putnala pappu/odacha kadalai
• Ginger – 1/2 tsp -chopped
• Green chilies – 2
• Asafoetida – 1 pinch
• Salt
• Jeera/cumin seeds – 1 pinch
• Sugar – 1/4 tsp
• Juice of half a lime
• Peeled sambar onions – 5-6 (optional)
• Coriander – 1/2 cup for green chutney. Omit for white chutney.

Grind everything together with a little water to make a thick chutney.

 FOR RED CHUTNEY (MYSORE TYPE)

• Fried gram dal/putani/putnala pappu/pottu kadalai – 1 cup
• 1 large onion – chopped any which way
• Garlic – 5-6 flakes
• Red chilies – soaked in hot water for ten minutes – 4-5
• Juice of half a lime
• Salt

Grind everything together adding a little water to a thick, spreading consistency.

FOR  POTATO MASALA

• Boiled, peeled, crumbled potaotes – 2 cups
• Onion – chopped – 1 – optional
• Green chilies – sliced – 2-3
• Turmeric – 1/4 tsp
• Asafoetida – 1 generous pinch

 SAMBAR

See entry here.

Make the dosa. Spread 1 tsp of the red chutney on top. Shovel some potato masala – about 2-3 tbsp. Fold over in half and serve with the other chutney and sambar.

No need to fill up on peanuts afterwards!

Having spent many, many years in recruitment, interviewing several thousand candidates, maintaining notes painstakingly, I had to figure out some way of remembering candidates.

And so,  inspired by an article I’d read which informed me  that it was a very good idea to imagine the most ridiculous combinations of things together  so I’d remember what that thing was that I was supposed to remember in the first place, I came up with this brilliant idea – I would make notes which  had little drawings of candidates and  little notes on them – like if someone had a particularly arresting feature , I’d note it down and attempt to draw it!  And so I have pages filled with drawings of bristly moustaches, long, curly locks and whatever else struck my fancy at that point! I have the artistic ability of a 6-month old with a crayon in her fingers and a canvas which can go anywhere, basically – so these are not really of any use should there be a police parade!

But being my mother’s daughter, nothing deters me! And so I started these pictorial representations of interviewees – providing great amusement of the two girls who used to assist us in the office. They would wait for the interview to be over and pounce on the book wherein I made my notes and as they updated the database with the relevant info (boring stuff like qualifications, background, experience etc.!), much chuckling and giggling would accompany the process! Willy nilly I had struck upon a way to keep my people engaged!

You think Philip Kotler might be interested in my idea on motivation??! Hmm… maybe I should patent it – was just thinking along these lines one day in office when fate showed me just where the flaw was with my brilliant idea!

So… I was interviewing this young man with a speech impairment, waiting patiently while he struggled to make himself understood. I draw a picture of him, melting brown eyes and all, noting down “melting brown eyes” as I do so. After a while, he relaxes and the interview proceeds very smoothly. Then I ask him for references – names and telephone numbers are needed. He clearly has more of a problem getting numbers out than words. I am running late for a meeting so I ask him, “why don’t you write it down for me here?” and hand over my book. A few seconds later, I realise what I have done – there is this young man, staring at my artistic rendering of him titled, “melting brown eyes”! And this time, even my aplomb (honed by two years of B-school education where, I assure you, the only valuable skill you pick up is getting out of sticky situations with panache!) deserts me and I grab my book back with as much assurance as I can muster, muttering excuses about how I was writing a story earlier etc. etc.

The melting brown eyes twinkle merrily at me!

The other thing you don’t learn at b-school but life teaches you later is that you can’t really get out of every sticky situation and the best thing you can do is to grin back sheepishly!

One lives and one learns – like today’s dish – which went through a few frustrated avatars and five and six letter words (this is a family blog – I do not use four letter words!) before I got it right!

Was very excited about dreaming up this truly one-pot meal  – a mixture of Eastern and Middle Eastern cuisines anyway!

VEGAN MATZOH BALLS IN A COCONUT BROTH

FOR THE MATZOH (also called “gondi” in Persian cuisine)

• Boiled chickpeas – 1.5 cups
• Boiled rice – leftovers will do very nicely, thank you! – 1 cup
• Breadcrumbs – 1/2 cup’s
• wow, that’s three “B” things in a row!! 😉
• Basil leaves – fresh – a handful
• Green chili – 1 or 2
• Peppercorns – 1/2 tsp
• Ginger – 1/2 ” piece
• Garlic – 2 flakes
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• Salt
• Onion – 2 tbsp – sliced

Whizz everything, except the breadcrumbs in the mixer to a reasonably smooth paste. Fold in the breadcrumbs and shape into balls. Place on a tray and leave in the frig without a lid for about an hour – they will firm up a bit.

Brush a little oil on top and bake in the oven at 220C for 20 minutes or pan-roast, turning over carefully  a few times till golden.

FOR COCONUT BROTH

•  Onion – sliced – 1
• Green chili – minced – 1
• Garlic – minced – 2
• Ginger minced – 1/2 tsp
• Shredded cabbage – 1 cup
• Thinly sliced carrot – 1/2 cup
• Thinly sliced capsicum / bell peppers – 1/2 cup
• Coconut milk – 1 cup
• Water – 3-4 cups
• Salt and pepper
• Tomato  puree – 1 tbsp – optional
• Sugar – 1 tsp
• Spring onions and mint to garnish
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tsp oil

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Toss in onions and saute till the colour begins to change. Add garlic, green chili, ginger and continue to saute for a few seconds more. Sprinkle a little water if the onion begins to stick to the pan.

Add the vegetables and saute on high heat for three minutes. Add the water and bring to a boil. Lower heat and add coconut milk Simmer for 5-6 minutes. Add salt and sugar and pepper.

Switch off, add lime juice.

Pour into bowls, add three or four matzoh balls to each bowl. garnish with mint and serve hot.

You don’t need anything else to go with it – it has protein and carbs ad veggies!

Yum! Even if you have to read it in my book!

I am “volunteered” by the school to take a bunch of kids to the cinema.

“How bad can it be, anyway?” I reason to myself. Taking a bunch of six and seven-year olds to a show – after all, it’s only a matter of a couple of hours or so! Poor misguided soul that I was!

First of all, the movie the school picks is “Batman and Robin”. Till then, I have always liked superhero movies – but then the only ones I saw before this were the Superman series and Supergirl (Ok, ok – that one was bad but at least it was about a girl with superpowers – haven’t you ever dreamt that you had those!)

Superhero movie, I thought, “Can’t be too bad, can it?”

And off I set to school, where we all piled into the big school buses and traipsed off excitedly to the theatres. The kids were divided into groups of about fifteen each with a couple of parents in charge of each group. The other parent I knew vaguely – but as a very pleasant chap. Then they sit the kids down in the bus and divide them by rows. We get the front half – which has fourteen girls and one boy. I don’t think too much about it – at that age, the gender thing doesn’t make much difference… I think! Well, I couldn’t have been wrong-er! There is one area where the gender thing makes a lot of difference – and that is in public restroom areas – clearly gender-segregated!

So there is this other parent – a man – with one solitary boy in his care and there I am with fourteen little girls to look after! How tough can it be, you think? Take them in fours or fives and the job is done – hah! Try synchronising fourteen bladders, all of whom are thirsty  after a hot day at school and gulp down lots of water and juices, all of whom take varying sizes in bladders, some of whom haven’t learnt how to undo their buttons and get on the throne! It is always these latter, I find, who need to go four times in the space of two hours! Averaging three trips to the john each, that makes forty two trips I made in all!

The one good thing I can say about the evening is that the restrooms were probably a better place to be in than watching a very bad George Clooney and an even worse Arnold Schwarzenegger cavort on screen in their underclothes! I had had enough of underclothes by then, anyway!

No wonder it is the practice of schools to “volunteer” a parent, rather than ask for volunteers!

This is one koora (curry) though, for which you will never lack volunteers, particularly if you have a whiff of Andhra blood somewhere in your genes!

VANKAYA ULLI KHARAM (eggplants in onion gravy)

• Baby Brinjals – 1/4 kg (try getting the small, purply -pinky tender ones)
• Sambar onions/shallots – 1/2 cup – chopped  or 1 large onion – grated.
• Red chilies – 2
• Green chilies – 1 or 2 – minced
• Cloves – 2
• Cinnamon – 3/4″
• Dhaniya/coriander powder – 1 tsp
• Red chilli powder – 1/2 tsp
• Turmeric – 1/2 tsp
• Asafoetida – 1 large pinch
• Grated jaggery – 1/2 tsp
• Tamarind paste – 1/4 tsp
• Tomato – 1 ripe – chopped
• Garlic – 2-3 flakes (optional)

TO SEASON

• Mustard Seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Sesame oil – 2 tbsp
• Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
• Salt

Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a small saucepan.

Add the cloves and cinnamon.

Saute for a few seconds.

Add the red chilies and stir-fry for 30 seconds.

Add the chopped onion (setting aside 1 tbsp) and green chilies and saute, covered till the onion is pale yellow. Add tomato and let it become mushy.

Switch off and  add red chilli and coriander powders.Let the mixture cool.

Add tamarind pulp, turmeric, asafoetida, jaggery and salt (and garlic if using) and grind to a paste. This is the ulli kharam.

Prepare eggplants/brinjals by slitting them vertically in half first, then quarters. Leave a bit at the stalk end unslit (whole, that is)

Stuff each brinjal with the masala. Don’t stint on this! If there is left over masala, you can always use it for another curry!

Place the brinjals in a microwaveable flat bowl and microwave on high for 4 minutes.

In a large flat saucepan, heat 1 tbsp of oil.

Add mustard seeds and wait till the splutter.

Add curry leaves and stir-fry for a minute.

Add the brinjals and lower the flame. Add 2-3 tbsp of water , left over masala and fry, covered,  for about 4-5 minutes, turning over frequently till tender.

The vegetables will cook and the gravy turn thick – “coating” type!

Serve hot with rice and ghee, of course!

And don’t let yourself be “volunteered” unless you want a story about it some day 🙂

(Pic courtesy internet)

I know, i know… I have a well-deserved reputation for putting my foot in it – so much so that my husband says I take one foot out only to put the other foot in! My only defence is that he’s got a lot more fun out of life thanks to me than he would have otherwise!

Yesterday, I was reading one of those lists on facebook (the very best way to waste time!) which add nothing to your knowledge but oh, so much fun to your afternoon! A list of “oops” moments and sympathising exclusively with the “oops-ers” (the doers of oops moments) as opposed to the “oops-ees” on whom the oops moments are perpetrated!

Some of my own bloopers came crowding back… like this one time, when we were waiting at the kids’ school to pick up my daughter after an excursion. We are chatting with a bunch of other parents. Guy rides up on a scooter and parks under a tree. Familiar face (see where this is going?). I smile at him vaguely, not quite sure of his name but recognising him as a dad. Puzzled smile back. Ah… now I get who this guy is! I have met him on work!

I announce grandly to my husband and the rest of my audience, “You know who that guy is? He’s Mr AK. Owns one of the largest software companies in India.”

Hubby laughs – “And he’s riding a scooter??!”

Me: “You don’t know – he’s a very simple man. Comes from a very ordinary middle-class background and look at the company he’s built! How amazing he’s still stays so humble!”

Hubby knows it is useless to argue and lets me meet my Armageddon!

I saunter across and say hello. The gentleman gets off his scooter and says hello back but with a slightly puzzled look on his face – the have we met before look.

So then I ask, “Mr AK, isn’t it? We met at your office last month? I am… ” and then start blabbering as his bewilderment increases and I figure I’ve put my foot in it – yet again!

But never mind, I apologise and we chat for a bit before I trail back to the other tree under which the rest of the gang is waiting – with barely suppressed merriment! But I do have a repartee – “So what if he is not Mr AK? I have  a NEW friend!”

On another occasion, I am interviewing someone at my office and he keeps giving me puzzled smiles. I am equally puzzled – just who is this? Then he introduces himself… “I am X, your daughter’s tennis coach.”

Ah, now I get it! Also why he looks familiar but am not able to place him… the thought is no sooner thunk than it is said! “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mr X, I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on!!“

Having only seen him in his coach attire of tennis shorts and T-shirt, the gentleman in a suit bore no resemblence (in my eyes at least!) to the athletic guy I was used to seeing!

FIM syndrome (foot-in-mouth) is now a well-documented chronic illness with no known cure… sadly…

I, of course, prefer food-in-mouth, like this…

BEAN AND VEGETABLE SOUP

• Fresh kidney beans or red soya beans( these are now available in most veggie shops through the year) – 2 cups
• Carrots – 4 -chunked
• French or cluster beans – snapped into 1″ pieces – 1 cup
• Potatoes – scrubbed and cubed – 2 medium
• Ash gourd (white pumpkin) – chunked – 1 cup (optional)
• Tomatoes – 3 medium – chunked
• Capsicum / bell pepper – 1 – chunked
• Green chilies – 2 – minced
• Garlic – minced – 1 tsp
• Onions – chopped – 1 medium
• Mixed herbs – 1 tbsp
• Butter or ghee – 1 tsp
• Salt and pepper
• Milk to serve – about a cup (optional)

Heat the butter or ghee in a pressure cooker (easiest way to do it). Add the onions, cover and sweat for ten minutes. Sweat the onions, I mean, though if you live in Madras, both you and the onions will sweat!

Add garlic and green chilies and saute. Add everything else except capsicum, 3 cups water, salt and pepper.

Pressure cook for two whistles and reduce heat and cook for 5-7 minutes more. Turn off, let cool till pressure is reduced. Add capsicum and cook for two minutes more.

Add 1 or 2 tbsp of milk to every cup you serve out. Great hot or cold. Plus this is an all-in-one meal – with all the food groups. If you want to reduce the carb content, just omit the potatoes or substitute with yellow pumpkin or sweet potatoes.

Put food in your mouth, not the other thing!

Thinking back to a time when I first started writing stories. I must have been about seven years old and till then was quite happy to tell stories – many stories – tall stories, short stories and everything in between to my pals at school. Snehalata, my best friend back then, was my favourite and only audience much of the time – listening with great interest all the time and making appropriate appreciative noises at the right time! We used to walk home together from school every evening – taking about an hour to dawdle a distance of less than half a kilometre!

Then there came a time when I was ill with something or the other and out of school for three whole weeks. Then I discovered a new and equally appreciative audience – our cook Shanmugam! Shanmugam came from somewhere in the deep south of Tamilnadu and liked to listen as much as I liked to talk! At least I thought so but maybe he had different ideas because at the end of my three weeks at home, S decided he was missing his hometown too much and left… never to return…

By now, I was hooked – to the storytelling. My audience however, was not! After listening patiently to a particularly long and painful story about a tiger and human sacrifice and some bloodletting and a remedy requiring tiger’s milk (bloodthirsty creature I must have been!), my dad has a eureka moment. Why don’t you write your stories instead? And send them to Chandamama (a much loved children’s magazine which also published contributions from children!) instead?

I am dumbstruck ( a rare occurrence, I promise!) with the sheer brilliance of my dad’s idea! Also  visions of seeing my name in print dance before my eyes. I finish dinner in a hurry and pore over the rules in the last issue of the mag. There is something about the stories being typewritten but I reason that my handwriting is pretty good and they’ll never know the difference if I take extra care! Then something else about writing on only one side of the sheet. Seems like a waste of a perfectly good side of the paper but well, I can do that!

And so, with the singlemindedness of a seven-year old who has a lot to say – so much that it’s difficult to get it all out before it disappears from my mind, I sit down and write eight foolscap sheets (only on one side) of my tiger and milk and blood and gore story and carefully seal it in an envelope, reverentiallly making a trip to the post office and mail off my masterpiece… to be rewarded with a rejection slip a week later! Never having thought of the possibility that my story could be rejected (more of my mom’s genes which come with a sublime confidence in one’s own abilities!), I am once again dumbstruck – twice in less than a month!

But then I reason to myself that Chandamama has missed out on publishing a masterpiece – well, too bad!

I go back to school, all is forgotten and I continue to tell tales to my pal…

And write off and on… till last year when the words refused to be contained any more and this blog was started… with a little help from my friends… thanks to Shruti Nargundkar who encouraged me and Narayan Kumar who designed the whole thingummy and provided much grist to my mill!

And with thanks, here’s a dish for them! Oops, just remembered that SN does not like brinjal but I’ve already written this and made it… so…

VANKAAYA KOTHIMEERA KHAARAM (brinjal cooked with a paste of green chilies and fresh coriander)

• Small, tender brinjals – the pinky-purply ones – 250 gms
• Fresh coriander – 1 cup
• Green chilies – 3-4
• Ginger – grated – 1 tbsp
• Curry leaves – 2 sprigs
• Asafoetida – 1/8 tsp
• Turmeric  1/4 tsp
• Tamarind paste – 1/8 tsp
• Salt
• Mustard seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Urad dal – 1/2 tsp
• Jeera/cumin seeds – 1/4 tsp

Grind the coriander, ginger and curry leaves into a rough paste.

Slice the brinjals lengthwise into thin pieces, dropping them into water with a pinch of turmeric in it as you cut.

Drain after cutting (use this water for the garden!) and mix the coriander paste and tamarind paste thoroughly into the pieces.

Heat oil and splutter the mustard, urad dal and cumin seeds. Add asafoetida and turmeric and immediately drop in the brinjal.

Cover and cook till half done. Add salt and mix throughly.

Cook for a few more minutes – 5 or 6 till pieces are tender and the pieces are coated well. There should be no water left.

Serve with hot rice and mudda pappu (plain cooked toor dal with salt) and ghee.

You don’t need any help from your freinds to polish this off!