Author: anuchenji

There’s a bunch of us parents – all of us at about the same stage in life – in our thirties for the most part, parents of small, growing families, one or two little kids each, just-paid-the-down-payment-on-a-house-and-are-neck-deep-in-debt with no money to spare stage of life! We may be in the EMI trap but we do manage to have a lot of fun in life – growing kids do that to you- provide a load of laughter and busy-ness that is the stuff of much happiness!

We exchange notes on how to save the extra rupee by doing something else, birthday parties are entirely home-grown, with all food served being made at home except for maybe chips and Coke (in the days when Coke and Pepsi were not bad words!), dinners and picnics were usually pot luck affairs with everyone pitching in with a dish, with the entertainment and booze!

Money is short – all the time but life was long, very long – on the happiness quotient! The kids are obviously aware that they can’t always have everything they want and sharing toys, clothes, books – is the order of the day but are quite happy about it – it is normal and it is so with every other kid they know almost! The words they’ve heard most frequently from us parents is, “We can’t afford this just now!” A was for afford, B for budget, C for cash in our households!

We’ve just bought our first apartment and are desperately trying to make ends meet – along with at least five other couples – close friends we know in the same stage of life! Obviously the little pitchers that listen in occasionally to adult conversations have long handles and we are sometimes surprised by the things they say.

We are at a bookstore to pick out a gift for a little boy – a friend’s son and bump into the friend at the store also there to pick up a gift for my little one, whose birthday is also round the corner.

“So glad to catch you here, Kanch,” says Tara (mother of the little boy). “You can help choose your birthday gift.” She then shows Kanch a couple of things she’s picked up for her to choose from. “Do you like either of these or would you like to choose something else?”

Kanch looks up at her with concern (she must been about five years old) and asks, completely innocently, “I like it, auntie, but are you sure you can afford it?!”

I make embarrassed noises of explanation but my friend is not the mother of two for nothing – she laughs it off and approves highly – of a thoughtful kid who’s so worried about her budget!

Today, staying in a B & B in upstate New York, at the home of a lovely couple, Jo and Julia, with a cherubic toddler Elson, whose home seems to welcome everyone, where a neighbour drops in to cook a vegan meal for all of us and other neighbours drop in to share the meal, I am transported back to twenty years ago and how our lives were then… feeling energised by the community feeling – have a most wonderful evening and end up learning an awesome new Indian dish (no kidding!) from Matt, America-born and bred but with a real feeling for Indian food!

So here’s Matt’s creation – a completely made-over palak paneer in the form of…

MATT’S KALE SAAG WITH TOFU

• Tofu – 4 – 5 cups – cut into 1 cm cubes, immersed in warm salted water for about 15 minutes, drained and rinsed. Set aside
• Yellow onions – large- 2 – sliced
• Garlic flakes – 6-7
• Ginger – 1 ” piece – chopped
• Tomatoes – 1 cup – chopped or half a can
• Kale – 2 generous cups
• Spinach – 1 cup
• Basil – a few leaves
• Orange zest (kumquat) – 2 sq cm
• Green capsicum – 1 – chunked
• Broccoli – 1 cup
• Coconut milk – 1 can / 200 ml
• Cayenne pepper – 1 tsp
• Cumin – 2 tsp
• Garam masala – 2 tsp
• Salt
• Oil – 3 tbsp
• Mustard seeds – 1 tsp

Saute the onions and garlic in the oil till really well caramelised. Add the tomatoes and cook till softened.

Add the capsicum, cumin, mustard, basil, orange zest and coconut milk . Cover and cook for 6-7 minutes.

Blanch the greens – kale and spinach and broccoli. Add to mix.

Pulse the whole mixture with a hand blender till roughly pureed. Return to pan, add garam masala, salt and tofu. Bring to a boil and simmer for a few minutes till the flavours infuse into the tofu.

The orange zest brings a most unusual zing to the whole dish. Add a couple of green chilies for heat if you like – at the tomato stage.

Serve with brown rice.

And oh yes, invite the neighbours in for added zing and zest!

Big, big, big… is everything I’m seeing,

Why should I always eat something so big,

Is the question I’m asking?

To paraphrase the kindergarten song about colours which goes something like this:

Red, red, red… is the colour I’m wearing

Why should I always dress myself in red?

‘Coz a fireman is the one I like

…and so on about each of the colours. (Oops, this is America, “colors”!)

And in America, that’s the question on my mind too – why is everything so big? Like restaurant servings of anything at all are at least double the size of normal Indian servings. I had to split the first burrito bowl I ever ate here into two meals and still felt stuffed after each one! As for large pizzas, I don’t even want to go there – their girth would rival that of any self-respecting vadyar (pujari/ priest) whose waist sizes tend to start at thirty eight inches!

Today I walk into a convenience store to pick up some travel essentials (we’re trying to see a bit of America from the inside – a couple of b&bs so we get to meet real people). Am examining the cereal aisle and find that the single serving pack of cereal is more expensive than the large home-use pack. I think there must be a mistake. I ask – but of course–  I’m Indian and I’m curious! No mistake – that’s how it’s priced! Wow, you pay less to buy more? Whatever the marketing/packaging logic behind it, something strikes me as very upside-down about the whole thing – maybe Alice fell down the rabbit hole into an American convenience store aisle and that’s why things got curiouser and curiouser!

The only thing that I’m happy to get super sized is glasses of water – back home, in restaurants and homes, I have to ask waiters and hosts to please refill my glass – at least five or six times – most people seem to think water is a non-essential accompaniment to a meal – I beg to disagree!

Ah and the second thing I’m happy about is a large glass (wonder whether one can find small glasses in America at all – will check in some of these supersized stores and report back to you!) of hot apple cider that I get to drink after getting wet – very wet and quite semifreddo after the Niagara visit! All my worries about getting supersized myself on this trip to the land of supersizes wash away when I learn at the Google altar that apple cider vinegar actually helps you lose weight! All you need to do is add a couple of tbsps to a couple of glasses of water along with a tsp of lime juice and a few drops of honey and voila, wait to get to size zero!

Also, this is the land of apples – there seems to be nothing that Americans cannot do with apples – though I rarely see someone just munching on a plain ol’ apple – they must be made into something!

Like this delicious…

SWEDISH APPLE CAKE (the only good thing in the Ikea cafeteria!)

• Maida/plain flour – 1.5 cups
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Table butter – 100 gm
• Sugar – 1.5 cups
• Eggs – 2
• 3 apples- peeled and sliced – get crunchy ones – NO woolly yucky ones!
• Cinnamon pwd – 1/2 tsp or vanilla extract 1/2 tsp
• Nutmeg and mace – a pinch each

Sieve together the maida and baking powder.

Cream the butter, sugar and eggs.

Add the flour and the spices.

Pour into a greased pan, arrange apple slices on top in a whorl and bake at 350C for about 40 minutes till done.

Glaze over with 2 tsp marmalade or apple jelly warmed over with a tsp of water and serve with cream.

And don’t worry about the size – just wash it down with the apple cider vinegar water!

Pic: Courtesy internet

“Don’t miss walking by the Chicago lake when you are there,” advises a friend who’s been in the US for many years now, when we tell him our program for the US.

“Sure.” I assure him blithely, thinking that we’ll take a little chukker around the lake after a leisurely morning at the museum followed by lunch. Would be nice to stay out basking in the afternoon warmth with little sailboats on the water. (I have the image of some of the lakes I’ve seen in India in my mind – like Hussain Sagar and some smaller ones like Chembarambakkam and Red Hills).

We go to the Field’s museum – completely awe-inspiring collection of natural history stuff, by the way! Watch a show on Galapagos, with my eyes popping out of my head and my jaw a few inches from the floor. Having been through a Darwin phase in my teens, I can’t believe I’m actually seeing what the great man saw – almost two hundred years ago!

The planned three hours stretches… and stretches… we take a break for lunch. And then decide to take a stroll “by the lake”. It is the Windy City after all and I am shivering in less than a hundred meters from where we start. The lake seems just a little bigger than I had anticipated. In point of fact, I can’t see the other side!

“How long will it take us to walk around the lake. Can we walk around it in one afternoon?” I ask my husband innocently, thinking of my friend K’s suggestion that we do! Husband and daughter stare at me, their turn to drop their jaws now!

“Do you have any clue where we are? And what lake this is?” asks hubby.

“Yes, Kr said it’s the Chicago lake,” I respond.

“This is Lake Michigan – one of the largest lakes in the world and it is all of 190 km wide,” he shoots back! He’s obviously done his homework – unlike me! I know the great lakes but had thought that there was something else called the Chicago Lake!

Never thought I’d qualify for the Darwin awards but have to award myself one right there!

And to celebrate my award (not!), we present the appropriately named, sinfully delicious…

TURTLE SUNDAE

A combination of vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, hot caramel sauce and toasted pecans! The name derives from “Turtle candy” which consists of pecans coverd with caramel and then dipped in chocolate! In this land of plenty, nothing is done by halves! Toppings? Why stop with just one?!!

• Brownies – 2″ squares – 2
• 1.5 cups vanilla ice cream
• 2 tbsp caramel topping (mix together 1/2 cup brown sugar with 1/4 cup milk, a pinch of salt and 2 tbsp of butter. Cook on a low flame for about 5 minutes till it thickens.  Add 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence and continue to cook for 1-2 minutes more. Switch off)
• 1/4 cup crushed pecan nuts (I’d substitute walnuts too)
• 3 tbsp chocolate sauce – either Hersheys or melt 2 tbsp dark chocolate in the microwave for 20-30 seconds and whip in 1 tbsp cream.
• Whipped cream – 2 tbsp

Warm the brownies and place a piece on each plate. Spread the crushed nuts on top. Drizzle over caramel topping. Scoop icecream on top. Drizzle over the chocolate sauce and a tbsp of whipped cream.

Go straight to heaven. Do not pass Galapagos. Do collect half your daily requirement of calories in one scoop!

Chew, chew, chew chew... I try but give up in a bit. It is wet, it is unappetising and so cold that every bite makes my teeth go chaiiinng and try to withdraw themselves back into the gums! No, it is not ice cream – I love that and besides the only thing they have in common is the temperature!

So far, I have loved American food but this one defeats me. I am at an Ikea store – gloriously happy, i may add and have great difficulty in not buying everything in sight – though I want to! We finish with various appetisers and amuse-bouches like the living room section and the bathroom section and then come to the heart of the whole caboodle – the kitchen section!

Those enormous pots, those dinky little pans (see, now i have another thing named “Dinky”! See this post), the sheer shininess of the bowls have me floating in a haze of sheer happiness – no, I was sober as my great grandmom – though how sober she was I can’t vouch for – that generation believed in their tot of “cold medicine” (aka tot of brandy)!

Hearts full, we (my friend Lakshmi who always gets the joke at the same moment I do and what better basis is there for a friendship?! We have laughed through our hostel years at IIM together so hard that we’ve actually had to sit down in the middle of Double Road to let the paroxysms pass!)), my daughter Arch and me – need to fill stomachs too. We want to continue our shopping and decide to get a bite at the cafeteria. Just a couple of choices for vegetarians but we’re used to that by now! Choice one is a no-brainer – a vegetable wrap – looks good actually – it’s a spinach wrap so green and filled with vegetables so am quite happily anticipatory.

We fill our trays with a couple of other things – the desserts and the ubiquitous caesar salad and make our way to the table. One bite of the green roll and it’s as much as I can do to not spit it out – it’s not that it’s that bad – it’s so cold that all I can taste is a mouthful of flour, raw carrot and a pasty feta – no pepper or anything else – nada! In my mind I am thinking I wouldn’t feed this to my pigs – if I had any, of course and if I did, I bet one of the pigs would turn right around and attack me, all the pig-gy-hooey-ing in the world notwithstanding!

Also, of course, my Indian heart and tummy are telling me what a fantastic idea it would be to open a hot aloo parantha stand here and what a killing one could make in the cold weather and what a great way to stay warm – after all, what heats the parantha can warm me up just as well!

But sigh, we are hungry, our stomachs are growling and so we chew our way through the growing-more-unappetising-by-the-minute green leathery stuff we are eating… with each of us having visions of what we could be chewing instead! At least, that is what I am thinking of. I ask my daughter – she says she is thinking it is food! I disagree – it is swill! But we are amicable and turn our attention to the desserts instead – a truly lovely Swedish apple cake (again cold though!).

That is my next project – to figure why in such a cold country, most food is served so cold!

And so to my visions… it helps to imagine that I am chewing something rather chewable but completely delicious – the very Indian…

SABUDANE KI KHICHDI

• Sabudana/tapioca pearls /saggubiyyam/jevvarisi – 1 cup – soaked overnight and drained
• Roasted peanuts – 1/2 cup – crush coarsely – reserving a few for garnish
• Potato- sliced into very thin pieces – 1
• Fresh coconut  – grated – 2 tbsp
• Green chili – minced – 2
• Juice of 1 lime
• Salt
• Asafoetida – 1 generous pinch
• Jeera/cumin seeds – 1/2 tsp
• Oil – 1 tbsp
• Chopped coriander – 2 tbsp

Heat the oil in a pan. Add jeera, chili and asafoetida. Fry for a few seconds. Add the potatoes and saute. Cover and cook till tender – shouldn’t take more than 3 minutes or so.

Add the sabudana, peanuts and salt. Saute till the sabudana pearls become translucent and soft.

Switch off, squeeze over lime juice and sprinkle coconut. Serve with a bowl of yogurt on the side.

How about a sabudana khichdi stall at the next Ikea store?

(Pic: Courtesy internet)

“Please, please, pleeeezze… can we name him Dinky?”

“No way!”

“Please, I’ll make you omelettes every single day for a week” – obviously the stakes are high if I’m willing to do that much!

The stakes are high – my brother Arvind has just come home with a dog and the debate about naming him is flying hot and furious!

I lose. The dog is named Tommy. Tommy? Really? I mean how much more disappointing could you get? I trail off- disconsolately…

A few weeks later ( almost a lifetime in a ten-year old’s life and I have gotten used to Tommy!), a new baby is born in our home – my youngest cousin. She is an object of great curiosity as soon as she comes but the interest palls soon enough – all she does is sleep – or feed – or wail! Tommy is far more interesting! Then about a couple of weeks after we’ve had time to get used to the baby, there is a namakaranam – a naming ceremony. My hopes rise again – ah, here’s yet another opportunity!

The day dawns, many pujaris come, much chanting happens and then the pujari pauses. Takes a minute to announce to everyone present – all the grandparents, uncles, aunts and parents of the baby that they can suggest names for the baby. Someone has the bright idea of passing around bits of paper for suggestions. I am more than hopeful now – I am totally thrilled – my choice is sure to be the best! After all, I have a perfectly fantastic name, why waste it – if it’s not being used on a dog, it might as well be used for a baby!

So I write down my choice, fold up the peice of paper carefully and put it in the box being passed aound. The pujari collects everything, opens the bits of folded paper, puts some aside, scratches his head over others and looks puzzled. I wait with bated breath.

He picks up one piece and opens it. With the true sense of drama that all good pujaris possess, he pauses, gets everyone’s attention before announcing grandly, “Srividya is the name the baby is to be known by.”

I stalk out in total disgust – these guys don’t know a good name when they see one. Choosing “Srividya” over “Dinky“???!

Then a couple of days ago in Cincinnati, I come across a new dish – yet another one in this extraordinarily interesting land called America! I fell in love with it at first sight, became totally besotted with it at first bite and then inspiration struck – I could name this new dish!

I ask my friend what this thing is called – she says it’s a South American delicacy called a “Pao de Queijo” – i hereby rechristen this simple delicious little cheese breads “Dinky”!

DINKIES aka PAO DE QUEIJOS (recipe courtesy www.kitchn.com)

Ingredients

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups (10 ounces) tapioca flour or sour cassava flour

2 eggs

1 – 1 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese

Equipment

2-quart saucepan

Long-handled spoon

Standing mixer with paddle attachment (or mixing bowl and elbow grease)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line a baking pan with parchment and set aside.

1. Boil the Milk and Oil: Combine the milk, oil, and salt in the saucepan, and whisking occasionally, bring it to a gentle boil over medium heat. Remove from heat as soon as you see big bubbles coming through the milk.

2. Add the Tapioca Flour: Add all of the tapioca flour to the saucepan and stir until you see no more dry tapioca flour. The dough will be grainy and gelatinous at this point.

3. Cool the Dough: Transfer the dough to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. (Alternatively, you can do the next few steps by hand. Be prepared for a work-out.) Beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed until it smooths out and has cooled enough that you can hold your finger against the dough for several seconds.

4. Beat in the Eggs: Whisk the eggs together in a small bowl. With the mixer on medium, beat the eggs into the dough in two additions. Wait until the first addition has been fully incorporated into the dough before adding the second. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

5. Beat in the Cheese: With the mixer on medium, beat in the cheese until fully incorporated. The resulting dough will be very sticky, stretchy, and soft with a consistency between cake batter and cooke dough.

6. Portion the Puffs: Using an ice cream scoop, a tablespoon measure, or a dinner spoon, scoop rounded portions of the dough into mounds on the parchment-lined baking sheet. Space the mounds an inch or two apart. Dip your scoop in water to prevent sticking.

7. Bake the Puffs: Transfer the sheet with the puffs to the oven and immediately turn down the heat to 350°F. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the puffs have puffed, the outsides are dry, and they are just starting to color. Cool briefly and eat. Leftover puffs can be kept in an airtight container for up to a week and re-crisped in a warm oven or toaster oven.