All in a day’s work

Every chance I get, I use. After locating my ride at Vadodara the first question I put to him was where I could get some good ’snacky’ Gujju breakfast! He knew just the place. We went to Payal Farsan Mart from where I got packed a bite of quite a few things - very like the proverbial kid in the toy store I was. Masala dhokla, a redder version of the above, was not even my favourite! That would have to be the crispy methi na gota: deep fried spiced besan + whole wheat flour batter with just the hint of bitterness from methi leaves. How they get the gota to be spongy-soft has got to be a skill, for I saw no holey signs of baking soda. There was khandvi which I had to try, naturally (mine’s better ). Pattis - a different kind this time. These were stuffed with a mixture of grated fresh coconut, ground peanuts, coriander, and sesame, with the thinnest outer layer of cooked mashed potatoes. These are much in demand by ladies who are observing a fast, all ingredients being kosher - permitted as fasting foods! I also tried their house-special makai ni bakarwadi - which was a very delicious version of the common bakarwadi. A very rewarding breakfast; absolutely worth the wait.

My Continuing Discovery of Indian Cuisines

I mentioned earlier the likelihood of my having been a South Indian in previous life. I believe there are people who are offended by this title – South Indian. I know not why. I do understand though, the umbrage at everyone from Southern India being (once) called ‘Madrasi’ by self-centered North Indians. May I add that for my grandma’s generation all non-Kashmiris were Punjabi – likely the only other state they had heard of from their insular position. “So, you married a Punjabi,” she would say.

Southern India is not a homogeneous region; neither is Northern India nor, for that matter, the Eastern or the Western parts of our country. And, just as the cuisine and customs of the Northern plains have a lot in common, the people of Southern Peninsular India also share a long cultural heritage.

While I have established (some might say - followed my tummy to) the general region of my previous birth as Dravidian India, I have not yet been able to point to the exact spot. In my early teens I already knew that Andhra and Tamil food gave me as much comfort as did my mum’s cooking. I relished the everyday-kind dal-based vegetable preparations (which I may not know by their names) served with thick short grain rice; idli smeared with fiery milagai podi was as much ambrosia as was tayir saadam. I discovered Kerala cuisine a little later – in my twenties - though it was confined to the odd fish curry, thorans and pachadis, and the exotic (to me) appams with either avial or ishtu.

If you are in southern India be sure to wear some flowers in your hair…strung flowers sold by arm-lengths!

Bhopal and Hyderabadi Qabooli

After the poori-madness I was sure I wanted to do an obviously healthful recipe (read – low fat) to restore some respectability to the blog which had gained some kind of notoriety what with the no-holds-barred-deep-fried partying and all. The occasion had demanded indulgence and many of you seemed to agree wholeheartedly .

But things don’t always go as planned. Life happens. The pictures of my quick low-fat nutritious snack didn’t turnout that great (although the khandvi was as delicious as ever) and the blog was held up at the poori for some time.

Meanwhile, I visited Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh, ‘the heart of India’. It was a rushed visit with no time free for sightseeing. What little there was, was spent searching for a place to eat. Biryani and kababs were recommended and we spent a good part of one evening looking for them.

A Delhi Summer - On the Streets

It is not easy to sum up an old city like Delhi, with all the layering, in one post. And I am not planning to attempt it.

In this city of 10 million people there is no getting away from the crowd. There are people everywhere, and they continue to pour in – from smaller cities and the villages. The biggest influx into Delhi was in 1947, during the Partition of the country, when many Hindus and Sikhs from West Punjab (now in Pakistan) sought refuge.

It is only natural that a city 3000 years old has imbibed influences from all over the world, and these are reflected in its culture – art and architecture, language, and of course, in its cuisine. The Persian influence is prominent in the Mughlai cuisine, though the Punjabi flavours predominate today. But whosoever came and settled here had to deal with the hot and dusty summers.

An Amaltas in all its glory

Not that that is an entirely bad thing. How else would the mango be so sweet? While the temperate world revels in its fall colours, we have a green green spring followed by the vibrant summer. The sun makes our greens shine, the reds brighter, and the yellows sunnier. Who can rival the Gulmohur (Delonix regia) or the Amaltas (Cassia fistula), when it comes to a show of colour?

Dilli Haat, Shopping, and Another Quiz

As I dig into my katori of garlic-spinach-dal (lentil soup anyone?), another new favourite picked from the reliable Indira’s Mahanandi (and what’s this talk about not wanting to read what she and others had for lunch now?! ), let me tell you what I did this past Monday afternoon. Yes, total goof-off on a Monday afternoon. Perks of being your own boss :).

It is related to food (and related shopping, I promise).

A few years ago, Delhi Tourism had a brilliant idea and transformed, with the help of Architect Pradeep Sachdev, an eye-sore of a drain into one of the most used public spaces of Delhi - the Dilli Haat - a place to showcase India’s crafts and regional cuisine. While the food is only barely passable with momos from the North-eastern states and a fruit beer (apple juice with soda!) being your best bet, the crafts are a wonderful different story. What is also good is that you interact with the craftspeople directly, avoiding the middleman.

Every year around this time Dastkar, a society for crafts and crafts people, organises the Nature Bazaar with interactive workshops and demonstrations, street plays, and folk musicians and dancers. You can find crafts and textiles from all over the country. Also on display and sale are organic foods, herbal medicines and cosmetics, and handmade paper. This year Dastkar is 25 years old.

Jasmine Ball Tea

 

tea shop in HK

If conversations and tea go together then this is the grandmother of all teas. It can become the topic.

It has become fashionable to drink Chinese green tea here in India. Almost to the point of having snob value. But I like to drink it for its lightness (this may not be the ‘fashionable’ word). I realised that drinking lots of chai in the winter days was good up to a point. Too many cups and I would not be feeling very good. Tea is diuretic so, actually makes your body hungry for water. Not quite the thirst quencher. As it is, I drink way too little water in the winter.

Chinese tea was the perfect answer. No sugar, no milk. Just a fragrant warm brew, to rehydrate and refresh. I think that a hot cup-that-cheers in the hand makes me appreciate the Delhi winters that much more.

tea-tasting session, and the tea I bought

On a visit to HK last year I visited this quaint tea shop full of beautiful tea accessories and of course, varieties of tea. The tiny attendant spent the lunch hour with me explaining the process of brewing the tea and patiently served me a good many cups. While there were the usual floral jasmine and peony green teas, the one that was really exotic was this Jasmine ball tea.

The Valley of Flowers National Park

As I promised, this blog was going to be also about other stories..and the butterflies (along with the caterpillars) finally make their appearance.

Our group consisted of the husband and I, three of his college-mates from BKPS, Pune (Kiran-Anju, and Prasad) and Anagha, Prasad’s wife. Barring Anagha, we are all over 40 and strong believers in ‘life begins at 40′. You’ll agree once you get there. For the record, none of us felt a day over 25.The first day’s drive out of Delhi was the usual grime and noise of small UP towns and we reached Rishikesh in the evening. Next morning we drove leisurely through the Shivalik lower Himalayas to arrive in Joshimuth for the night halt. The following morning we parked the car at Govindghat and started our trek to Ghangria.

lazy villages on the way

Govindghat to Ghangria
What a crazy bunch we were (Kiran and Prasad more than the rest)! The only time we felt we were 40+ was when climbing the last bit of the 15km from Govindghat to Ghangria. There are no overnight halts on the way and the distance has to be covered at a stretch. It took us all of 8 hours! The locals do it in 3! But then we did stop often to eat and drink (and catch our breath!).

Maggie break on way to Ghangria

The last 3km stretch is the killer! It is steeper and with the day and your energy ebbing, you finally hit the wall. Anagha felt some high-altitude sickness and Anju tried to feign a heart-attack, but Prasad made them walk anyway! I would like to state here that I was walking ahead of the pack, with only Vijay and Kiran (on ponies) beating me to the ’summit’.

The Valley of Flowers
The trek had begun…We were to visit the Valley of Flowers the next day, 6km up and 6km down! Anagha and Anju played safe and hired piththoos (porters with baskets to carry luggage or people!) this time. Ponies are not allowed inside the National Park area, and we were glad for that. Definitely more pleasant without the stink. I was the only one that made it to the memorial grave stone for Joan Margaret, a botanist who slipped and died in 1939, while collecting and researching the flora.

Piththoo carries Anju!

The narrow stone trail along the Pushpavati River which emerges from the glaciers here, was exhilarating. The sun was bright and we were lucky to see the snow-kissed peaks of Rataban. The flowers were at the end of their blooming season, and we saw the beauty in the seed-heads and the grasses turning golden as they go dormant for the approaching winter.

Two young girls (Kiran and Priya) were our informed guides. It gladdened me to see young rural girls working away from home. They were employees (four months every year) of the Eco Development Committee, Ghangria. The committee has done some very impressive work in cleaning up years of garbage from this area. The documentary at the interpretive centre in Ghangria presented a model of mobilising local participation. The entire trek route is clean. Garbage is collected regularly and transported down to Goving Ghat and out from there. The Valley of Flowers National Park has been declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO this year.

For a map of our travel area click here.

Next day we decided that we did not want this trip to be a test of endurance and stayed put at Ghangria, where there is, unfortunately, nothing to do. No one was up for the 5km hard trek to Hem Kund, ponies or no ponies. We missed out on a unique landscape.

Sikh pilgrims on way to Hem Kund Sahib

Our spirits were high for the 15km return to Govindghat next morning. We were amazed at the variety of flowers and butterflies we observed on our way down! All the ones we saw in the Valley and then some. Whatever were we preoccupied with on the way up?!!

 

This time we stopped to watch the butterflies and ended up taking a good 6 hours to climb down! By now our knees were giving way. We were glad to be in the car and on our way to Badrinath.

Southern Ambrosia…Andhra Bhawan…and a Promise

The husband will not miss Kashmiri if I never cook it. The son does not much care for the regular no-nonsense everyday-Maharashtrian. I eat Thai all by myself…But we all agree on South Indian! What can I say? We were South Indians in previous life. There is no other explanation. How else can you explain that my FIL, a Maharashtrian born and brought up in Jabalpur (MP), my late MIL, born and brought up in Jodhpur (Rajasthan), my dear H, born in Pune and brought up in saddi Dilli, I, born in Srinagar and brought up likewise, and our son, a 100% Delhiite, should all agree that South Indian food rocks. Period.

It is, by far, the most popular cuisine in our home. I realise I have included practically the entire peninsular India in this categorization - starting south of Maharashtra of course . And it does not start and end at the dosa-idli-upma for us - no sir/madam - we like to go the whole hog. As much as we can.

My love affair with South Indian food started when a lot of infatuations do, in my teens. But this turned out to be life long affair. Two of my best friends in school were from Tamil Nadu. Rajamma and Bhuvaneshwari. We were in grade 9. Our school introduced an additional short break of about 15 minutes at around 11 in the morning. That would be the time to peek into each other’s lunch boxes, if we hadn’t already done so. Soul satisfying curd rice is one lingering memory I have of Rajamma’s tiffin. I could never have enough of that. The smells from their tiffin were so different from mine but wonderfully delicious.

And you cannot contain the fragrance of the kadi-patta to the back row…it travels. Before long Rajamma’s tiffin would have been licked clean. But I would take her along to my home for a hot lunch of dal-roti-subzi during the lunch break. Yup, those were idyllic times. Actually, we were lucky to live in IITD and my school (KVIIT) was a quick sprint from home. When most of the students would sit all around the school lawns, under shady Neem trees, I would, often, walk home for lunch.

I had many a dosa, adai, and idlies from my friends’ tiffins. Since we all lived close to school, I would look forward to the occassional invite for lunch and savour more of their everyday kind of food. I particularly remember that at Rajamma’s there would usually be a vegetable-dal dish, not the sambar, which was heavenly with the short, clumpy rice.

We graduated from school and went on to study at different colleges in Delhi. I missed their tiffins. And I needed to do something about it desperately. The curd rice I managed to recreate, since it is such a simple dish.

Then my mother became very good friends with her school principal and his family, the Bhujangaraos, from Andhra! Mrs Rao’s upma was diffferent, her mango pickle with garlic was to die for. Many times, she would invite us over. There were many others from the South - a neighbour in the house oppposite ours, with the drumstick tree…I hesitatingly walked into her house one day and asked for a recipe for sambar!

CY Gopinath wrote a few articles in TOI during that time which were a blast to read and gave me further insights into Tamil (I think he is Tamil) food.