changing fortune

Ideas not coupled with action
never become bigger than the
brain cells they occupied

Education is less expensive
than ignorance

Fortune Cookie, Sun dining.

The secret life of a recipe

The first time we we were invited to our landlord's house for lunch, I do not remember what we had before dessert. One reason, I remember the dessert is, it was served in a small bowl of the cooling glasses brown shaped in the form of a half cut apple with a leaf. And two, the dessert was Gulab Jamun.




With its novelty, you can imagine my mom asking the landlady for the recipe, still better asking her to show how (new word for hands on) to make them. Since this is a dish that just does not depend on proportions but also how the jamuns are rolled crackless, passing on of it, requires patience. May be by hit and trial, one can learn how to make it - like the time my sister and I learnt how to make rose cookies, getting the conistency of the batter right or mar it - like the time I made gulab jamuns which would better pass as tough donuts.



What makes people try recipes? My dad once made peanut brittle. As a young kid, I had a bad experience of having too much of it while travelling. That time also coincides with my forming a tough no-no bond with the likes of soft drinks - thanks to the head stir created by Thums up! Taste the Thunder.



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Or was she flattered that Randolph wanted it?
Eat my words- Reading women's lives through the cookbooks they wrote- Janet Theophano

Thanks Grandma

In a house with a hen
the daily egg is precious
With many in the family
you would wait till
you amassed enough
for a meal for all

Releasing it in the morning
from an overturned basket
where it has been held
the previous night
cutting short the
wanderers trail ignoring
its shrieks and jumps

One such egg was boiling
with the white rice for me
and my sister hidden
from the eyes of my cousins

One of the
first days
of school
or lunches
my grandma
getting me
a tiffin
of rice with
ivy gourd
curry
and water
in chembu

As children
if we knew
and ate well
we could
save our loved
ones, long walks.

little yellow flowers

my brave
peanut plant
has spewed
two little
yellow flowers
with
stems strong
only for a day

from the side
as if to grab
attention away
from the straight
towering post
of leaves and
branches

Beasts Inside

With the knowledge
of just having had
lunch, my hunger
couldnt be real

A Ghirardelli
square with
hazelnuts
was to fool it

Just then the
chocolate's sweetness
kicked in and I rushed
for another with almonds
This is never different

The monster in me
probably knows
I will never let
'I want chocolate'
out

And then
there was still
the real hunger
to tame.

Not for cold storage

A shriveled apricot
last of its lot
in a refrigerator

Even in this
mushy state
does the seed
stay as
disconnected
as ever

Protome

Every pot
out of
the potters bowl

Even the
ceramic plates
on display
at
Danish Christmas.

Painted Beaker

Tea in
glasses
with
flowers or
leaves of
green and
white

Gadroon

Betel juice
ground in
a palm sized
soft black
mortar and pestle

permeates
with phlegm
sand in
the hourglass
Brass spittoon

marks the intervals
of grannies tales

Store bought perfection

On my first attempt
to have a
Vanilla cup cake
from the ziploc bag

Dampness
on the top
stopped me

Then again
it must be how
they look
while munching
I wondered
how store bought
they taste

A german chocolate
cupcake half eaten
with no base
the topping of
chocolate
and coconut
caramel
and pecan
fell down

forcing me to
have another

Thankfully
my dislike
for fondant
worked in
my favor
from keeping
me away from
a pina colada
cupcake

I should try that
next time.

Window shopping at grocery store

Green cauliflowers on the top
of a group of cauliflowers
like a color-it page
with one box colored in
green crayon
and rest left blank

Baby cauliflowers
look better than
brussel sprouts

White Horse at Uffington

on the green hill
like veins of virus
on a green leaf

Regular tomatoes go to market

Siamese Brinjal

Towards the end
of the day
we look
at the tomatoes
gathered in
the big basket before
us

It will be sewn with a big
needle and covered
with a jute cloth
and just before that
my sister and I
look for the
ones
which are oblong
or anything not
like the rest.

My pet complaints

that I have always been
on a very flat land
the only one water body
I saw instilled fear

I forget
that the offshoot path
to our ancestral house
was raised earth.

In the aftermoons
of holidays
we slept under
the tamarind trees

sometimes trying to
fell them

The trees were on
a ten feet mound
which was all covered
with quicken tree

the red pink berries
never seen elsewhere
and so not
pronounced edible

were denuded
to their transparent
inners and
lost to ground.

*************************
Fuamnach struck Etaine with a rod of scarlet quicken-tree.