A mouth watering post!

For a long time i have wanted to write a mouth watering post...nah, don't expect me to wallow over Sunny Leone and her biography or geography. All i want to talk here is FOOD! Plain..food. I discovered i was a foodie only yesterday...no, last year? Few years ago? After my marriage? Before my wedding? When i landed in a hostel? Before i was in the hostel? After i was born? Before i was born? Yes!!! Before i was born. Mommy used to say how much she loved to taste idlis and chilli chutney for the sake of her unborn daughter. 

And the daughter she bore hates idlis so much that she would murder anyone who came within a mile radius with a plate of idlis. And whoever invented upma has to be dusted with chilli powder and pepper powder and roasted alive in a tandoor! That thing called 'bread' is something i dread. So how to tickle the taste buds when you get a variety of food on your table? Here are some specials that you ought not to miss tasting in your life...

Macaroons of Tuticorin...the very thought of them make me drool. Made of delicate cashews and soft egg white, the delicacy just melts in your mouth. A sinful temptation that i indulge in which never ceases to amuse people around me. I say...just this last one and go on munching them, every piece being christened the 'last piece'! Try Ganesh bakery or Dhanalakshmi bakery of Tuticorin and dive into the goodie :)

Macaroons

Choco truffle of Cake walk, Chennai. Our family loves great food, especially great desserts. Born with a sweet tooth, we relish food. And man, there are so many many specials i would like to remember now. Cake walk Egmore produces the best choco truffle cake which just melts down your mouth in a soft chocolaty flavor that remains in your senses for almost a day..and it is pure fun to covet it from the fridge, digging into it at the middle of the night, unseen by anyone!

Choco truffle...

Muscoth Halwa from Mudalur... i bet you haven't heard of it. The delicacy has its roots from Ceylon, a rice flour halwa with flavour of coconut milk and taste of heaven. AJJ brand have popularised it, if you ever get hold of the pretty damsel in red and blue, just don't let her go. It is sinfully tasty! When it is shared with your cousins, God lives in halwa;)

Muscoth halwa

Fruit biscuits of Karachi bakery have joined the list recently, introduced by one of my uncles from Hyderabad. The crunchy biscuits dipped in vanilla scent, the dry fruits that you bite into and the cashews that have a hint of vanilla flavor...i am drooling now! Thanks to my uncle who had it couriered to me...i will die for it;)

Fruit biscuits

Baklava of Gulf! Anywhere you end up in the Gulf, if you haven't tasted baklava warm from the oven, it is a waste of life;) The multi layered sweet pumped up with roasted nuts and oozing ghee that glides down your tongue with aplomb on winter nights... and the best part is the display of this delicacy in sweet shops. One glance and you will fall for it- lock, stock and barrel.

baklavaaahhh!

Fried icecream of China town, Chennai...another to kill for dessert. The crisp warm outer layer of batter and when you sink your teeth into it, get ready for the chill ice cream that gushes out...then there is banana fritters with honey of Lydie's opposite Maya Jaal, Chennai, ilaneer payasam of dimora, Trichy, paaku ( arecanut) payasam of Shevaroys, Yercaud...the list just keeps growing...akin to the poor thin soul in a heavy body- me! What are you thinking? Just dig in...eat and be happy! For those who worry about their tummies, there is always tummy tuck pose for pictures and herbalife to tone down;) Who cares how many pounds you weigh anyway???

p.s.: As you all must now be wondering how much i weigh...i am a whopping 79 kgs of fun and frolic!

p.p.s.: Special dedication of this post to my cousins...we fight over the choco truffle and muscoth as if it were Helen of Troy!! Love you all guys and girls;)

p.p.p.s.: " I love to eat" and i wish you'd too, guys;)

Of glow worms and butterflies....

Thank you blogadda!

Friendship Day!

 

Friendship- always evokes strong memories of my childhood, the sweat, the games, the falls, the tears and the unlimited happiness. The childhood spent in one of the most picturesque villages on the foothills of Western Ghats...complete with a waterfalls, a flowing river, lush green paddy fields, plenty of friends and mischiefs. Those were the best days of my life!

Who wouldn't love a serene moment here?

We were awesome together- she a terrific introvert, ever smiling and soft. Myself- the proverbial chatterbox. My memories of Sharmila are ever green- the idlis and chilli powder her mother makes for us, the happy moments spent in the dance classes, the dance program we both performed in the temple of her hometown, her brother and his dance moves...The sweetest memory is that of how we bred a caterpillar in captivity, hiding it in a coconut shell, feeding it with leaves, watching it pupate and slowly limp out as a wet butterfly! Probably the best moment of my life was watching the brown butterfly dry its wings and fly unsteadily..as we both watched mesmerised!

That is me!

And how do I not mention Vallabi? Still remember how she used to draw two love birds in her notebook's last pages, a secret! And her passion for songs, how she taught me there was indeed a turquoise blue ink and her mother's special rava laddus! My math tution partner Siva...the long walks from and to the tution together, the magic of stealing guavas while master was busy teaching Sin and Cos...My cycling partner Velmurugan- our 6 kms cycling everyday watching the gloriosa flowers in full bloom in the mornings and adoring the glow worms in the dark. The long discussions with him on politics, tamizh language history, poetry...The numerous competitions, dance floors, debates, quizzes...

 

How can I forget the two years in Chennai? Senior schooling in Chennai's SBOA- the pranks, movies, fights, football matches, cycle tests, competitions and happiness. This is where I learnt friendship crosses all borders- gender, language and everything else. The VCRC Batch #3 is one of the 'worst' and 'notorious' batches would vouch all our poor teachers. The cycle tests...yuck! The early morning homework copy sessions...Cut+ Copy+ Paste..."Hum aapke Hain Koun" with almost all thirty seated in a single row at Woodlands, that football boys Vs girls match...

The gang then...

I discovered what life was- how the thirty odd people overcame every obstacle and finally how we all have settled down. A bunch of hardworking, intelligent and tough nutsThough now in every nook and corner of the world- my best pal Prasanna in Washington, Bhuvana in Dubai, Gnaneswari, Vijayan and Sushmitha in Chennai, the loveable pair Triju and Jinie, Karthik in Bangalore, Geetha in Hongkong, we are a truly scattered group who regroup with vigour and warmth that remains just the same after all these fifteen years! Special thanks to Facebook and our group mail for keeping us together.

The gang now- complete with spouses and kids, after 15 years!

Those years made us what we are now. The get together we arranged a couple of years back brought every memory rushing back. That our children could hold hands and play, taking forth the bond of friendship further is just magic. The magic of friendship!

 

This post is part of Write Over the Weekend an initiative for Indian bloggers by Blog Adda!

Memoirs of three musketeers!

The open terrace was my favorite hideout...be it escaping the wrath of mother or plain 'quality' time planning pranks! It has seen a pig tailed, jumping jack, metamorphose into someone who she is or pretends to be, today. The long evenings where we siblings played hide and seek, the precious family moon lit dinners we had on full moon nights and my maiden dish hidden under the water tank- banana halwa in the tava with the spoon sticking to it...the terrace has seen much of my haphazard nomadic childhood days. 

I lust love food! I was so mad about my favorite dishes that i would spend hours together planning to 'steal' them from the kitchen and replenish them in leisure at the most unlikeliest of places- a dark store room of Grandma's house, the ladder entry and at times, beneath the stair case. Have you ever tasted horlicks loaded sprinkled on lukewarm water and lifted off from a spoon tip? How about little darling brother's wheat- apple flavor cerelac, whisked away from the baby shelf? The yummy taste of cerelac tickling the tastebuds and lingering long after the meal in the mouth is just heavenly! Not to forget the Amul milk powder, mango complan, kissan mixed fruit jam...Mother had a real tough time figuring out- how only these bottles and jars went missing and reappeared again in the kitchen with contents missing. The culprit was finally nailed one day under the staircase with mouthful of horlicks, still sticking to every part of her face!

Kudikka vendam, apdiye sapidalam ( Need not drink, eat as such!)

And i am an ardent pet- lover, PETA can sign me their next brand ambassador. I loved pets so much that i tried growing a peacock from a tiny peacock feather, kept hidden in my science book with a few pieces of broken rice grains! I truly believed the tender feather would one day 'bear' a child- a peacock:) My little tin pencil box always held a little critter of red velvet bugs with a few strands of grass. Every morning i tried in vain to 'breed' them in captivity, locking them up in my pencil box on the way to school and in the evenings i sadly let them out, their head count clearly being the same. Seeing my mad love for pets, mother finally let me grow a rabbit and one fine morning i brought home a black rabbit which no one chose from the pet shop. Blackie was an instant hit at home, i almost spent every living moment with her, until one morning when she was forcefully 'sacrificed' to a cat. I tried to ward off the feline, but was then rushed to a Doctor who gave me an injection for feline bite! Poor cat, i don't know if she ever lived after biting me!

Red velvet bug that refused to breed in my pencil box!

Peacock feather that ate rice grains but never  gave birth to a peacock!

I was an excellent swimmer, a thorough professional! Ask Lakshmi akka ( sister) who pulled me out half dead from the deep end of the swimming pool where i had jumped unassuming. Probably, nervous of the single piece chaste swimsuit that adorned my tiny frame. It was a hot summer afternoon that i sneaked out after lunch to the Madura Coats Colony at the edge of the mountains. The colony boasted of a swimming pool and being a village belle interested in spreading her wings, i pleaded with Lakshmi akka to teach me swimming. We planned a short swimming lesson and i looked with secret abomination, at the brown nondescript single piece swim suit. Donning it and draped in a pool towel, i tiptoed to the end of the pool where akka was busy with her brisk laps. As i neared the edge of the pool, i saw the pool boy cleaning the pathway. Girlish desire to show off made a mad rush of adrenaline hit my brains and i just dived in. Poor me, i failed to notice the " DEEP END" sign board. God knows how the fellow must have laughed his head off ( I heard he had to be warded off) seeing a trembling me, pulled out of the water! Father still reminisces how he had to pull me out of water as a small kid when i went diving head first, in the river. He says amidst the laughter- " All we could see was her bloated tummy shining in the water surface".  Ha! I wish i had drowned then. I can remember this story being recounted a number of times to visitors and friends that i almost have memorized every sentence of his narrative by-heart! Bah! Swimming is not my forte...

Nevertheless, God gifted me the ability to cycle long distances and an atlas cycle too! My bright red painted companion was more than a friend who always stood by me- when i wanted to show off before the handsomest guy of the class, the tyre burst! When i wished it could go faster than the 'full sleeved hunk' driving the motorbike, the chain slipped. And when i wanted to bunk classes during a bus strike, mother would force me on its seat and show her breezy 'ta ta!' I cycled fourteen kilometers to and back from school everyday and loved every bit of the crisp mountain air and the green paddy fields that whizzed by. I even had a secret hideout in the nearby waterfall where i could go in my cycle and weep my eye balls out! A howling session followed by a refreshing bath in the waterfall refreshed me and i was ready for more heart ache! I loved to hangout in the company of my best pals, a set of baboons scratching their backs on the rocks. Once i was shooed away by the leader as i refused to show my back to them for scratching! No lice, you see! 

My favorite  spot- Agasthiar Waterfall

I was an outdoorsy girl and i loved plenty of fresh air. I plucked raw jujubes from wild plants and ate them. I feasted on banyan fruits, sans the wiggling worms in it. I played with soottukkai ( a nut that we used to rub on stone that produced great heat, when touched with a rubbed stone one would get blisters!) and collected kunnimuthu ( a red and black pod from a wild plant). Then there were other games grand mother was forced to play with us on summer afternoons- dhayam ( a game akin to ludo), pallankuzhi ( a game with beads or tamarind nuts filled in wooden box with perforations) and how to forget- marbles and spinning tops. I was a champ with marbles and tops, i used to beat all the guys of the street. And slowly cricket crept into our group.I remember mother once chased me around two streets, trying to skin me alive, for playing cricket with the boys on the street! As usual, i escaped climbing on the guava tree:) Ah...the guava tree! I am particularly fond of guava trees, they are so easy to climb and the branches are brittle, they break easily too. I can remember hanging onto dear life after a branch snapped and i waited almost half an hour yelling hysterically, to be  rescued by my grandfather who came running with a ladder. 

Pallankuzhi!

My favorite pastime on Sundays was obviously - sleeping in the church! I spent Sunday morning masses in a bliss of half sleep and half unconsciousness. Mother aroused me by a strong pinch in the middle of the mass. I even had a special pillar ear-marked for my sleep, to bang my head on...I loved the Sunday market where i used to doggedly follow mother buying vegetables. Most of all i was crazy about my siblings- two wonderful guys who stand always by me and who were always my trouble mongers partners! We played together on the streets, we broke clocks at home together, we smashed tape cots and sofas, we chucked idlis on the loft, we cooked a banana halwa that refused to come off the tava, - we grew together and were aptly termed the 'three musketeers' by mother. 

The three musketeers- in full form!

Today, when i find my son and daughter brooding over their homework and roaming around the locked up home, all i can think is- i am faring a poor mother. They are missing out the cycle, the swims, the waterfalls, the mountains. I am planning to buy new cycles for my little children and will be letting them 'free' this summer. Hope they find out their secret hideout and bawl their eyes out! Growing up is after all, FUN!!!

p.s.: This post is written as an entry to The Kissan 100% Real Blogger Contest by Kissan and Indiblogger

p.p.s.: If you are really interested in knowing about my hometown, click here!