Raji, I will miss you.

Rest in Peace, my beautiful friend

My beautiful friend Raji Shanker passed away early Monday morning. It was news I was hoping I wouldn't hear for a very long time. But she knew. She had told me a couple of weeks ago that it didn't look very good for her, that the prognosis was bleak. But you would never know it — not from her posts or her upbeat and witty comments on all our blogs.

Read on...

Celebrating Francie with Memories

She would have been 54 today. My talented, charming and beautiful friend, Francie.

Celebrating Frances Lee, 

May 25, 1956 - Jan 11, 2010

The memories of the last few days of her life are fading slowly, paving the path for her return in vivid, vibrant memories. Her laugh, which was an echo of pure sunshine, rings in my ears every time I think of her.

Happy Birthday, dear Francie, I will raise a toast to you tonight and to all the fun memories we made together. I cherish those as much as I do you.

* * *

I would like to recap the memories some of you sent in, the act of which is probably a memory itself since this is overdue by almost 7 months! But something tells me you won't mind rewinding a little bit and reading your own posts. I enjoyed them last year and I loved reading them again now. If you are game, tell me your thoughts as you relive the words you penned last fall.

Freshly made butter. Pillowy and white. Cool fat lingering on the tongue. Sweet undertones. Soft like a baby’s cheek. Clean cream. Who can offer such encomiums for that nasty ole margarine?
Who indeed! Maybelle's Mom made butter with her toddler.

There was a rhythm to the production and I didn’t want to acknowledge it but I loved the food prep. I suspect my mom knew it too.
I am sure she did! Jaya Wagle apologizes to her mother for being a brat as she reminisces while prepping stuffed anaheim peppers.

She always kept them polished and even as a kid I loved the two fat little jars, presiding over my aaji’s tiny little kitchen, sniffing the aromas of her simple cooking and my grandfather’s occasional mutton curry.
It's not just a simple cup of tea with biscuits. Jaya Wagle writes about two brass jars bursting with memories.

She waited with quiet patience for me to evince some interest in the kitchen and when that was not forthcoming she felt compelled to force-feed these skills to me.
Indian mothers are like that only! Deepika stirred up some memories with Mangalore cucumbers.

On and off, it hits me that here's a dish I used to have when my grandmother was around, and haven't had or enjoyed properly since she passed away - it's not always something exotic or special or unusual, just that it's unavailable to me for various reasons, one of them being a slowing memory.
That was the point of this exercise! Sra eulogizes her grandmother with a fiery mixture of constants and variables.

As a kid, there was something very exciting about all this activity with a rhythmic muted “whoomph” of the pounding in the background. 
Aparna took the modern route to make muthusaram with fistfuls of advice from her mother.

She sold the best fish, her credentials of being an excellent haggler, a sweet talker with the customer yet a tough women with anyone trying to cross her path.
Anjali digs deep into her Koli heritage to make sweet Mughal samosas.

I sat by her wide eyed while she toasted the seeds in the hot iron skillet on the clay oven. No ovens, no gas stoves, all she owned was a portable clay oven.
Soma toasted pumpkin seeds as she reflected on her grandmother's influence on her life.

Every perfect morsel, with a bit of eggplant and a portion of quince, was mixed into the rice with a little bit of the gravy and devoured in silence.
Anita regales us with tales of rare quinces from Kashmir.

Major props to Srivalli for turning around the fastest post ever on Kadambam Dosa - less than 7 hours since IFR: Memories was announced. Adai and flavorful coconut chutney! How could I say no?

Mooli parathas take PJ back to a meal after a bus accident in rural India.

As for me, reconnecting with friends from my childhood in Kenya led me to irio.

That, my friends, is the round-up for IFR: Memories.

To those of you who have not given up on me completely, I am going to try not to disappear again. I haven't worked out how often I will post but I am a firm believer in one step at a time, and this post is definitely a beginning.

Is it too late to say Happy New Year? Or should I just say I'm happy to be back?

Irio, a Kenyan food

Like N, I have been accused of being far too active on Facebook. I have been unfriended because my contacts only see me on their feeds.
It's all you, you, you and you. So annoying.
Well, of course, it's all about me, me and me. That's why it's called my Wall.
How much do you write?
I write a lot. A lot. A heck of a lot. Facebook doesn't even make a dent in the lot that I write.
Where do you find the time?
Do you talk to people during the day? You know, like in the next cubicle or desk or at the water cooler? Where do you find the time to do that and, also, update your Facebook Wall or comment on mine? Facebook is my watercooler. Your friends have to listen to you talk whereas you can Hide me and never hear from me again, unless you seek me out.

Thanks to Facebook, I've reconnected with a whole bunch of my schoolfriends from Kenya as well as college friends from India. And, very recently, one of my favorite friends from Bombay. She disappeared without a trace a few years ago, as did I for her. Facebook to the rescue!

Mso chicks!

It was during one of those infinite updates that one of my school friends asked me if I knew how to make bhajias, the kind we gorged on in Kenya. And if the pictures that these gals had posted had not taken me down memory lane, this question sent me hurtling down its path. I rued that I was a pathetically under-nourished kid who was not interested in food when we lived in Nairobi. I remember names of dishes and there are memories wound around most of them; but the flavors? For the most part, I have no recollection whatsoever.

I do, however, remember some things: like the time I ate ugali for the first time and didn't need to eat again for the next two days! It was like a giant idli that sat like a rock in my stomach forever. Whee! The freedom it gave me!

I had my first taste of rhubarb at one of my first hot lunches at school. I felt like I had licked someone's sweaty underarms and both, the smell and the image, made me extremely nauseous. If you had told me then that I would grow to love rhubarb, especially in a crumble, I would have given outlaughed all the hyenas on the Kenyan savannah.

Indian cuisine has had a fair amount of influence on Kenyan cooking; for example, chapatis and samosas are now as Kenyan as they are Indian. Spices and aromatics find their way into everyday Kenyan fare. A friend who is currently vacationing in Kenya reports that the "food is really good here!" And I believe her!

As my subconscious continued to be bombarded, I awoke one morning with the word irio ringing in my ears. Now, that was a stark change from the strange dreams that play vividly in my mind's eye otherwise! I remember it being described simply as food. Some sort of a nutritious mash that I am pretty sure I did not care for.

It had been served to us at a friend's home in rural Kenya, when he took us on a tour of his farm. His family had been fascinated by my mother. They couldn't stop touching her sari and asking about the bindi she wore on her forehead. All I wanted to do was run around outside after having been caged inside a car for over three hours. Who cared about the food when there were new kids to play with! Especially kids with an endless yard to romp around in.

But I am a different person now - the same friend who asked about bhajias wrote something about Sammy Sosa on her Wall and all I could see was samosa. I had to look up irio and while I was very tempted to make this spiced up version, I chose to stay closer to the home recipe and used Congo Cookbook's recipe instead. A simple mixture of mashed potatoes, dried peas and maize with a healthy dose of greens.

Irio

• 1 cup dried split green peas
• 6 medium red potatoes
• 6 ears of fresh corn
• 1/2 lb baby spinach, washed
• green and yellow beans, a good handful
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• salt to taste

1. Soak dried green peas overnight or give them a quick hot soak. Cook in a pressure cooker or boil in a saucepan until done.
2. Peel and dice potatoes into large pieces.
3. Scrape the kernels off the cobs.
4. Mix peas, potatoes, corn kernels and baby spinach and cover with just enough water to cook the veggies.
5. Mash the cooked mixture to a thick consistency.
6. Serve hot.

This is a great alternative for mashed potatoes and a lot healthier, too. Traditionally, irio is served with grilled meat, usually steak. I served it with broiled lamb chops. No special recipe: I marinated the chops with ginger-garlic paste, red chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt.

Leftovers can be rolled into small patties and shallow fried. Or used as stuffing for a toasted sandwich.

This was supposed to be my second entry for my own event, IFR: Memories. Remember that? I have been a terrible host but this particular post was a mental block. The pictures were awful, the words wouldn't flow and it came at a time when I haven't been able to sit at my desk for several hours at a stretch. Whatever time I do get is focused on work and at my watercooler. I have been very self-absorbed lately, for which I apologize profusely.

Does this post mean the round-up is coming up? Like you, I sure hope so, too!

Disclaimer: I'm really sorry but I do not add friends to my Facebook page unless I know them personally or have had a reasonably long online association with them.

On the nines

Who can resist a post scheduled for 09:09 p.m. on 09/09/09? Not me! If I was really smart though, it would have been scheduled for 09:09 a.m. on 09/09/09. But since everyone thinks I am rather brilliant, we'll just go with the flow and ignore my overly honest, inner voice.

Dana asked me what the significance of all the nines was and if there was something special she should do today. Eat and drink, girl, cos it's the first day of the rest of your life and this date is not going to come around again in your life. Neither will 09/08/09 but let's not go there, shall we? I like dates that look like 09/09/09 - they're symmetric and very orderly; the exact opposite of me.

Nines also remind me of my Dad. He would always calculate the digital root of a number, drop the nines, and ensure that the final number was divisible by three. He was rather upset when he did not get the Volkswagen Golf with the registration number KQZ 873 but was allotted the one prior, KQZ 872. Both were blue, both were great cars but ours had a digital root of eight whereas the other guy's had nine. But, our apartment was A-3. Yay! I presume that some crazy numerologist along the way must have told him that three and nine were good numbers for him, just like the demented astrologer who told him that he would die a watery death at the age of 32. Because of this, he didn't go near a large body of water and he didn't let us either! Needless to say, I hate that astrologer who was off target by 20 years. I have no strong feelings for the numerologist except that I have this urge to start adding numbers - the street number for our house before we bought it (it's a nine! Dad would have approved!), our cars, important dates, birth dates, account numbers, you name it!

As I grow older, I look at all the baggage I carry with me and smile. Memories - of the people who molded us, from our parents to our friends to our teachers to chance occurrences on the street, even. Sometimes there is a hint of an aroma in the air that only I can smell and it propels me back in time to a memory that is so vivid, it could be real. Other times, it's a look on the face of a complete stranger. Is she... could he be... no! They're just passers-by in the walk of life but they leave me with the renewed joy of reliving an event that occurred over two to three decades ago.

Has that ever happened to you?

I'm sure it has! Have you ever taken that feeling and run with it? If it was an aroma or a flavor or even a déjà vu, have you tried to capture the essence of that feeling and tried to recreate tastes associated with it? I know I have. I hold on to it until I have to do something about it, especially if it is related to food. Sometimes just finding the right recipe is action enough, other times I have to do more. Like the time I saw a kid continue to gnaw at an already eaten cob of corn. He dipped it in some kind of sauce and sucked on the cob, over and over again. It brought back visions of a scrawny kid with thick eyeglasses sitting in a small kitchen, dipping her 2 inch share of a cob into a tangy green sauce and sucking the flavors off the cob. Over and over again. I had forgotten the distinctive, slightly garlicky taste of the palakachi amti that my Mom used to make. One that turned dinner time from being a total time-suck to an endless suck of the cob.

And, sure enough, there was soon fresh corn in the Louisville Farmers Market begging to be... er, sucked.

To be honest, the corn wasn't that great because the entire crop had almost been wiped out due to a massive hail storm in the Foothills. But, I bought it anyway because I had a memory that was itching to be recreated and I like to support our local farmers, especially when they are down.

Palak ani makkyachi Amti

Spinach and Corn Curry

• 1 lb baby spinach leaves
• 2 ears of corn, preferably fresh
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
• pinch asafetida
• 2-3 medium cloves garlic, julienned
• 2 Thai green chillies or 2-3 dried red chillies
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 2 tbsp tamarind pulp
• 1/2 tsp quick fix ground masala (optional) 
• salt to taste

1. Wash the baby spinach leaves well.
   
   
   
   
2. Soak tamarind pulp in about 1/4 cup water, pop into the microwave for 20 seconds and mush it into a thick paste with your hands. Discard all hard fibers, shell and seeds. Use more water if you need to.
   
   
   
    
   About 1/8 cup fresh tamarind pulp
3. Chop the corn on the cob into pieces that are about 1.5 in to 2 inches thick. About eight pieces is a good number.
   
   
   
    
   Chop with a sharp knife
   
4. Heat oil in a large sauté pan.
5. Add mustard seeds and when they pop, add asafetida.
6. Keep your splash guard handy and then add julienned garlic. Stir until garlic becomes a nice toasty brown but take care that it does not burn.
7. If using fresh green chillies, slice them down their length. If using dried red chillies, break them into 2-3 pieces each.
8. Add chillies, followed by turmeric powder.
9. Add baby spinach leaves and allow them to wilt completely, stirring every so often to help the process.
10. Add tamarind paste, quick fix ground masala, if using and salt. Cook for another 4-5 minutes.
11. Discard chillies, if desired.
12. Use a hand blender to make a thick purée, adding up to 1/2 cup water to bring it to a consistency you like. Or add a few ice cubes to cool the spinach quickly and take it for a whirr in your blender.
    
13. Taste and adjust seasonings at this point. If it's not spicy enough, feel free to add red chilli powder.
14. Return the pan to the stove and add the pieces of cob. Dunk them into the thick green sauce so that they absorb all the zesty flavors as the corn cooks. Do not overcook the corn.
    
    
    
     
    Send the corn for a swim
15. Serve immediately over long-grained steamed rice with homemade yogurt and Indian pickle.

Notes:

1. I think the roots of this dish are in a patal bhaji where the masala was ground with fresh grated coconut but I think my Mom stopped using coconut because of doctor's orders - reduce saturated fats in my Dad's diet. 
2. I've made both with and without the quick fix ground masala. Medha prefers it with the masala, while I like it without. Her Dad doesn't care, as long as he has a pile of pickled jalapeño peppers sitting on his plate.
   

We decided to brave the mosquitoes and have dinner on the patio. It was interesting to watch both Medha and her Dad when they were served dinner.

 

He picked up his spoon

  

  She followed suit.

After a few bites, she looked at him,  then looked at me and did exactly what that child in a small Bombay kitchen had done decades ago: she picked up the cob and sucked on it.

 

With that, I would like to launch IFR: Memories. A series of posts that focus on mundane happenings today that somehow manage to send me into the past. I'd love it if you would join me for more than just the ride. Delve into what defines nostalgia for you: a picture, a smell, a thought, a setting, a landscape, a deja vu. For IFR: Memories, I'm looking for tastes you haven't sampled for at least a decade or more. I would like you to:

1. Write a poignant post that includes a recipe. Your writing is what is of  importance for this event. It needn't be a tearjerker.
2. Some guidelines:
• posts must be in English.
• avoid excessive use of "..." and exclamation points.
  
• proof-read your post for spelling as well as grammar.
• avoid run-on sentences. 
• no smileys or emoticons, please.
  
3. Link to this announcement.
4. Send me an email at indianfoodrocks (at) gmail (dot) com with the following info:
• Your name
• The Name of your Blog
  
• The URL of your post
• The Title of your post
5. You can send me two entries per blog, limiting it to two entries per person.
6. Send me a basket of mangoes Send all this to me before midnight MDT, October 15, 2009.

I will post a summary of all your entries within the following week.

Looking for a logo for this event? You could use this, if you like.