Ladies

Ladies
representing different times and moods

Monday, December 26, 2011

food.(quotidie deliciis delectabile)

mom always says that with the arrival of winter, we all get metamorphosed as goats.
her very words.

not that i mind being a goat,goats are cute,but she doesn't say that because of their cuteness, she says that because of our food. we start eating greens almost in the same proportion as the goats.

so,before i start my yummy story, let me add a few quotes, one of the most wisest quotes ever written in this world.

let's start with a sobering fact-
Mahatma Gandhi
“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
Mahatma Gandhi
and another -
  “After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relatives.”
Oscar Wilde
 “There is no love sincerer than the love of food.”
George Bernard Shaw
 Roald Dahl
“Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It's made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!”
Roald Dahl 
 Virginia Woolf “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
Virginia Woolf
 “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart.”
Erma Bombeck
 “If more of us valued food and cheer above hoarded gold, it would be a much merrier world.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
 “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”
Charles de Gaulle
but quotes aside, what happens to me on regular basis during winter?
i hear a hawker outside, Fenugreek,spinach,coriander,green garlic,huge white radishes and radish leaves....you get the idea. a whole lot of leafs,and greens- and to not to forget the peas and chickpeas and pigeon peas and the different Vaal beans or Valor beans (i have them growing in our garden:) ) -
and i run outside and buy it, not everyday, but only once a week, 
before this ends, you will figure out why.
valor  beans/surati papadi
i always mean to be nice, to my self and others,but particularly to my self, considering vegetables.i always think,now, i shall be really careful and wouldn't buy too much,...

so i bought these,
one morning- when this tale began- or today :D 
and these,
and than i became all brave and daring, i started plucking and cleaning them,and separating them, and washing them,and drying them.....
so i had started at 10am , and i was still trying desperately to finish it all at 1:30 pm....
but after much toil and lebor, i got the unruly greens under control.
like this,
the only problem being that they now dominated the whole kitchen space,shamelessly.
i had to wrestle them or half of them,in the refrigerator after they dried enough.
the remaining thing will have to be take care of at dinner :D
i can not claim that during all this process, i wasn't dismayed at my self for giving in to a momentary euphoria, a green one,this economical indulgence is very very time consuming, but than - you have to work hard to reap the rewards.

and here is another effort of mine that took me three hours a few days back.

winter is a season for food,fun and family, but it is mostly about food,food and more fun food with your loved ones!
 it is cold, you need to heat it up with added flavour and spice in elaborate dishes, or piping hot simple dishes,they both work, as winter is a wonderful season that makes you more inclined to eat.

mom just came back from her training session, they are being trained by the government in a 4 star hotel, not that i care for stars and such,if the hotel in question is in my town it self, but i do care for the lunch they are being given-  i am talking about her today's meal, a walnut salad,(a Waldorf Salad? may be) with fresh apricots,green apples,peaches and such- i am very much against food that has travel thousands of miles, but have never tasted a fresh apricot! i want a fresh apricot!*pouts*

there is nothing in life, if you haven't eaten and travelled, and if you haven't travelled and eaten,and if you haven't travelled a little more,to eat.
gosh,the way i am going about it,people will start thinking i am on the verge of having a eating disorder! :D
 no. i eat very moderately , couldn't eat more even if i tried, and from the last few years i seem to have developed a sugar and oil sensor, if you were to give me a cookie, i'd be very unlikely to take another after the first, i get this feeling of instant revulsion,particularly to cookies. poor cookies.
they say that happens when you eat a lot of veggies, your natural moderation drive kicks in,and you stop liking the feel of any bad excesses, and you don't really have to be conscious about it either, unless, of course, you are not used to hearing or following what your stomach says, if we always hear what it says, eating good becomes very simple.
out stomach is a very intelligent organ.

we are not going to discuss the goodness of healthy eating though! far from it, we must indulge, and indulge we would.

the explorations with food,this time,started with my backing my first bread, two loafs, one simply salted one and one was garlic bread with oregano and chilly flacks, both brown,whole wheat bread.
we did have some "rising" problem,as the shape was given after it had risen, that's just silly :)
 still, they were alright.

my another way of hiding my over indulgence in buying spinach and other greens is to make pasta in green sauce.
adding a little cheese on top is always nice.



talking of cheese- pizza is the ultimate cheesy delight, as we all know. the above shown pizza is the best i have eaten yet, in my life :) .the place has always been my favourite though, from childhood, and their new (since some last few years) thin crust pizza,(which they insist on calling "paper thins") is amazing,which i tried for the first time last month.they've been winning "the best pizza" award from the last two years.
we ate with relish and delight there,along with a lot of goofing around. here is a preview.

http://youtu.be/PTFRFXxbNCE

with the arrival of winter, the earthen ware pots take over our kitchen.they are marvellous utensils, absolutely bio degradable,easily produced and local, green in every way possible,they make the food more delicious and cook faster with less heat,and retain the heat much longer,and if you wrap it nicely with a kitchen towel,the food inside will stay warm from more than two hours.

I do like those a lot!
after my insane indulgence in greens- i had to sit all day long plucking, and the refrigerator bulged, but some catastrophe was prevented by my resorting to desperate measures. we made Palak Paneer, thus, making a lot of spinach purée. it turned out really well.
just as the kitchen had started to stop panicking, mom went to the regional farmer's market again on Saturday, a mere 2 days after that, and indulged in her own vegetable fantasy.


a heart shaped peanut and my "peeling,shelling,plucking" bruised fingers.
home baked "Handavo" a kind of  bread made Lentil flour and spices-yummy.in our little sand baking cooker.

and the preparation of the special winter casserole started the day after hew extravagant behaviour. that is "Undiu".

home grown


my dish
there is, of course, a lot more to food, i haven;t even touched the surface, i hope you enjoyed reading.

3 comments:

  1. loved it....its great....didnt know u bake breads.....especially garlic bread seems mouthwatering....pics are very nice....:)
    Вы можете стать очень хороший шеф-повар

    ReplyDelete
  2. thank you so much :) i would love to be a chef! we can bake a bread together sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  3. sure....i like cooking....baking...anything related to food....:)

    ReplyDelete