Sunday, April 09, 2006

Lets make things bitter


She ( the little one ofcourse) is now old enough to eat rice. So, the rest of us celebrated her 'annopraashon' yesterday. I love treats and this one was a real treat what with this little red riding hood occupying the centre stage!

Now unlike a lot of people, I like neem, and bitter gourd (karela) and I love eating all kinds of preparations of 'teto' - item numero uno of the Bong lunch. Tradional Bong lunch always starts with a preparation of vegetables with a bitter taste like karela, neem etc. This translates into the delectable 'shukto' - made of bitter gourd, brinjal, raw bananas, potato etc or 'neem beguni'- fried neem and brinjals. The reason why I am so fond of 'teto' is that my grandad always keeps saying that it purifies the blood system and keeps disease away and I follow grandad like religion. But my grandad also introduced me to the taste of something that is the polar opposite of the 'teto'. In Delhi winters, we attended wedding parties where we savoured the finest gulab jamuns known to mankind. Now my theory is that if you add vanilla ice-cream to piping hot gulab jamuns, it is the same as feeding on honey dew and drinking the milk of paradise. So, yesterday, when they repeated the fare in the hot month of April, i pretended that the AC was making enough cold air to make me feel like winter and gorged on these.


Bon Apetit!

8 comments:

Akash said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Akash said...

Excellent!!! Mouth-watering description. I never liked uchche, Korola and neem etc. Now I think I did them a great injustice. Hail your grandad.

ə said...

I got, rather was given, two most delicious pastries - rich chocolate and cream stuff. Now since I do not have a sweet tooth, I could not finish more than 1/2 of one. That does NOT mean that I don't like them. Just that I can't eat all of it at one go. So I put the remaining in the fridge.

And forgot.

36 hours later:
Only half of one remains.

I hate my life. My flatmates even more. Most of whose names I do not know.

ə said...

O, and what prompted this complaint early in the morning? - The sight of your vanilla-jamun.

APUGONNAB said...

Ice-cream and jamooooon - hot jamooon at that! Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!

Anwesha Chatterjee said...

Thank you! sniff! snif!!

When I was about to take this picture of my plate, I looked all around and made sure nobody saw me do it. I clicked and the flash of the camera like a conscience reborn, made me realize that my father was sitting in front of me and giving me a look more incredulous than the time when i barely managed to pass with a 45 in drawing in class VII. The damage had already been done by then and no matter what he told me about my sanity in Bong and then in English and finally in Hindi, it could not erase the mark on the film.

I have been feeling guilty about the snap since then, but thank you thank you thank you! All of you have absolved my guilt!!!!!!

@Akash: my grandad is my bestest friend!!!!

@stiletto: not having a sweet tooth has it benefits. I remember how I huff puffed into that black shirt of mine, which hung so elegantly on your shouders.

@tree frog in a salad: Er....even I have been to your blog so many times. Its quite profound and I found myself too insignificant to comment.

@Aparna: Howz life? Howz work? Mine is killing me. I am now working 12 hours 8 days a week for the last one week. Can you believe that??? I could not even check my blog!

APUGONNAB said...

My worklife is in lean period now- hardly any work, and lots of time to relax!! So, its really really easy going!!! Been reading when I get the chance...

You work too hard!!!!!!!

Oirpus said...

See 8-) aparna says it too...