Potato is the king of all vegetables when it comes to my family. In my childhood, I never imagined surviving a single day without having a potato. Just a plate of rice, butter, and a boiled potato mashed with raw mustard oil with salt would make my day. In addition to it, if it was mixed with some raw grated coconut, One would have found me on cloud nine.
There are certainly some places that give us a glimpse of heaven. We yearn to travel there to feel the serenity, picturesque beauty of nature, the peace that hovers in the air all around the place. Among many, Bhutan is one such, that is on my wish-list since I got married. After marriage we moved to the USA. We roamed here and there. But what we did most, was relive memories over foods. Yes, food, you hear it right! Staying far away from our native land we kept on relishing on the dishes to feel the touch of our mothers. Apart from it one dish that kept on budging in our life is ‘Kewa Datshi’. Repetitive requests kept on coming from the man to make the dish for him. He spent a few moons in Bhutan due to work. And the memories of the place and its food got embedded in his mind. I started to travel that place virtually through his memories several times. Recreating the tastes of the country without knowing the exact flavour, I tried to inhale the aroma of the place. The sun-kissed silver lined Himalayan Range, the Monasteries, the pristine beauty of nature every time became alive as I served a Bhutanese dish.
Our life is pretty fancied with all the updated modern amenities. Most of the time we hardly bother if that stuff is really needed but we get glued with the reviews, attractive features and the greed to own that. Life was simpler in a way in the pre-Covid19 era, we sought contentment in collecting expensive/inexpensive gadgets whether we use it or not. I bought a Rice cooker in a whim and it laid around for more than 3 years untouched unattended. Then one day suddenly the Covid19 broke down devastating each corner of the world creating a pandemic situation. The maids got paid off. The gas supply decreased. The household workload shot up all of a sudden and I thanked myself and the family to me for making the house a habitat for the kitchen gadgets (my sweet little soul was condemned each day for wasting money! Okay! No more exaggeration). The Rice Cooker and all the hidden gems suddenly turned into a superheroes who saved these burdened soul showering some relief. I started to cook cake, dhokla, chicken dishes, Idly, Veg/Prawn/ Chicken Biryanis, Chicken rice and et al in the rice cooker. Mr. Pie’s face illuminated each time I used the Rice Cooker. At last his money smiled him back.
Mr. Pie is an ardent Dosa lover and I was not but I love the chutneys ( Coconut & Onion Tomato). Once in a while dipping my fingers in the Sambar and devouring oil coated crispy Dosas were fine but never on regular basis. After I got married to Mr. Pie, most morning breakfasts rushed us to the South Indian Food joint in Kolkata to satiate Mr. Pie’s cravings for Dosa. And I, the newly wed bride, tried to find my happiness in his. Our USA stay did burry under his love for South Indian Food, but if ever he got to know about some South Indian joint a visit became mandatory. Being a dedicated wife, head over heels in love with him, I tried few times to be a Dosa Pro, but failed miserably. I surrendered myself and took my hands off to make Dosa then onwards. Several years passed by, We grew older each year, became proud parents of two beautiful daughters and started to swank the newly bloomed gray hairs. Our food habits got changed, but one thing didn’t change, that was his love for Dosa.
Never thought that our life would suddenly take a halt and abruptly force us to reconsider that life is precious. Just before the Covid19 pandemic started to spread its wings, life was different.
Romancing food is not a new phenomena. Memories become more vivid when we shuffle and reshuffle to fish out the anecdotes related to food. The stories turn out to be so intense that one can instantly taste the flavours lingering in the mouth. Today I am going to chronicle one such memory with my readers.
Wish you all Happy New year. I am out of the scene since a long time. Now a day I hardly get a moment to sit for me. Sigh… So I decided to make a move with a guest post – just to ensure that it might make me motivated enough to start blogging again.
I met Debjani Basu through Instagram. When and how, I could not recollect it at all. But we bumped to each other’s feed and started following right then. It is really an honour to feature her in blog. Debjani is not a food blogger, not even a food photographer. She, however, loves anything that’s remotely related to food and nutrition. Her love for food and flair for cooking was passed on to her in her genes (true to her Bengali roots). Stressful corporate job, multiple cities and about a dozen maid who cooked horribly was her story once upon a time which left a permanent damage to her mind. She suffers from a severe phobia – phobia of badly cooked food or devoid of any nutrition (she wishes there was a more formal term for it).
I am not that kind of a person to celebrate Valentine’s Day in an elaborate way. Mainly if you ask Mr. Pie, he will give you a weird look that will directly make you understand – “What is so much fuss with the Valentine’s Day!!!” And I will return back the same look with a decent smile (which is kind of yelling at him) to him to make him understand that “sometimes it is good to show off the gesture of love you know my dear poor soul!!!”
At last, I was separated with my house-maid. Now I am a maid-less lady who is doing all the household chores all alone from cleaning to cooking, from the groceries to draping up the kids and so on and so forth. My morning now starts at 5.00am and ends at 10.00pm. In between, I hardly get time to rest or relax down except those 2 hours when I go to pick up Miss Picky Pie from her school. I literally doze off like the aged persons may be keeping my mouth widely open and making a strange face, letting the breeze from the running car window playing the lullaby song in my ears(Yeww…How ugly I might be looked then..:P).