Holiday

I am still not able to get over my hangover from the month long holiday and Diwali celebrations that we had. Yes, we had a great Diwali this year with both our handsome and charming sons, daughter in law and our ever so adorable and perfect grandson with us. We had lots and lots of fun and loads and loads of good food.
We had paruppu pradhaman, kozhukkattai, elai adai, sevai, puran poli, vadai, neyyapam, morappam, malabar paratha, stuffed parathas of various types, varieties of pulav, pathrode, cakes, semiya payasam, pal adai pradhaman, jangiri (jahangir), badusha, boondi laddu, mullumurukku, omapodi, ribbon pakoda, mixture, and samosas, to name a few.

Our sons, daughter in law and grandson arrived in Bangalore by navarathri end. We had a grand saraswathi pooja and vijayadasami followed by happy times in the company of our little bundle of joy. We had a great time like never before. In between we managed a trip to Puthucode and Guruvayoor.

Diwali was grand with boondi laddu, badusha, ribbon pakora and mixture. We bought crackers for diwali, something we had not done for 25 years. Our grand son thoroughly enjoyed the sparklers and flower pots and the chakras. He even enjoyed the exploding crackers that the neighbors set off.

We also celebrated the little one's first birthday, actually twice. First, according to Hindu calendar on his star birthday with Ayushya homam. We also did the jathakaranam, namakaranam and annaprasanam and we also had the varadhanam.

We had a cake cutting celebration followed by a lunch with our friends and extended family on his date of birth. The little one thoroughly enjoyed all the attention he received. We also enjoyed every moment we spent with him. He is such a wonderful kid, always cheerful and full of energy.
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Our son, daughter-in-law and grandson have since returned to US and our elder son is spending the last few days of his leave with us. I am reminded of the times we used to leave our parental home enmasse after family get-togethers for various functions. Distinct is the memory of the day all us, including the newly married couple, left Puthucode after our youngest brother's marriage leaving only our parents behind at Puthucode. The party also included some family friends who had come to attend the wedding from Bangalore. One of them said, "Next time onwards please book your return tickets on different days so that your parents will not be left alone all of a sudden". I am also reminded of the proverb my dear mother in law used to repeat at various occasions,"alandalanda nazhi ozhinjozhinju varum" which when translated means, history repeats itself. One understands the implications of the various actions we undertake because of our various commitments only when one is at the receiving end. When one is busy with the family, one has no time to think of the effects of our routine actions.

Recipe: Sweet Ammini Kozhukkattai (Kathavarayan Kozhukkattai)

These days, whenever our younger son calls, the first thing we ask is, "what is the baby doing?" The expected answer to this question is what the baby's progress is according to its age. This was a colloquial usage in our village. These days however, when we ask this question, the usual answer is, he is crying or sleeping or eating etc. My son knows to answer this question now and he says, he has started crawling, today he sat on his own, etc. I was always asking him, "has he crossed the threshold yet?" and the answer was "yes" one day. "We do kozhukkattai shower when the baby crosses the threshold", I said. "What is it?", he asked.

In the village houses where we grew up, there would be a small step between rooms. In some places like the front or back porch, there would be several steps. When the baby starts moving on its belly, at some stage it would cross this threshold between rooms. At this stage, sweet ammini kozhukkattais are prepared and offered to Kathavarayan Swamy and then a mixture of these kozhukkattais and small coins are showered on the baby's head as he crosses the threshold. The neighbouring children are invited and they scramble for the kozhukkattais and the coins. This is an offering to Kathavarayan Swamy (literally protector God) so he would protect the baby from any fall from the steps when he is growing up. In our house, Kathavarayan Kozhukkatai was also offered to the Lord, when the baby recovers from measles or other such illness.

Kathavarayan kozhukkattai or simply, sweet ammini kozhukkattais, are small kozhukkattais made with rice flour and jaggery, and is the right sweet for the calorie conscious. No fat, no deep frying, just a steamed healthy delicacy.

I told my son how to prepare them and he in turn had a kozhukkattai shower for the baby. I prepared the kozhukkattais and offered them to Kathavarayan Swamy, here in India.

Over to the recipe. The pictures are by my son.

I have made a small change to the original recipe followed by my mother (She is sure to ask me, "who taught you to roast the rice flour?") In the traditional recipe raw rice flour is used; I thought roasting the rice flour lightly would give a better texture to the dish.

Ingredients:

Rice flour : 1 cup
Jaggery : 3/4 cup
Coconut pieces : 2 tsp.
Cardamom powder : 1 tsp.
Salt : a pinch

Method:

Roast the rice flour lightly. The color should not change. Melt the jaggery in 2 cups of water and strain. Boil the strained jaggery syrup. Add the coconut pieces, cardamom powder and salt. When the syrup starts to boil, add the roasted rice flour and cook until all the liquid evaporates. Cool, make into marble sized balls and steam for 10-15 minutes in a steamer. Sweet ammini kozhukkattai is ready.

nJOY!

Recipe: Coffee Mocha Cake

Ugadi day also happened to be very important for us this year, as our handsome and charming son's birthday fell on the same day. As I have already said, we celebrate our children's birthdays twice every year, one by the Indian calendar (the star birthday) and the other by the western calendar. The Indian calendar birthday falls on a different date every year and it coincides with the actual date of birth every 19 years.

We had already celebrated the star birthday this year with Rice and dal pradhaman and 4th April was the actual date of birth. I usually bake a cake for my children's birthday and I was wondering what cake to bake. That is when my younger son suggested the Coffee Mocha cake as they had baked the cake for the monthly date of birth of my adorable and perfect grandson.

The original recipe is here. As I was baking an eggless cake and also because some of the ingredients are commercially not available here, I made some changes in the orginal recipe. The result, however, was awesome according to the tasters.

The recipe calls for sour cream and confectioner's sugar, both of which are not available here. Hence instead of confectioners sugar, I used home made powdered sugar and added 1 tsp. of corn flour to it.

I had a problem with sour cream. My son suggested I use buttermilk. However, I was not happy with the option because I thought buttermilk would be too thin. After scouring the web, I decided on making my own sour cream. I beat in 1 tbsp. of butter into 1 cup of fresh curds. I feel it would taste as good without beating in the butter. Just use plain fresh curds.

Let's get into the actual preparation of the cake.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

Maida or refined flour: 2 cups (approximately 250 gms)
Sweetened condensed milk: 300ml.
Butter: 10 tbsp ( approximately 350 gms)+1 tbsp.(for sour cream)
curds : 1 cup
baking powder: 1tsp.
baking soda: ½ tsp
salt: ¼ tsp
vanilla essence: 2 tsp.
Chocolate chips: 2 tbsp.
Instant coffee: 2 tbsp.

For the Glaze:

Instant coffee: 1½ tsp
Strong coffee decoction: 2-3 tbsp.
powdered sugar: 3/4 cup

Method:

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt twice.

Melt the chocolate chips in 2 tbsp. of warm water. Mix the instant coffee with 2 tbsp. of warm water.

Beat 1 tbsp. of butter with the curds until well combine (to make sour cream ).

Beat the remaining butter and condensed milk until well combined. Add vanilla essence and beat well. Add the flour mixture alternating with the sour cream, beginning and ending with flour mixture and fold in lightly. Divide the mixture into 3 parts.

Add the chocolate mixture to the first part and stir well.

Add the coffee mixture to the second part and stir well.

Keep the third part as such.

Grease and dust an 8" square pan. Pour one half of the first part on to the greased tin followed by one half of the 3rd part and one half of the 2nd part. Repeat.

Preheat the oven to 350 deg. F. Bake at the centre of the oven until the cake turns golden brown(approximately 50 minutes) or until a skewer inserted comes clean.

Remove and cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Invert onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Glaze:

Stir together the instant coffee and strong coffee decoction until the coffee powder is well dissolved. Add the powdered sugar and stir until well combined. Pour glaze over the cake and allow to settle.

njoy!

Sweet Tidings (Gulab Jamun recipe)

In India, it is traditional to break all happy news along with sweets. I understand that in North India the type of sweets distributed changes with the gender of the new born baby. Thus people will easily know it is a boy if laddus are distributed (I frankly do not know what sweet is distributed if it is a girl or perhaps they don't distribute any sweets at all if it is a girl). In the south, the saying, "Vayile sakkarai podanum," (put sugar in the mouth) was literally followed until couple of decades ago. So when a baby is born, it was customary to distribute a small packet of sugar and one banana along with one measure of paddy and a coin to all. The ritual is known as varadanam. The idea here was to request  the blessings of everyone for the well being and long life of the new born baby. (We children promptly exchanged the paddy for aval from "aval Krishnan"). With no fast communications systems like today's global network, the news of the new addition to the family was communicated to the paternal grandparents personally along with a tray of sugar and banana (sometimes it took 2 or 3 days as the news had to be communicated on an auspicious day only). This ritual is known as "Shobhanam Chollal." Varadanam was performed in the paternal grandparents' home as well. Also when the friends and relatives arrived to visit the new born, they brought along some sugar and put a pinch of sugar in the little one's mouth. These customs have become obsolete these days. Feeding the new borns with sugar is not allowed for more reasons than one.

When my own grandson arrived, I prepared Gulab jamuns, as it was also Deepavali in a few days. Deviating from the practice of using the readily available Gulab Jamun mix, I prepared it the traditional way, using khoya and the result was yummilicious!

Here is the recipe  for all of you to relish this yumy sweet.

Ingredients:

Unsweetened Khoya : 200gms
Maida:                        1 tbsp.
Soda-bi-carb               1 pinch(strictly)
fresh curds: 1 tbsp.
Raisins/blanched almonds : 1 tbsp. (optional)
Oil for deep frying
Sugar                            : 500gms
Rose essence: 1 tsp.
Cardamom powder: 1 tsp.

Heat sugar and 500ml. water in a wide mouthed pan and boil until the syrup is thickened to a sticky consistency. Add cardamom powder and rose essence. Keep aside.


Crumble the khoya. Add maida and soda-bi-carb. Mix lightly with finger tips. Add curds if necessary and make a soft dough. Make small marble shaped balls of the dough and stuff a raisin or almond in each of them. Heat the oil in a pan. Dont allow it to smoke. When the oil is heated, lower the heat and fry the jamuns few at a time. When they swell and are fried to a deep brown color, remove, drain the oil and put in the hot sugar syrup. Allow the jamuns to soak for 10-12 hours.

nJOY!

Kai veesamma

My handsome and charming son, who is the proud father of my adorable and perfect grandchild, who is just 4 months old, asks me, "Amma, how did you teach Anna to speak before he was 1 yr old?". While our elder son started speaking even before he was 1 year old and started speaking fluently by the time he was 18 months of age, our younger son started speaking only after he was 2 years of age (My parents have told me that I started speaking before I was 1 year old while my astute and blessed m-i-l has told me that my husband started speaking only after he was 3 years of age). Our elder son even started reciting stories when he was just 2 years old and he could read before he was 3 (How this put us into a big predicament, I shall get to at the end of this post).

I told my son, "we speak to children from the day they are born." But it beats logic that one child in the family starts speaking before 1 year of age and another sibling starts only after 2 years. Anyway, as I have often said, there were so many visitors at home on a day to day basis and when there was a small baby, they spent some time talking to the baby. And there were always people surrounding the baby. They found a meaning in what ever the baby did and responded with, "Oh, where are you looking?", "what is it that you want?", "why are you crying?", "are you looking for amma?", and on and on. And then as the baby grew up they made him wave his hands and sang to him,

Kai Veesamma, Kai veesu (wave your hands, baby wave)
Kadaikku pokalam kaiveesu (we will go shopping, wave your hands)
Mittai vangalam kai veesu (we will buy toffees, wave your hands)

I forget the rest of the song.

They made the baby clap hands, chanting

Krishna Rama Govinda
Rama Krishna Govinda
Venkata Krishna Govinda
Kalla Krishna Govinda
Govinda Govinda

And when the baby started making fists, the song went like this,

Kuppi, Kuppi,
Chandukuppi, Chandanakuppi,
Tharumayya, Tharum

(Chandu was the paste used to adorn the forehead of children. When we were young, there were no sticker bindis, we used home made bindi paste, known as chandu, only black. Later we started getting chandu  in black and red colors in bottles (kuppis). The chandu pottu was applied on the forehead of the baby to ward off the evil eye)

Listening to continuous blabbering made them pick up words early, perhaps. It also was an exercise for the baby to move his hands and legs.

My Kalathappa (paternal grandfather) had his own gibberish vocabulary to play with his grandchildren and he enjoyed every minute he could get to spent with the babies. He would ask the baby to be put near him when he had breakfast or lunch. When he was relaxing in his easy chair, he would have the baby on his lap. One could hear his gibberish from half a kilometer away. He would come all the way from our farm, about 3 kilometers away in the hot sun so that he could spend some time with his grandchildren.

I spent all my time in my maternal home or my in-laws' until our older son was 1 year old. This meant he was always surrounded by a host of uncles and aunts and cousins all the time. In my husband's home, our child was the first son after my husband and my in-laws and other aunts (my small mothers-in-law, as one of my friends used to say) would not move away from the baby even for a second. They were always talking to him. Perhaps that was the reason why he started speaking before he was 1 year old.  When our younger son was born, I came to Bangalore even when he was just 3 months old and he was not lucky to have so many people pampering him all the time.

As I said earlier in the post, our elder son started reading even before he was 3 years of age. So, when he was 3 years old we put him in a kindergarten school. They taught the kids to write the English alphabet and numbers 1-10 in the first 6 months. They had also issued a Hindi book with the alphabet. So when he came home, I started teaching him the Hindi alphabet and numbers 1 - 100 and some simple addition. At the end of 6 months, his teacher said she could not keep him in the class as he had learnt everything that was to be taught for the next 6 months also, and he was promoted to what then was known as Upper KG. Having finished his lower and upper KG in one year, there was no class he could go to the next year. As he was only 4, they would not give him admission in 1st standard. We had to run around many schools, before we could get him admitted to a pre- primary class, the next year. So, my advice,"take it easy!"

Long Long Vacation (Hibernation)

Well, it has been a long time since my last post and have I been busy! Nothing special, just the usual - a bit of travel, a lot of knitting and sewing and cooking and visiting, along with my already busy routine work. Many a time I almost started my post and couldn't.

Sometime back my sister-in-law asked me, "Why haven't I seen any new posts, Akka?"  "Ever since R was born I have been busy," I replied. She had a hearty laugh and said, "But they are in the US and you are in India." "I am simulating having a new born baby at home," I said. Jokes apart, until few years ago it indeed was a busy time to have a new born baby at Indian homes. It is not very different in these days except that most women prefer to stay back at their homes and ask their mother or mother-in-law to go ever and help them.

Then, the whole house would be bursting with activity with so many people to help around. Activities begin from the time the news arrives that the daughter is pregnant. Discussions are held as to who should be asked to come and stay for those few months when the baby is born and the new born and mother are confined (the delivery is known as confinement in most places). There are always aunts or grandmothers who are free to come and spend a few months to be of help in the family. When the daughter is brought home during her 6th or 8th month of pregnancy, every care is taken to see that she is comfortable and eats well and exercises lightly. (Expectant mothers of today have no such luxuries, what with having to work almost until the date of delivery so that they could have all the leave available after the baby arrives). The maid is given special instructions to make herself available at all times.

"How will I contact you if my daughter goes into labour late in the night?"  my mother asked our maid  one evening, when I was expecting my baby at my maternal home. I burst out laughing and my mother said, "why are you laughing?" I said, "if I go into labour you should be calling the midwife and not the maid." "Don't worry about what she says Amma, what does she know. You just come to your backyard and shout my name, I will come," said the maid. She lived about a kilometre away and we could see her house from our backyard across paddy fields and a canal. Sure enough the maid was the first one to be informed as the lady went into labour. She is the one who would make all arrangements for the lady's comfortable delivery and keep things ready for the midwife and take over from the midwife after the baby arrives. She would sit with the new mother and baby and give them all the nursing care and also take care of bathing the baby and the mother . The aunt who had arrived for help would be coordinating between the new mother and the main household and taking care of the food and medicines of the new mother and the baby. The house would be in a perpetual state of activity like buying the herbs for the medicines and preparing the medicines as per tradition and boiling the bathing water for the new mother with herbs and preparing the massage oil, etc. And of course there were festivities when the baby arrived. On the 7th day the paternal aunt and grandparents would arrive with bangles and anklets for the newborn baby. This function is known as Kappu. Naming ceremony on the 11th day follows if the father of the baby is present. The baby is put in the cradle for the first time on the 28th day. The festivities would go on and on.

I was reminiscing on all these when my own adorable and perfect grandchild arrived though he was halfway across the globe. And yet my handsome and charming son made sure that we did not miss out on any excitement by calling us each minute and giving us the status report from the very minute the gynecologist advised my daughter-in-law to get admitted in the hospital for delivery. He even made me listen to the  first cry of the baby. Our days were spent here in India wondering if the baby slept well, fed well, how the new mother was, how were they managing, etc. So every evening and morning we would be sitting in front of our PC chatting with our son and asking questions about the happenings there and he in turn would patiently answer all our queries. Though it is not a tradition there, my son's mother-in-law graciously agreed to come and spend one month with them to be of help to them with the new baby.

As I said, the first few months after the baby arrives are very busy and critical especially in the case of the first baby as the mother is not experienced in taking care of the baby. This is especially true in the nuclear family set up, as the children do not get to see other babies growing up. Whereas in the olden days, there were always some little children in all the families and also in the neighborhood. And like I said, there was always help available to take care of all the needs. The first thing my mother asked me after my grandchild was born was, "who is giving bath to the baby?". It was a big question. I asked the same question to my son even before the baby was born. "We will take care ma," he said. Though my mother has 7 children and more than a dozen grandchildren and great grandchildren my mother does not know to give bath to a baby. We always had a maid to do that. My son sent me a movie of him bathing his son.

Today's youngsters are very very accomplished I should say. My daughter-in-law is managing the baby and home all alone and has no complaints. My son is able to manage his busy schedule at workplace and come home and take care of the new born baby and other requirements and also keeps us informed of all the happenings there on a day to day basis.

We all wish them a healthy and happy and long life.

Patti at last

It gives me tremendous joy to announce the birth of our first adorable and perfect grandchild (a grandson) on 30th October 2010, finally, I am a real Patti.

May he be blessed with good health, long life and every thing good in life.