Onam Sadya, 2010

(Cross-posted at http://spampylandia.blogspot.com/)

Happy Onam!  Onam is a holiday in Kerala - traditionally celebrated by Keralites of every faith and denomination, but only in Kerala or amongst those Keralites scattered around the world. Of the multitudinous holidays on the Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Buddhist calendars of India, Onam is a celebration pertaining to the "all of the above" of Kerala; but of Kerala alone.

Being a "person of Indian origin" by marriage and wife of a Malayalee (Keralite) by choice, each passing year I've become slightly more aware of Onam's passing. I try to make an effort to celebrate, if even just the tiniest effort.

The most authentic Onam we've had was before we were married, up in Detroit; a Malayalee couple we knew invited us to a family celebration complete with set-saris, lungis, and Surya network on the TV.  We ate a colorful array of vegetarian curries on real banana leaves.  Sebastian arrived late with some other friends direct from a cricket match, looking very sweaty and especially Mallu :-) 

Since then, it's always somewhere between completely forgetting and that.  Usually much towards forgetting.

Last year? If memory serves me, I think I emailed some cousins and asked for recipes which I did not in fact cook, and took pictures of my daughter in a traditional dress that did not fit.

This year? Ohhhhh... it's late, but I'm making the sadya.

A sadya is a vegetarian feast. Perhaps even just a feast... I don't know. But perhaps because of the Hindu origins of this festival, Onam food is traditionally vegetarian. And served on a banana leaf.

Alas, we'll be eating it on plates. Baby steps, chechi. Baby steps.

Does Sebastian know much about Onam? I'm sure he does, but I haven't bothered to ask. Having never been a native Keralite other than during summer vacations, I think he probably missed the Onam boat growing up. (which is "punny", because one characteristic of Onam is the snake boat races) I do know for a fact that he's not a fan of the food. Perhaps it's the whole vegetarian aspect :-)

So this year, our Onam sadya will include the following:

Mixed Vegetable Curry Avial
Ripe Mango Curry Pazha Manga Karri
Cabbage with Crushed Coconut Thoran
Mummy's Egg Curry
Basmati Rice
Lace-rimmed Rice Flour Pancakes Appam (provided we get around to making it tomorrow morning!)

I've never done a whole "hey look what I'm cooking" sort of blog, so today, beginning at the ripe hour of 10pm, I thought I'd give it a try. My sidekicks in this endeavor are both my trusty Canon camera and a bottle of 2009 Starborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand that I bought purely on it's bottle-y beauty and affordability. (God bless you, seven buck chuck!) Both have been trusty companions all night long, and the wine may survive to see the sunrise... maybe :-)

So. Egg curry and thoran are old hat for me, both being previous winners of the Sebastian George "Oh My God It's Better Than My Mom's" Award. This manga thing sounded delicious, but was uncharted territory, both in eating and preparation. Once I skinned four ripe mangos and settled them into a big pot of coconut milk, I realized that this particular dish was probably destined for failure. We'll see tomorrow when I, hopefully, pull the giant non-Indian mangos (the size alone made the recipe unrealistic) out and cut them away from their massive seeds and into digestible pieces, that this will become a dish worthy of a banana leaf after all.

Now avial... this is a better story. With photo documentation.

Avial is a vegetarian dish that pertains to especially Hindus of all southern India. It's preparation is laborious because of the vegetables that require chopping... beans, carrots, potatoes, bananas/plantains, yams, and then crazy local vegetables that I can neither remember, pronounce or procure when back in the midwest.

I say Hindus especially, because it's a Hindu friend who justified the purchase of a $200 chefs knife because, "it's a pain in the ass to make all of our food, especially avial."

My variety tonight, includes carrots, beans, potatoes, yams and a plantain...

Ye olde avial vegetables

Then, like Kermit the Frog used to sing... "You put the lime in de coconut, and drank 'em both up."  Actually not like that at all.  You put all the veggies into a big ol' skillet of water, which of course I had measured incorrectly due to the odd and irritating variance between the size of Indian and American cups.

*side note:  An Indian cup is approximately 150ml, whereas the American measure of a cup is upwards of some 240ml.  When we go to India, "a cup of coffee" is often served in the same variety of paper cups that your dentist gives you when you have to swish mouthwash - or in homes, in what seems like it's actually a child's tea set cups.   My clever and accommodating mother-in-law has a stash of three Wal-Mart variety mugs that she calls her "American coffee mugs" and brings them out on occasions where us super-sized folks, including Sebastian, are around.  God bless that thoughtful woman!

So in go the vegetables to a pot filled with 7 cups of water... which I quickly realize is way too much.  Nevertheless, let's cook 'em.

Now while those cook to an al dente sort of doneness, make a thick mixture of fresh ground coconut, onions (preferably shallots, which I cannot afford), green chilis, mustard seeds, ground cumin, salt, and... well, maybe some other things, I don't necessarily remember. (Oh, seven buck chuck... I'm still feeling your effects two days later!) 




Ah! TURMERIC. That's what else. See the lovely yellow color? That stuff will turn your fingers yellow, but it'll give your insides the lovely pink of health. (har har har) Anyway the mixture wasn't the right consistency, so I added some off the mismeasured water from the vegetable pan, resulting in this:



Yaaaaay! Much better. Now somewhere along the way, throw in a handful of green, unripe mango into the vegetables and then sit back and enjoy your wine for a spell. Then mix the coconut grind in with the vegetables.


At this point, I continued to fret over the watery-ness of the avial. The wine told me I should order a pizza, but common sense said to just remove some of the water. So I used a tea strainer to pour water out while keeping coconut in.

Mucho mejor, amigos!!

So... your cooked vegetables are cooling, they've got their ground coconut mixture gently mixed in (as not to break up the vegetables), and now you toss in some thick plain yogurt.  Finally, and this is one of those exotic touches that make Indian cooking exciting and rewarding, heat coconut oil in a tiny frying pan on high, throw in some mustard seeds, and when they splutter, drop in a handful of curry leaves.  Continue to fry them until crisp and arromatic, and then ceremoniously dump the entire contents of tiny frying pan into the avial. The satisfying crackle of hot oil hitting cool yogurt and vegetables makes me think I should have taken chemistry in high school after all.

The finished result looks something like this. 

Yes, the finished product was perhaps a little on the juicy side of traditional, but it still tasted straight out of Kanjirappally. Here it is (perhaps yet unstrained?), paired with the bottle of wine that helped me through my night of cooking that ended at 3am.  Not sure whether it was the completion hour or the wine, but something made me feel pretty lousy for the majority of the next day.

And other completed sadya components...

Cabbage thoran

Mummy's Egg Curry - although it may look like vomit to the untrained eye, it tastes like heaven 

Cookbook by the cousin of a friend who is from the same town as Sebastian's family.  Despite the name, she's no relation.  But her book is very helpful.

Now the end of this story is that we haven't yet made any appams, and most of this food has gone into the freezer because our Onam sadya guests had to cancel at the last minute. Last year's Onam dress hangs on a hook but will probably fit whenever we get around to officially celebrating.

***********************
update: 
I just found the half completed mango curry downstairs in the basement fridge.  It is not pretty.  5 mangos wasted.  And it's National Hunger Awareness month. 

Sunnovabitch.

BUT, we did finally get a few pictures of the little one in her Onam dress...

 Guess we can start planning now for Onam 2011!

How we pass the days...

How do we spend our time over here? In lots of ways!

Duller moments include activities such as laying flat on the bed, positioning onself under the ceiling fan in a way that, should the ceiling fan fall, won't result in an amputated head/arm/leg. This is an idle but relevant thought because the ceiling fan blades here are metal. This is probably to prevent termites, ants, mold, humidity and other enemies of all things tangible from eating them away and them spinning off into a less gory version of my idle day dream.

There's reading: Saby's already, as of a few days back, gone through an entire year's worth of India Today (or The Week? I can't remember) weekly magazines, plus the 2004 first quarter worth of Reader's Digests (from which he's culled interesting information about our allergies). He's also finished an IQ quiz book, the dirty scenes from The Godfather, and an interesting tome called Hitler's War Directives, 1939-1945.

There's sleep. First nap comes as early as 10am, but sometimes we wait until after lunch. You need to siesta the hot part of the day away. We're getting weird dreams here. I saw a sea lion slide down the driveway to the little road, then dreamed I flew one morning to Paris and back without anyone knowing. Strangely enough, when I told Saby (in my dream) I had already begun to think that it had only been a dream (again - in my dream!) and so we sat and checked my passport and there were all the stamps! Seems I had also gone to Barcelona. Saby dreamed a Korean man was trying to steal Elena, and he couldn't get back to sleep after that because he kept checking to make sure she was there in her crib.

There's eating. Note to self: SIT WITH MUMMY AND GET RECIPES!!!!

There's America's Funniest Home Videos, affectionately known as AFV. At 5:50 pm it's neither 5:50 nor 17:50 - it's "ten minutes to AFV!"

There's Mummy watering her plants. There's something very graceful and romantic in the way she fills a bucket at the spigot and carries it around, doling out splashes of water to her trees, bushes, and flowers. It's very much how a movie would picturize the pretty farm hand feeding her prized chickens, a sort of routine familiarity with a little love mixed in. She does this two times a day (calling it her daily exercise) and the 2nd time around is more leisurely, perhaps because she's not racing to beat the midday heat that begins around 10:30am. Last time we were here, she showed me all the different plants and flowers - some brought from Bangalore, or California, or other places from relatives and friends; she had said something along the lines (I don't remember exactly) of being a crazy retired lady who talks to her plants. This time around she's either not talking to them as much, or is more at peace with the whole process and didn't feel the need to bring it up.

There's nature watching. Mummy and Daddy have been in this house for almost 10 years now, and they know the coming and goings of all the local wildlife. The crow family operates from our three family houses (ours, Appapan's, Chackochen Uncle's) and flies back and forth looking to see who's most recently dumped out some food. Two cranes look for worms in the rubber trees just beyond the driveway, but during a brief period where the flower bed was a little fish pond, they would swoop down and eat all of Mummy's fish pets. I myself like to look out for a lack of wildlife (namely bugs, but also bats or God forbid, a random snake.) But I like to show the different living things to Elena. She learned, in just one meeting, that the house lizard is called puhley in Malayalam, and now whenever we hear his call she yells back, "Puhley, puhley! Va, VAAA!" (come, come!)

I showed her a gaggle of ants that were gathered around a lump of something or other on the veranda, and said, "Look Elena! These are ANTS. ANTS."
Very seriously she looked where I was pointing and repeated, "anch. Aaaaanch."
I continued. "The ants are eating something. Look at them! They're eating their lunch." Already on all fours towering over the ant feeding frenzy, she leans in super close to the little pile, ponders a second, and then says, "MMMMMmmmmmm!" with great gusto, as if they were sharing their treat with her. Then an octave higher: MMMMMMMMMMMMMM! Anch!!!

Panthiruvelil Medical Shop

Saby, a day or two after we arrived in Kerala, went with his dad to get some allergy meds from the local pharmacy, which happens to be run by some distant family member and thus carries the family name. I ask my dear husband for, simply, some vitamins. "What kind?" he asks, to which I reply, "I dunno... women's? Would they have that here?" He refuses, saying he's already been made fun of by "that medical shop fellow" for how much he sweats, so there's just no way that he's going to go now and also ask (while still sweating) for a WOMEN'S vitamin.

With my basic requirements in hand, he heads off, returning some 40 minutes later with an old fashioned looking, dark brown glass bottle with a slightly sun-faded yellow label declaring "Devitamixotin" - or something like that. It looks like something you'd find in your great aunt's medicine cabinet. Or in an abandoned house.

Saby relates the story. "I asked for vitamins and he handed me this. 'Illa, I said, in Malayalam and then English, "do you have one that is not opened?" (with me noticing only now the broken metal seal on it's cap, like the old fashioned Faygo bottles). Saby continues, "That medical shop fellow takes the bottle, opens it, dumps all the vitamin capsules out on the counter and quickly counts them. "Aday, twen-ty." Scoops them back into the bottle and hands it back to me. Says, in Malayalam, "see... no need for new one. They're all there!"

Catching up, still...

Let's pretend it's not Feb 20th and our trip is almost finished. Let's pretend we're back in Washington DC, or perhaps somewhere up in the air between there and Dubai...

So now, we sit - in a slightly "shabby chic" (aka old) cabin 3x the width of our previous plane. Elena is snuggled in her still-fitting, rear-facing infant car seat between us, and we have probably a full 3 feet before we hit the next row of seats. It's incredible. I don't mind that it's well past it's heyday (as long as some faulty wiring doesn't result in one of those random gas tank explosions, arrggh!) because it seems like we're flying in our own living room.

But... there's snow. Lots of snow, sort of a hard, crappy wintery mix, and I can see the plane next to us with a pattern melted (de-iced?) into the snow accumulation on it's body that looks like the shoveled yard lines of a snowy football field. After a looooong trek through Dulles airport (long = up 6+ elevators, past the largest indoor escalator ever, through freakishly clean and vacant Matrix/sanitarium-esque hallways) we arrived at our gate that has all the charm and hygiene of a Mexican bus station. Saby - always the thinker - ponders whether we, with our salvaged business class status, can instead use the first class lounge. Hello, free cheese and crackers! Goodbye, Kabul! We walk into the illustrious "Red Lounge" though, as is our luck, to the announcement that the bar is closed. Argh. But we do have our COSI coffees and snag those fabled crackers, as well as a few pieces of snazzy cheese. I head over to put the Bubbloo into a new diaper and her PJs just in time to hear "the Red Lounge will be closing in three minutes." WELL! I figure we're already there in the loo - they can't very well pull us out of there, can they? So I strip Bubbloo down to nothing and stand her in th esink for a nice washing, thinking I'm very clever. And deviant. But really I'm a fool, because the towel is packed away in our checked luggage. Nonetheless, with a polished and paper-toweled dry Bubbloo we strut back out into Zacateca's waiting room. We stood there amongst the very varied crowd brushing the baby's teeth lotioning her up, etc.

Now... back on board the plane, I keep imagining we're moving, bit by bit, bump by bump because we've sat here for so long with no news from either Captain or crew, to the point where even the flight attendants are looking out windows and drawing random conclusions from what's happening outside. Some mention of freight. Sunnofa... we're like an hour late for our departure, sitting here at the gate! Which means we're arriving 15 minutes after our Dubai connection should be boarding. Uh ohhhhh. But now... we're off! Well, rather, we're off to be de-iced. Deicing is a scary concept. Snow falls because it is ice. Planes fly because they're NOT ice, or they can fly if they're DE-iced... which would mean that iced planes fall. Totally unrelated, I realize that the plane's layout is exactly that of Oceanic Flight 815 on Lost.

as written on the plane...

Lots to tell but no creativity, and a promise to myself that I'd actually handwrite things in a journal, so here's something dating back from the beginning of the (so far alternately interesting, exhausting, fabulous and aggravating) journey.

Little bubbloo's snoozing, Saby's reaching for the headphones, and we're just waiting for some additional cargo to be loaded (per the pilot's announcement) - AND IT'S OFF TO DUBAI! Looking around at our surroundings makes me want to WEEP with joyful bliss. After much, much MUCH back and forth, we were finally able to use upgrades gifted to use from a friend of Saby's. I feel like I'm sitting in my living room - especially after the litle tin can we arrived in from Dayton. I have a very strong inclination to tell Saby that we should just never buy a house and slum it domestically for the rest of our adult lives so that we can take business class everytime we fly. We've had a fun evening. Departing the house was slightly stressful, with a few hiccups but overall SUCCESS! Then, with our eyes glowing with hope (not the Obama kind), we arrive at the Biz class check in counter cluching our printed itinerary and a printout of Kiran Kumar G Bangalore's upgrade certificates. Here's the back story - we had a mean United call center lady mark our account with the dismal message of "PSGR Very Clearly NOTIFIED UPGRD IN ERRROR" Oh hell. But this was after a very NICE United call center lady told me in the sweetest voice... "Oh ma'am, as of yesterday (me: "no SHIT, you're kidding. YESTERDAY?!?") Yes Ma'am as of Jan 14th all of United's classes of service are upgradable." So hopes were raised, dashed, raised again, and then fast forward to us with a trolley fill of luggage stacked as high as my head being told that "you need to call your friend and get him to call United Reservations because his upgrades have put a hold on your account, they're coming up as expired, and we cannot even check you in in economy until this is straightened out. You will miss your flight." OOOOOH SHIT!!! Saby finds he doesn't have this KKGB's phone number in his new phone and is furiously facebooking and calling anyone who might, because without a little assistance we can't even leave Dayton! So I leave the scene of the potential crime (should Saby go apesh*t and ballistic on someone, he's on his own). I strap my trusty child into her pink puppy "buddy" harness (isn't anything slightly unpleasant marketed as a "buddy"?) and take her for a walk like she's a jumpy german shorthair. Ya! We run. Befriend the TSA staff. The USO lady. A gaggle of Girl Scouts (mmmm, cookies). Every single patron of the Boston Stoker coffee shop that's been quite upgraded since our last airport visit. Back to the desk. Chat with the agent about her 13 month old with RSV and his inability to get anything beyond a ragged, chest sucking breath into his sicky lungs, poor kid. Saby is beginning to breathe in a similar manner. I call my sis, good Catholic that she is, and ask her to pray for us (also wanting to tell somebody the "gossip" of our dilemma). Who to pray to? St. Christopher and St. Jude. St. Jude because I'm fully aware of the website stating that class T fares in regions 2 and others are indeed non-upgradable using systemwide upgrades. Oh, how I knew it was all a lost cause, slave that I am to corporate regulations) But as I go to change a diaper and return, the universe shifts.

WE'RE OFF.

I thank the girls who had been fighting our cause with us and for us, getting one's name: Santina. She's got a birthday coming up, on February 29th... she said she's going to be 5 years old :-) Somewhere between security (where we lingered extra long since Mr. George forgot to put his toiletries in plastic bags, naughty boy! His deodorant was x-rayed THRICE) and the gate, Saby whispers to me very quietly... almost conspiratorily, "we got it." What? Business class. To Dubai.

Oh man, my sis is good at praying :-)

Caroline in Kerala ver. 2.0

We depart for our second India trip on February 2nd. I suppose when you only go somewhere ever 3 years or so, every trip can be monumental to some degree. While the last trip was MY first trip and Saby's return after many years, this trip will be our debut as a family and Elena's first visit to "God's Own Country."

Also monumental is that this time around, we will be landing in Bangalore for the long-awaited wedding of our dear buddy, Jesse Benny! He's found a lovely gal aptly named "Blanche" (which is what Jesspill did at the thought of meeting more prospective brides, perhaps?) and they will be married at the Holy Ghost Church in Richard's Town, Bangalore the afternoon of February 6th. Just in time for Valentines day, I say!



Meanwhile preparations here at home involve a complicated scheme of trying to pack in an organized manner, mostly at a height of about 3 feet so that Elena cannot reach up and undo my handwork. We had to get a folding table from a friend (thanks Rachel!) to help this process along. Much stress has been placed on things like figuring out how to get a car seat to India, as well as unescapable sleeping arrangements. I've got lists floating all over the house: things to buy, things bought, things packed, things to avoid, shots to get, food to pack, gifts to buy... so far I think we're at least 50% packed and about 40% mentally prepared... THIS will be an interesting week at the George house.

Stay tuned!

Me and the Kerala babies...

After my cousin Babi's wedding on my 2nd to last day in India, we were sitting on the patio outside the Parish Hall waiting for the reception to begin. In the small space between the church and hall was snuggled a English-Malayalam medium nursery school. I had noticed kids there, and asked Mummy if I could go to visit... but she warned me that if I left her side I'd get lost in the crowd of 1500 at the reception, and most importantly, not get a place to sit for lunch. It was a risk I happily accepted, and I headed down the yard to the school's window.

A few children noticed and came to the window of their classroom, where they appeared to be just coming back from lunch. I was staying hello and shaking hands though the window while they called "Aunty, Aunty!!" at me; but one saucy fellow flashed a million dollar grin and yelled, "Hi Chechi!" (big sister)

A few spilled out onto the porch... and the closer I got, the more came.

Suddenly I was surrounded. A teacher and a sister (nun) came out to supervise. Communication was minimal but not really necessary, as I was ready to pack them all into my suitcases after they performed a heartbreakingly sweet rendition of "Are You Sleeping", complete with hand motions. I clicked a few photos, and then thought it would be nice to be in a photo with them myself. Passing the camera off to the sister and seeming school head on the porch, I asked if they could "snap a photo" and posed, not realizing that all the kiddies were still staring and chattering away in my direction. How to get them to face the camera? After a few futile attempts at pointing forward and "photo, photo!" from me, they still didn't get the concept. Realizing they're just little kids and that I had the Malayalam vocabulary of an even smaller one, I had an idea on how we'd communicate. Using one of the very very very VERY few Malayalam words I knew, I threw my hand up in the air and triumphantly shouted, "kai!" The sister smiled with understanding, and one by one, I saw little hands fly into the air. "Kai in the sky!" I shouted again, making a game of it, and then waved...




Then thought I'd try showing the kids their photos on the digicam's display screen... but suddenly 35 little children were hopping up and down shouting "endhu, Aunty, endhu?" (what is it?) I just couldn't keep up :-)

Perhaps my presence was missed at the reception by the photography crew (doubtful as guest number 143 of 1500); more likely, someone came out to smoke and noticed me surrounded by children just a few yard away... but either way, this shot was caught from the steps of the Parish Hall.