Briha

I am back from my Dig Vijayam. 19th to 28th September during my pooja holidays I was at Pune. As I got ready for the day, my periyamma would ask-  Innikki enga digvijayam ? 😊 I was adamant, on traveling all  alone this trip, yet self-doubt began to gnaw away my confidence at times.  Nevertheless I got my tickets and set out with very minimum planning. Thanks to whatsapp, I promised to keep my family and  friends periodically informed about my safety with a lot of pictures for evidence. With Vatsan, away for the past 3 months, I have been enjoying my solitude greatly and wanted to extend it to a back pack pilgrimage tour. So I am here now to share my wonderful experience of traveling alone. Pillayar being my ishta deivam, I started my pilgrimage tour with siddhi vinayak of Mumbai. On the express highway  after a beautiful 2 hours drive through the ghats, I reached Chembur from Pune, to spend a day and a half with my sister and her daughter. Siddhi vinay...

My mother lost her mother when she was a baby of 27 days, her aunt brought her up like her own. She was fed breast milk by a good Samaritan for some time,  she was given eggs to consume because she was weak. In 1947,  in a very conservative Brahmin family all these were definitely something beyond ones imagination and capacity. She grew up in Ariyalur, a small town near Trichy. Her athai and athimber (paternal aunt and uncle) loved her. They had no children of their own. My mother used to tell me she was held on her aunt's hip and taken around for many years, even after she learnt to walk and run. As she grew older, she was pampered more. After lunch when she would clean the floor,  her long plait would be held by her uncle so that, the plait did not touch the ground. As years rolled the family shifted to Trichy. Suddenly her uncle passed away. Her biological father started visit ing her very often. He took good care of her education  and other needs. Such a co...

A research was performed on fermented rice... our good old pazhayadu or pazhaya soru. It was found that when rice is soaked in water for 12 hours, the bacteria generated, creates lactic acid.  It doubles the potassium and iron in the soaked rice water. A lot of health benefits mentioned in google. Any one who has not tasted  pazhayadu or pazhaya soru your culinary life  is a sad failure.😊 Now the recipe - just take  leftover rice and just soak it in water and just keep it just like that for a few hours or overnight.  As the rice gets fermented, its ready to be eaten with yogurt salt and vadu manga or any other  pickle.My father used to give us this in our hands for all 4 of us. My mom used to join us.Rare to see father's doing the serving - feeding. We never used  plates while eating pazhayadu instead we sat in a circle and took our turns to get a handfull of rice and hog with vathakuzhambu..  ‎Kaila vangi kuzhichundu vatha kuzhambu ooth...

I am a typical mylapore mami when it comes to cooking for my family. Paruppu usuli, keera masiyal, murungakka poricha kootu......🙃 but personally, I love to eat punjabi roti shoti , panneer vanneer , laddoo shaddoo kind of food. My gusto increases when I even think of  the way they say "khavo khavo". My father had a lot of Delhi settled Punjabi friends. We used to love going to their places. It would start with namasthy ji namasthy ji and then glass tumbler paani, chai and papad...and go on and go on with gulab jamun, laddoo, some more exotic snacks, roti , dhal,  sabji and lassi. In spite of all this we would get back home and have the - oru va thayir sadam.  A videshi dish is not our kind, but wanted to try this today. Gazpacho is a cold Spanish soup made from tomatoes, peppers, and other salad vegetables. Learnt to make it from a workshop I attended yesterday.  Tried it with water melon as added fruit. Drizzled it with basil in hot olive oil. 😊😊 Waited ...

TN to TN "kokrokooo kokrokooo" The alarm blares. Its 6 am. I call my husband's name... Vatsappaaaa!!!!!! wake up. Then I quickly realise, I am in Bhutan and I am sharing the room and the bed with Seetha miss, my colleague and not with vatsappa my husband. That makes me give out a villainous smile. I assess my unfamiliar surroundings, the barking of stray dogs the decorative wooden carvings on the hotel room the sound of the river flowing just outside our room,  the extension cord -look alike- bed warmer that kept us warm through out the night, and the faint lemon grass room spray that the keera clad bhutanese housekeeper girls had sprayed yesterday.  I wake up and request seetha to allow me to the wash room first, unlike the other days when I prefer to sleep longer and cajole her to take bath first. Today is a special day. 12 of us teachers are treking to the Tiger's nest. This has been our dream  project, ever since we completed our school project on dw...

This is a favorite at home. We three as a family don't agree on menus. We adjust. I like spicy food, Vatsan prefers to eat healthy. Daughter loves to eat the Banglorian kind with jaggery in sambar and rasam. So this meal sort of fulfills all our liking. Can be called the peace menu. 😊 Since the curry is called Thai curry, vatsan has named the jeera   rice as Thandai pulav. Thai and Thandai in Tamil mean mother and father respectively.