Well, well. What a surprise it is to find myself sitting at my laptop with this page open, typing my first post in months! Honestly, I didn't think I could do it, not after this long. Yet, as I wearily clicked open my blog it greeted me with the welcoming warmth that one can expect from a bowl of hot, creamy, soup and a thick slice of hearty bread. It was like coming home after a stint in a wordless, unimaginative, and uncreative bubble. I'll refrain from going into drab details about where I was and why - I think I owe my blog that. Let's just say I didn't have the time, inspiration, or brain cells, to form sentences that made sense to a person older than my 3 year old.
It's my favorite time of year again - Ramadan, and for me, it's just as much about the food as it is about the worship. Although the latter is the more important of the two, especially during this month, I believe one's religious endeavors are personal and hardly perfect, so I'll refrain from discussing that too, today. This post will be completely cibarious, and will hopefully inspire an adventure or two in a kitchen across the world from mine. My, what ambitions I have for my blog. *shakes head* Anyway... on with the literature!
Even though we sit together as a family for most of our meals during the rest of the year, the "aftari" table has an uncanny gravity to it. We keep our food simple now, though once upon a time it was very extravagant. I remember standing at the kitchen door as a child, watching my mom, the incarnate spirit of a japanese origami specialist, folding samosas and spring rolls with amazing fluidity. Everything we had was made from scratch, including elaborate mini fruit tartlets and even the "chaat" masala.
The carnal allure of the aftari table has long been transformed into a spiritual one but that doesn't mean I don't get excited about eating come sunset. Sure, the food's gotten severely rusticated now, but I still get the occasional motivation to make something special for us to open our fasts with. My most recent venture - pakoras - has opened up a whole new world of tastebuds! It's been such a fantastic journey, I could not bear to keep it to myself! Before I delve deeper into this topic, I want to clarify something. I'm a baker. Pakoras are fried. My point is that I'm not a "pakora expert", and I will certainly never proclaim to be one in the future. I prefer the term "pakora enthusiast", because boy do they make me enthusiastic!
A couple years ago my tastebuds had an incident that turned my world upside down. Well, it's really nothing as dramatic as I make it sound, but for me, it was colossal. I always believed anything with a significant water content would elicit the dreaded splattering and spurting of oil when fried, and so I never expected to find any such ingredients in a pakora. We always did the basic pakora - gram flour, seasoning, onions, green coriander, and green chillies. I was taken aback when I found little red squares of tomato in a pakora I had at a friend's place one day. Now, even though I enjoyed those pakoras, I wasn't sure I wanted to experiment just yet. Also, I think having a baby stuck to your hip automatically gives you a free pass when it comes to frying duty. I had been putting off the tomato experiment for so long that I had almost forgotten about it - until now.
Feeling equal parts cautious and brash, I went one step further and not only added tomatoes, but I stole some julienned green peppers from my mother (who was chopping away unknowingly) and threw those into the basic mix. What joy! Not only did the pakoras behave themselves in my wok, they fried to a golden crisp, with slightly softened tomato bits waiting inside like landmines of flavor! Et alors, that was that. Since then, I've added something new every day to my pakoras, and I'm never going back to the basics, my friends. In our home, pakoras have transformed into a colorful punch of veggies - eggplant, tomatoes, carrots, green peppers, and tomorrow, possibly shredded cabbage! The best part was that I finally got my daughter to eat just ONE of these chunky, soft, crispy, juicy, paradoxical little things and my work for the day was done.
So I urge anyone reading this to be a little adventurous today, and set aside all your inhibitions about veggies being the antithesis of good-tasting food. You might be just as pleasantly surprised as I was, and perhaps even a veggie pakora convert! The possibilities of ingredients you can add are endless... unless your imagination spans about as far as the screen in front of you, in which case, good luck with life pal.
Oh, and for the person who thought I shouldn't "try to play God and revive the dead [blog]", I'm no Hubris, but I am in the business of medicine and faith, and miracles do happen :P
It's my favorite time of year again - Ramadan, and for me, it's just as much about the food as it is about the worship. Although the latter is the more important of the two, especially during this month, I believe one's religious endeavors are personal and hardly perfect, so I'll refrain from discussing that too, today. This post will be completely cibarious, and will hopefully inspire an adventure or two in a kitchen across the world from mine. My, what ambitions I have for my blog. *shakes head* Anyway... on with the literature!
Even though we sit together as a family for most of our meals during the rest of the year, the "aftari" table has an uncanny gravity to it. We keep our food simple now, though once upon a time it was very extravagant. I remember standing at the kitchen door as a child, watching my mom, the incarnate spirit of a japanese origami specialist, folding samosas and spring rolls with amazing fluidity. Everything we had was made from scratch, including elaborate mini fruit tartlets and even the "chaat" masala.
The carnal allure of the aftari table has long been transformed into a spiritual one but that doesn't mean I don't get excited about eating come sunset. Sure, the food's gotten severely rusticated now, but I still get the occasional motivation to make something special for us to open our fasts with. My most recent venture - pakoras - has opened up a whole new world of tastebuds! It's been such a fantastic journey, I could not bear to keep it to myself! Before I delve deeper into this topic, I want to clarify something. I'm a baker. Pakoras are fried. My point is that I'm not a "pakora expert", and I will certainly never proclaim to be one in the future. I prefer the term "pakora enthusiast", because boy do they make me enthusiastic!
A couple years ago my tastebuds had an incident that turned my world upside down. Well, it's really nothing as dramatic as I make it sound, but for me, it was colossal. I always believed anything with a significant water content would elicit the dreaded splattering and spurting of oil when fried, and so I never expected to find any such ingredients in a pakora. We always did the basic pakora - gram flour, seasoning, onions, green coriander, and green chillies. I was taken aback when I found little red squares of tomato in a pakora I had at a friend's place one day. Now, even though I enjoyed those pakoras, I wasn't sure I wanted to experiment just yet. Also, I think having a baby stuck to your hip automatically gives you a free pass when it comes to frying duty. I had been putting off the tomato experiment for so long that I had almost forgotten about it - until now.
Feeling equal parts cautious and brash, I went one step further and not only added tomatoes, but I stole some julienned green peppers from my mother (who was chopping away unknowingly) and threw those into the basic mix. What joy! Not only did the pakoras behave themselves in my wok, they fried to a golden crisp, with slightly softened tomato bits waiting inside like landmines of flavor! Et alors, that was that. Since then, I've added something new every day to my pakoras, and I'm never going back to the basics, my friends. In our home, pakoras have transformed into a colorful punch of veggies - eggplant, tomatoes, carrots, green peppers, and tomorrow, possibly shredded cabbage! The best part was that I finally got my daughter to eat just ONE of these chunky, soft, crispy, juicy, paradoxical little things and my work for the day was done.
So I urge anyone reading this to be a little adventurous today, and set aside all your inhibitions about veggies being the antithesis of good-tasting food. You might be just as pleasantly surprised as I was, and perhaps even a veggie pakora convert! The possibilities of ingredients you can add are endless... unless your imagination spans about as far as the screen in front of you, in which case, good luck with life pal.
Oh, and for the person who thought I shouldn't "try to play God and revive the dead [blog]", I'm no Hubris, but I am in the business of medicine and faith, and miracles do happen :P
