andamu

[ Eden ]
Nancy speaks of "Bakes."

"It consisted primarily of boiled vegetables in white sauce, with a dusting of grated cheese on top, the whole thing put in the oven for the cheese to brown. it was the westernised housewife�s gesture to western food."

Which reminded me of the many times I encountered the dish in restaurants across Chennai, and across the country. There was only one place where the experience was enjoyable...
::
In Besant Nagar, up narrow stairs, (somewhere on the street something says - or said - Panama?) there is a little restaurant called Eden.
Even though we always visited at night, I have the impression that it had an airy feel. I do recall large framed cross stitched pictures of vegetables around the wall, one at each table.
It is a vegetarian "western" restaurant, specializing in various types of bakes, some using "English" vegetables. (Speaking of which, I remember finding one greengrocer who carried some courgettes/baby marrows/zucchini and celery along with a few other odds and ends close to Pondy Bazaar and Nalli's.)
There were other items on the menu as well, but right now I can't recall them, crowded out by too many memories of the various bakes I had come across.
Beyond Spencer's Plaza, further north on Anna Salai, is Mathura (which I think is part of the Woodlands restaurants.) In the Tarapore building, mpo confirms. They had an interesting bake as well, along with the "Cream of Vegetable soup," the standard bland white concoction with a few peas, diced carrots and corn(?) floating in it, and the ubiquitous Cream of Tomato soup.
I don't know whether the latter still counts as "western," since just about every place in Chennai that offers a North Indian thali starts you off with this "tamater ka shorba," never mind that it came from the Maggi packet moments before.
And on the topic of soups, I remember how we giggled when in the more up market mughlai restaurants like the formal one in GRT Grand Days, the menu offered Sambar and Rasam under the Soups heading.
::
Nancy replies with the name of the green grocer - Kennedy Vegetable Stall in Panagal Park, and the news that English vegies are now more freely available. This sets me off on another meandering.
::
That's the place!
After a weekly trip there I'd slice the zucchini thinly, saute it with onion and then use milk and maggi mushroom soup to make it into a creamy sauce. Serve it with whatever pasta I could scrounge at that stage in Food World (NOT the Ramen noodle kind) and amaze the people at work with the "western" tastes. (Oh, did I mention adding the obligatory karam?)
We never bought an oven, but we selected the stove with the "grill" between the two burners. It had a little glass window and a doll-size tray that would fit two slices of bread - if they're really cozy. Since the heat came from the top it would broil the dish - got some nice (but minute) gratins. Unfortunately that was the first part of the stove that broke - the two gas burners are still working.
::
These past few days since I have found Nancy's blog has been an amazing walk down memory lane for me. I am getting so homesick for India that I can cry. It has been three years since I have been there, and I am finding that I miss it more and more every day, and yet I have spent only a couple of years there. By contrast it is only some of the people that I miss of the country I was born and raised. India has a way of settling very firmly in one's heart.

[ Parry's Corner ]
In an archived post, Nancy mentioned Parry's Corner. What an intriguing mix Chennai/Madras is of the exotic and mundane, speckled through with English (British) place names and buildings.
::
Parry's Corner. Hmm, we lived in Adyar and seldom ventured there, except for this one place - some Gujarat Bhavan. Kind of daylight basement level entry, one room off to the side with long narrow wooden benches along a narrow table, and then the counter in the room in the far back corner. We have to weave our way through the scooters and motorcycles parked under the building behind the ornamental bars to get to it.
We bring our tiffin carrier along, and they fill it: usually some channa masala (whole chickpeas in a thick spicy gravy), a liquidy aloo preparation (potatoes with tomatoes and a surprising bite of chilli), some dhal (lentils, usually urad and mostly whole, not split), and a khadi - all of course with some measure of jaggery. Ten rotis if you order for two, more at a surcharge. One pint container of wonderful, must-have-gone-to-heaven srikhand, the gentle golden color of the real saffron so different from the artificial orange of the store-bought variety, and then my absolute favorite. From the old blue refrigerator outside the door (godrej?) a 1.5 litre PET bottle filled with the smoothest mango pulp. It would last for a week in the freezer section ofour red godrej, so thick and rich you could have even less of it at a time than the srikhand.
::
Now mpo points out (and Nancy confirms in her reply to my comment) that this is not strictly speaking in Parry's Corner, but more generally in Georgetown, about a quarter of a mile away.
Still, not bad for a faulty memory. I think the only other thing that really took us that far north was when we had to go and see an advocate to prepare all my papers to extend my residence permit.
::
Nancy, in a Gujarati household, casually mentions that "Shrikhand is very easy to make at home." My opinion? All things are relative. For me in a Telugu household, it is not that easy. First there is the fact that mpo dislikes sweet stuff (with the exception of his coffee and tea of course!) Perhaps I should rephrase: It is not difficult to make srikhand at home. It is difficult to make good srikhand at home. I've made srikhand, a few times in fact. The results are so-so - it looks like srikhand, it mostly tastes like srikhand, but pretty blah srikhand. Probably better than the Amul pseudo-srikhand sold in tubs in grocery stores, but not much. Which is why it is always wise to have either a good Gujarati restaurant nearby, or some really good Gujarati friends - preferrably both!

The streets are almost deserted on Mohammed Ali Road; deserted by usual standards, that is. It is a Sunday morning, and Nini had flown in to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in the wee hours of the morning. It is her first time in India - her first time outside of South Africa in fact. It also happens to be my first time in an Indian city without my precious one by my side. :: Breakfast had not gone that well. I had let her sleep in a bit, but knowing the need for sunshine to counteract jet lag (even with such slight a time difference) I chased her up around 10 o'clock. Having checked out the menu the day before when I flew up from Chennai (Madras), I knew there weren't much that she would recognize as breakfast food, so I tried to remain fairly innocuous. I ordered among other things aloo chat. "Cold spicy potatoes?!! For breakfast?!" It turns out not to have been the best choice after all. :: We venture out (having made sure that I have a card with the hotel's name and address in both English and Marathi on me - my smattering of Telugu and five words of Tamil is unlikely to help me here). We wander down Mohammed Ali Road, astonished whenever we lift our eyes above street level at the tall buildings with intricate wrought-iron embellishments, painted various shades of ice cream colors, but now definitely in need of revival, nay resuscitation. Chennai is a much lower, more sprawling city, while Mumbai is squeezed until the population extrudes upward as in Manhattan, by the fact that it is located on a peninsula. We dart in and out all the fabric stores, most of which turn out to sell salwar suit fabric - three different but matching rolls of fabric from which precisely pre-determined lengths of fabric will be cut: a length of plainer fabric for the salwar (the trousers), a length of more patterned fabric for the kameez (knee-length dress-like shirt) and a last length, probably with border and end detail for the dupatta, the long scarf draped across the shoulders, and in some parts and cultures, across the head. It is rare to find a stall selling saris, again the opposite of Chennai, denoting that not only are we basically in the north of India now, but also in a mostly Muslim neighborhood. :: As we continue down the street, I realize all is not well with Nini. My enquiry is met with: "All the people! I feel claustrophobic." I really don't mean to laugh. But it is around Sunday noon, and we have lots of personal space around us. There are at least three feet between us and the next group of people. If this is her reaction now, I can't imagine what she will say when it is actually busy! :: We reach the end of the block and cross the road, right into the attar district. Shop after shop with little cut crystal bottles arrayed on mirrored podia with little white paper labels edged with a double red line - the type you buy in any stationery store. Each bottle contains essential oils, from rose and chamomile through the entire floral kingdom to sandalwood and spicy, earthy aromas. Not a drop of alcohol forbidden in Islam to be found here. Each attar wallah has an array of blended perfumes for sale, mixed according to jealously-guarded secret recipes. Some are "interpretations" of popular perfumes, some are entirely original. You can also describe your needs, and have him mix you a special fragrance on the spot. Or best of all, you can try and create your own scent. :: This taught me to value the olfactory acuity of the attar wallahs as a wonderful, unique gift that I could never hope to emulate. Somewhere, around three or four moves ago, I lost the ornamental little stoppered bottle containing the scent I mixed. After all, there really was no incentive to me to ensure its safe passage, except perhaps as a reminder to myself that things might not always be as easy as they seem.

Nancy Gandhi again has prompted memories, with her photograph of a pipal tree in Calcutta with roots growing through a ruined wall.
Now I admit you have to be rather skilled in free-flow association to get from that to the memories I am talking about, but that's the way my head works.
::
I first set foot on Indian soil in Calcutta. In the latter part of May. In the middle of a heatwave that killed thousands along the eastern part of India.
We were staying in the Fairlawn Hotel, a decent, (mostly) clean hotel with window air conditioners, and a million miles removed from the five star opulence available to moneyed tourists. This was just the sort of hotel a Westerner want to stay in who doesn't exactly want to rough it, but who doesn't want to have a fishbowl isolated experience either.

We tried venturing outside a couple of times during our three day stay in the city - that after all was the reason we didn't catch the connecting train/plane immediately upon arrival - but the heat was an experience unimaginable to me before.
When we went to a museum, for instance, the journey there held interest, and the first few exhibits captivated me, but the heat insidiously intruded, pressing down on me, sending rivulets (oh, who am I kidding - gushing rivers) of perspiration down the backs of my legs, down my spine, streaming from my hair across my forehead, diverted by my eyebrows and trickling down my throat.
Eventually we joined the other visitors to the museum in clustering (at first surreptiously, later without any pretense or apology) in front of the air movers (large, powerful fans) placed in a few of the exhibition halls. And these weren't whimpy westerners either, which is what signaled to us that it was time to retreat to the hotel. We weren't absorbing anything from the museum displays, and even other Indians were finding it too hot to do much else.
::
We tried other short trips outside, taking it easy, and returning when we felt enervated - just enough for me to build up a few unforgettable, essentially Calcuttan images, without getting to see all the touristy highlights like the Victoria Memorial (glimpsed only from a taxi window).

One such image is the ticket collector, hanging by one arm from the pole outside an overcrowded bus, with banknotes folded lengthwise tucked between each two fingers in his fist, sort of a cross between a paper fan and knuckle-dusters, while clicking his clippers. Apparently he dare not ask anyone outright to buy a ticket, because it would be a mortal insult should that person already have one (and many conductors have been badly beaten to prove the fact). All he can do is click his ticket clipper, prompting purchase where appropriate.

Another is that of some small vendors, their stores literally holes-in-the-wall. (Aha, says the astute reader - if those haven't all given up by now - so this is where she was going with it.)

On the outside of some buildings there are niches, about five feet wide, about three feet deep and three feet high, the whole thing set a little below hip-height into the wall. The bottom (floor) would be covered with cloth, on which would be arrayed the vendor's stock, mainly cigarettes, matches, paan, some candy, a few soda bottles. Some of the smaller items might be suspended in strips from the top (ceiling) of the shoplet. There might be a radio tucked in somewhere playing some filmi music, and perhaps a few images of gods with garlands.

Apart from the size and the unusual location, this might not sound too remarkable, but now add the sight of the shopkeeper actually sitting inside, cross-legged in the middle of his wares, king of his realm: a 45 cubic feet hole in the wall.

I went looking for an old Nancy Gandhi post. It is here, The Man in Striped Pyjamas. She tells a wonderfully evocative story, while recreating the atmosphere of early morning coffee at the Marina among the strollers and joggers.
::
I first set foot in India in Calcutta, in the middle of a heatwave. But then, you know this already, because you've been reading me for a while now, haven't you? (Refresh your memory.)
Before travelling anywhere I tend to build pictures in my mind of how it will be and what I will see and experience. For India, this was especially true, with the images ranging from wildly exotic to desperately rundown.
The little bit of Calcutta that I managed to see was mostly in the latter category. Not too put too fine a point on it, Calcutta is by far the dirtiest and least well-maintained of the Indian metros. (That is, of the parts of the various metros that I have seen, and I have spent time in all four, along with the almost-metros of Hyderabad and Bangalore.)

When it was time to move on, we (and our far too much luggage) got on the Coromandel Express at Howrah station for the long trip down to Chennai. We were in a side berth in 2nd A/C (second class air conditioned car to you). The side berths are narrower than the main berths in each compartment, with the lower berth consisting of two facing seats whose backs are folded down to form the bed, with the obvious crack in the middle.
We had to stick most of our luggage on the upper berth, and the overflow underneath the lower, which we had to keep down as a bed, or else we wouldn't have anywhere to sit. We shared that tiny berth through the long night, taking turns to lie down while the other tried to squeeze upright into a corner, getting knees and toes knocked and stepped on whenever someone walked past on the way to the lavatory.

We reached Chennai as dusk was starting to set in on the second day of the journey. A friend of mpo had come with a large Ambassador taxi to meet us. The hassle of shepherding our vast number of luggage pieces, wrestling them around, keeping a keen eye on them, organizing the porters, and supervising their squeezing into the taxi so occupied and exhausted me that it was some distance before I relaxed enough to start taking in our surroundings. They were taking us via the Marina, the pride and joy of Chennai, the beach road with the broad clean sidewalks, prettily lit and the breakers visible in the distance across the expanse of soft white sand. This in contrast with my recent experience in Calcutta made me believe that I had arrived in a wonderful place where everything was as clean and orderly. Little did I know! In my stay of a couple years there, I found that Chennai was only slightly better than Calcutta as far as the rest of the city goes, although on my most recent trip back there I had noticed a marked improvement.

::
Currently the once pristine white beaches of the Marina, stretching 13 km, is the scene of devastation, where hundreds of bodies are being washed onto the sand.
I don't think we'll ever be able to think of it in quite the same way again.

I never learnt this little one's name; she was an in-law of a cousin of a friend at a pellikooturu. She was about a year old, and after delighting everyone with her antics for a while, she snuggled up on her mum's lap and went to sleep.

Sue over at A Kitchen in Brabant provided the theme for today's post in a comment here. In Hindi they are called payal, in Telugu, pattelu. Silver anklets ranging from very simple to the highly ornate, most have bells, although some only have two or three at the fastening, while others have bells all over. The heavily ornate versions are usually reserved for special occasions; everyday payal are the simpler, more supple chains with a modest triplet of bells at the clasp. A quick aside: gold anklets (and toe rings for that matter) are not from India -- or on the off chance that they might have been made there, are certainly not traditional. Gold would never be worn at or even touched by one's feet! I bought Angel Face a pair of (heavily ornate) anklets when she was three months old. My precious one brought her back a larger set a year ago, and she has outgrown those too now. We gave Anamika a set when she turned six months old - but she has mostly outgrown those now too. Part of the problem is that we always tend to go for the highly ornate ones when we buy gifts. Those are too stiff to wear all the time and, let's face it, there really aren't that many occasions in America where you dress up enough to wear something like that. Or even to wear your heavy Kanchipuram sari in jewel colors with the six inch double side zari and the yard long densely worked zari pallu -- and if you know what all of that means, please feel free to commisserate, or to make suggestions. Bear in mind you're talking to someone who wore Kanchi saris to her graduation, awards ceremonies, honor society inductions and every possible other formal occasion for which there were even half an excuse to do so! But back to the anklets. My set is supremely comfortable, and I wear them permanently in summer, except when I have to go through airport security - I have enough trouble getting through with my mangalasutram. In winter I remove them because they tear my socks and the closed shoes catch them and they dig into the skin and chafe. My toe rings I only remove for surgery, and my mangalasutram only under protest, or when they are replacing the thread where the thalis hang. This visit to India I will make sure to get both Angel Face and Anamika really comfortable sets, ones that they can also wear permanently. It is such an evocative sight: chubby little legs, curly little toes, and the tinkling and twinkling silver around.

A gentle memoir filled with family anecdotes; this is not great literature but it is a lovely read. The author has a style that is wonderfully evocative of place. She draws a Madras (now Chennai) from her childhood that is such a faithful representation of the one I lived in for a couple of years that I can see the locations in front of me. This is the domestic Chennai that tourists never see.

Like many of the Desi diaspora, the biggest culture shock she experienced once she reached the US was in terms of food. Suddenly ingredients that were ubiquitous are difficult to impossible to find (not to mention ludicrously expensive) while the scarce Indian restaurants around tend to be geared toward Western palates, bearing little or no relation to the dishes for which one yearns.

Small wonder then that Shoba Narayan's memories are intricately interwoven with the flavors and fragrances of Indian food; each anecdote includes a meal, a treat or a festive occasion, and culminates in a recipe relevant to the piece.

I have tried a few and they are "housewife" recipes: they work and produce a reliable result. Of course, for some of the items we prefer our own recipes, but then again we are not Tamilians, and our own yearning is for subtly different spice combinations.