Day 6:Papadum and Appalam

Sara- Your appalam gave it away.
me- huh?
she- ya, we make papadum not appalam
me- all the same no?
she- no papadum will puff up, appalam won't.

****Insert spinning wheels the kind they show in movies to depict flashbacks- I stayed in a small Kerala place called Makut for my field work, and the lady used to serve us dal with these puffed up appalam (I should start calling it papadum from now on). I have searched all over for this type of appalam sorry pappadum and wondered why mine would never puff like that. The lady also used to fry them in coconut oil it was so yum****

she- you get it in 5Star, ask him for kerala pap..

---CRASH---
I was so immersed in this scintillating conversation that I had failed to keep an eye on my boy. He had broken her ceramic cup. I wanted to dig a 20 feet hole and bury myself. Then I learnt that the bowl and the pebbles that it contained were something related to Feng Shui, and that finding a blue colour ceramic bowl was very difficult. Now I wanted to dig that 20 feet hole, pour 40lts HCl and jump into my HCl swimming pool. I apologized and hurriedly left her place trying ever so hard to think of a place that sold ceramic pots. I went to Singapore shoppe and saw a poster on the door "Happy Onam. Kerala Papadum available".  The dumb store didn't have any ceramic bowls let alone blue so naturally the next thing I did was what every sane woman would do- bought the Kerala papadum :D

I brought it home, opened it and ooohh how different it was compared to the normal yucky appalams.

The 1st thing one notices is that the kerala papadum is not stiff like the normal ones.

Kerala papadum-

Yucky appalam-

You can actually roll it up whereas the other one...well just broke into 2 pieces (ok not sure how and why I thought I could roll a stiff appalam. Sometimes my brilliance is puzzling).

And when fried in oil it puffed up like so,

Flat boring appalam and puffed up aww..so cute papadum-

I most definitely liked the taste of kerala papadum (must be pretty obvious by now :D)- it's somewhat light and has a different type of crunch when compared to the appalam (again just like podis I have cough cough tested over 5 varieties of appalam- from Bindu to Ambika to Stag everything is just so meh). Henceforth, I would like you all to ditch the appalam and use Kerala papadum for all your daily and special meals. I would also like to blog-lically apologize to Sara on my boy's behalf for breaking her bowl and thank her for introducing me to Kerala Papadum.

PS- this post was most definitely not sponsored by the Kerala tourism board or the Kerala papadum association. 

Day 5: Surprise!!

Everyone who knows me must think I have a million friends because I'm an extrovert/pretty sociable. It is not true. I don't make friends very easily, I allow very few to come close to me, I don't believe in fishing for friends. It has to just click- as with the 5 or 6 I have lol! I have few friends whom I know only through FB- very good friends. This one friend in particular has been commenting on my site every  since I started writing...no make that nonsensing.

                              
                                                            Paal Payasam

She comments on almost all posts of mine- God knows where she finds the time to do it and why she spends that precious 2 mins to read/comment here is still a mystery :D

                           
                                            Vendakka Thayir Pachadi

I have bugged her (and continue to bug) immensely. I also send other people to bug her :D

                           
                                                 Beans Mezhukkupuratti

She is probably the most helpful person I know- with so many things at hand (a job, a husband, a house, a couple of blogs to handle, her travels) she always find time to respond to her emails (at least mine :D) and all kind of doubts people have about a recipe!


                                                              Kerala Olan

We have argued about ice cream splatters (:D), discussed cake books and reviewed Raghavan Iyer!

                           
                                               Kerala Parippu Curry

She is probably the only reason I wanted Jay to find a job in Singapore (ok she and awesome metro that Singapore has are probably the biggest reason... umm..the bird park and the zoo also).

                          
                                                          Sambar

Every year, Onam time I see her posts ---"I wish I was home." " I've never made a sadhya." "These are some Onam dishes you can try for Onam." Well, I decided to do just that. Any food blogger is tickled pink,red, yellow, blue, green when a reader tries out her recipe. Nags I hope you are happy-surprised :D (you better be I went and got coconut oil and banana leaf just for this!) and thanks for being my friend!



OK I know it is not like Onam sadhya but hey at least I didn't find a screw in any of the dishes! I was dying to add some cardamom/saffron/nuts in the payasam but because she has said "keep it simple" I didn't. The payasam, sambhar and the beans were my favourite. And excuse-moi for bad photos, boy most uncooperative!

Day 4: Happy Onam

Yea I'm writing this post at 5 in the morning cos I want to get this blog post out of the way because I have a very busy day ahead of me. Today I plan to surprise a good friend of mine... don't worry I'm not coming to your house! But it's a different kind of surprise, brilliant if I say so myself (all the ideas I come up with tend to be brilliant :D). Even if it is a hit or flop you will know who I surprised (hopefully the person is surprised) and what my brilliant idea was (it truly is brilliant, trust me) tomorrow.


Happy Onam to my 2 readers bwhahahahahaa....

Day 3: People and the rot they say

My 2yr old recently started play school. He never was good with strangers and as expected has been crying for the past 1 week. Sometimes what upsets me more than his crying is hearing some supremely dumb things some supremely dumb people say.

This was today:
parent- even now you pick him up at 10?
me- ya he still cries, doesn't like being here.
parent- he is always crying no?


"he is ALWAYS crying" I wanted to punch her face but didn't. I was furious that this absolute stranger judged a child whom she knew nothing about. Is that what one tells a mother who waits near the school compound for an hour daily seeing her child cry his lung out, praying that he stop and hoping at least the next day he shouldn't cry. Am pretty sure these people don't eat grass because a cow can empathize much better.

Day 2: I am a freaky eater

I am obsessed with pudi/podi. I am the only person in my house to buy and finish these spicy podis. Since J won't take any spice, my cooking is bland and I douse my food (from sambhar to palak paneer) in these podis (now you believe me when I say- I'm a freaky eater :D). I've tried quite a few podis, mum's, my aunt's and mil's (my aunt's garlic podi and curry leaf podi ranks supreme, absolutely delish. Mental note- get recipe from her, note 2- why is all this in brackets? whatever). Ah so, in the US I loved MTR the aroma of hing was hmmmm... zzzoooo good. I don't know why the same MTR podi here is so crap. Among the commercial varieties I rank Shakti idly podi as #1, aachi and MTR blegh. I'm yet to try Grand sweets/ Adyar ananda bhavan (if you know any Iyer maamis selling podi do let me know). I also tried some Chettinad podi I picked up form Singapore Shoppe (the store doesn't even have a Merlion statue, God knows why it's called Singapore shoppe) that was spicy and yum. Sri Krishna idly podi is good, their curry leaf podi is bad.

Without further delay I present to thee... The Podis :D

From L to R: Sri Krishna idly podi-yum, bought MTR hated it so decided to mix Shakti idl podi to salvage it, don't think it worked it still tastes meh, SK curry leave powder-bought it 2 months ago and must have eaten only 2 spoons didn't like, Chettinad idli podi- got it 2 weeks ago almost over yum.

Anyone else freaky podi eater like moi?

Day 1- The Beginning

Ah so people did write on FB that they missed reading my educative posts. So I have decided to blog daily (except weekends) for a month, so get ready for your daily dose of nonsense till Sept. 26th. The posts will be super educative and informative- NOT it will absolute rubbish :D And I did wonder if I could really post daily but hey I lived without sugar/dairy for a whole month, this is nothing compared to that, nonsense is my middle name :D just will have to find some time to write it here (I will, promise).

So for the 1st post I wanted to do a classy restaurant review about Tuscana , the pizzeria everyone was raving about. We were there today, we sat, ordered food, prayed the boy should behave and let us eat at least half our meal in peace, the food came and I reached inside my bag to get my camera."'ah? where camera?" "aioo its in the car ya" There was no way I was going to walk 20 steps and get the camera just so that I could write a review(like as if I work for The Hindu!). So then the food came, we had ordered onion-garlic focaccia, midi pizza and fusilli with alfredo for my boy. OK everything was just mediocre because we cannot stop our stupid selves from comparing everything to the ones we used to eat in the US. The pizza was much better than Papa jones or pizza hut or the crap called pizza that they served in Adyar ananda bhavan (now don't ask why on earth we ordered pizza in adyar ananada bhavan). But it was not like California pizza kitchen. The pasta was just meh, but I had told them to make it bland for my kiddo so I really shouldn't be commenting on it. Now, focaccia was a different story-we have no eaten it in the US so no chance of us comparing. The focaccia that arrived was a 8' round bread with some sauteed onions/ garlic on top- no aroma of the olive oil at all. I took one bite and thought "rubbish, what I made was so much better", J took a bite and said "what you make is SO much better' (man we compare so much, horrid people we both are!). I immediately sms-d Sara "v having focaccia in tuscana, j said wat i made was much better, thanks 4d recipe' she replied "wow he complimented you, now go write in masala vade'. That is how this post came to be (you really thought I would write a restaurant review without pictures?!).

So now you guys go make this focaccia. Why? 3 reasons:
1) It is a super recipe.
2) To celebrate the revival of masala vade and the induction of nonsense back into your mundane life.
3) The last and most important one-because I said so.

I really should stop here but I might as well give you a review of the desserts we ordered- panna cotta and tiramisu. Panna cotta was good, tiramisu sorry epic fail- our stupid selves again: it was nothing like the tiramisu in Whole Foods (we have eaten a lot of tiramisu but nothing beats the one sold in whole foods, just the right amount of coffee/cocoa and that cheese just delish!). This was just too strong for us, it didn't smell of kahlua  but some other liquor and the mascarpone tasted so un-mascarpone ugh.

And yo Sara, thanks for being my friend babes- now if you can give me the recipe for tiramisu and panna cotta Jay and I can save 1400Rps (ya thats how much we spent in Tuscana).

Thank You for reading and please visit again...tomorrow :D