Love Over The Flames

ACT I

Last weekend I was at Fi's in Boston. We decided to do a "Superbowl thing", inviting all our friends for dinner on Sunday. (Not that anyone's way into the Superbowl, but it's a good excuse to meet up, isn't it?) Friends and roommates invited their friends, and by Saturday afternoon, we realized we were going to have to provide for around 15-20 people. Enter Fi's cooking-math: "So, one person eats two rotis, two koftas with curry, one heaped serving spoon of paalak paneer, two large serving spoons of daal fry with a heaped spoon of rice, and a bowl of cucumber and boondi raita. Then we'll have to make extra in case people are ravenous - or if other guests show up." That added up to around 45 koftas, three pounds worth of paneer, more than a gallon of daal ... you do the addition. It was like we were catering for the whole of Boston! (Either that, or we were catering to elephants.) Oh, and did I mention we were going to cook it all ourselves?

We spent a goodish section of Saturday shopping in addition to most of Sunday which was spent cooking in various stages of humor. Each of us has our expertise, and we usually try not to bully the other with suggestions for their dishes. Nevertheless, we have had close calls with "(One) too many cooks". One little example occurred on Sunday:

Fi (to me, while stirring his malai kofta gravy): What are you doing?! That's a lot of salt. (I was adding it to my paalak paneer.)

Me: Hush! Mine or yours?

Fi: Yes, but it is a "LOT" of salt! (This, coming from a man who needs to add extra salt to almost everything, even those dishes that I consider more than enough blessed with that commodity.) Really! Don't ... (sudden panic registers on face) ... Oh, I need those three tomatoes chopped up. Instantly! (Indicates super-sized specimens sitting on the chopping board.) Please can you do it??

I smiled, and started chopping tomatoes. Once the tomatoes reached the pot ...

Me: What did we agree upon? Or, in the words from The Phantom of the Opera, 'Those who speak of what they know / find too late that prudent silence is wise...."

And so it went. By 6:00 pm we had all the dishes set up and garnished enticingly on the table. The samosas (two per person, according to Fi) and rotis were on their way, and the entire area was rife with the rich fragrance of Indian spices.


ACT II

Two hours later, our guests were chatting as they ate their fill around the table. We were in the position of fortunate hosts; our guests were more attentive to our food than to the scores on TV. (Well, we chose our guests well, most of those sitting around the TV didn't know ABC of American football, let alone which teams were playing and what their chances were. That includes me, by the way.) At some point, when asked if Fi really had helped me cook (How easy it is for us to assume that the woman cooks and the man "runs the financial show"!), I happened to mention that Fi and I enjoy cooking together, and have done it many times. That's when one of our guests said, "Yes, you guys did it way back in ... what was it, 2004?" And he mentioned the circumstances. That surprised - and thrilled - me. These are old friends of ours, Fi's classmates back in engineering college, and we have met a few times down the years, but I had forgotten the first time we cooked together for a group of people. It was a few months into our relationship. We had cooked sambar and an aaloo-gobi subzi (north meets south; you can think of it as symbolic, depending on how you know me) for dinner for a group of five of us. Times have changed: now we cook a lot better, we can cook a lot more, and we're also more creative and intuitive with ingredients. But that was the day that started it all: a warm late summer evening in Maryland.

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I believe that a strong relationship is like a good meal. Not every ingredient is palatable in itself, but each ingredient brings its individuality to the table. The cook tries to create a combination of ingredients, and of dishes, that, when eaten together, bring the eater into a state of supreme contentment that only a good meal can give. Time and hard work and practice on the part of the cook come together to bring that special dreamy smile to the face of the eater. It's a long road, but a rewarding one.

In the case of a relationship, there are two 'cooks' who create the 'meal' together with a combination of the 'ingredients' that each brings to their table. The meal takes a lot longer than just six hours, and calls for a lot more effort and patience and good humor; but the rewards, I imagine, are correspondingly greater. Again, the meal calls for collaboration, with equal contribution from both cooks, and highlighting the special ingredients furnished by both. I'm glad that Fi and I seem to have discovered the route to a good meal for our guests; and I hope that, years later, we can look back and assert that the same rules apply to the promised meal for ourselves, too!

Yes. Again.

It began like this:

" Dear Summer's Advisor:

It is a pleasure to accept your manuscript (of which Summer is the first author) entitled " ... ... ... " in its current form for publication in This Fine Journal in MR. ...

...

...

Thank you for your fine contribution.

Sincerely,
Deputy Editor, This Fine Journal in MR."


That's the long and short of it.


"Yes." Yet again, yes. 'Yes', in a different way. But, 'yes', after an eternity of waiting and working and hoping and trying not to let the past muddy the picture. 'Yes', after years of despair, hours brimming over with tough decisions, a sliver of sunlight followed by a warm winter, hard hard work and lots of studying and learning and discussing and "living the process". Yes, after all the 'no's.

After all that, it was a Yes!

Dinner Delights

Ok, so we're out with the old and already a month into the new. Like many many others who started 2009 "eating right" (notice I didn't say - and don't mean to say - "wanting to lose weight"), I evolved a bunch of food rules for me to keep mind, body and that all-elusive "soul" feeling good.
** Don't Ever Miss Breakfast. (Note the capitals.)
** Protein in the afternoon, to keep me feeling full; fruit-and-veggie-rich light dinners in the evenings.
** A fruit as a mid-evening snack - or a handful of nuts, if needed.
** Enough milk and yogurt, and, of course, two liters of water.
** Walk as much as I can, and try to smile just as often!
** Keep it simple (as they say).

Things proceeded smoothly till October - and then the deadlines started killing me. There was no time to cook - there was barely any time to eat. I'd started going back to Subway (eurgh! under most circumstances) for lunch, and eating frozen theplas for dinner when I was home. (It got worse - I had even started to eat combinations of the 100-cal packs in the lab on the days I knew I wouldn't "make it home".) Then, thank goodness, the parcel arrived from home. Mummy's goodies - home-made theplas, puran polis, kadipatta chutney as a quick accompaniment to rice, lots of other light snacks if I felt the urge. It was a lot better, but still, the resolutions as I knew it went out the window.

Now the deadlines are long gone (in fact, the new bunch is not too far away), the vacation is over, and we're back at work. Things have been stressful for the last few weeks, and, although I have kept within the rules for the most part, I hadn't the time to go grocery shopping. I'd been living on oatmeal with a bundle of fruits and nuts for dinner all this while, but I'd been craving a fruit and veggie salad I used to make. Yesterday, I finally made it to the grocery store and picked up ingredients. I made this "huge" meal (i.e., cooked lunch and chopped the ingredients for the salad for this week), and then finally put the salad together - and ate it.

Aaaaaahhhhhh!!

I cannot even express how happy I felt. How blissfully contented, how peaceful. The world suddenly appeared softened, like a mild late-April morning when all the flowers are in full bloom. If I'd been a cat, I'd have purred! I had no idea I'd missed it so much!! Here's a picture.


And here's the recipe.

INGREDIENTS:
Fruits and Veggies:
1/2 an apple
1/2 a cucumber (The cucumbers here in the US have thick skins and large seeds, so you may want to remove both.)
A handful (or two) of mushrooms
1 carrot

1 cup of yogurt - or greek yogurt (that's when I'm treating myself) + a little bit of milk

8-10 almonds, OR 5-6 walnut halves, OR a combination of almonds and walnuts, OR a little palmful of roasted flax seeds.

Salt

PREPARATION:
Chop the apple, cucumber, mushrooms and carrots into little pieces. You may want to lightly saute the mushrooms and carrots in olive oil - I find that it improves both taste and texture of the salad as a whole.
Chop the almonds and/or walnuts.
Beat in the yogurt with a little milk to get a salad-dressing-like consistency.
Mix the fruits and veggies in together in a bowl with the yogurt, the chopped nuts and the salt.
Ta-da!

You can use your own combination of fruits and veggies: sauteed corn, beans, steamed broccoli (if you're really that inspired) - a pear or a few chopped up grapes or berries. I usually keep a combination of these, chopped up in the fridge, to last me through the work-week so that I just have a 2-minute preparation time for dinner if I'm home late.

If you're adventurous, smash up a quarter of an avocado and mix it in with the yogurt. It gives a nutty taste and a creamy texture. Mmmm. Or, chop up half of a tomato and saute (or steam a little fresh spinach) with a few cumin seeds, then puree them in the mixer and add it to the yogurt.


This was one I made sometime last year. It contains pear and black grapes, cucumber and mushrooms, in a tomato-yogurt sauce, and topped with chopped almonds and walnuts.

Can't wait for dinner tonight! Oh, hold on, I just had that banana, right?