Fancy name, huh?
If you're in India, in one of the crowded areas, chances are, you have been attacked by the smells emanating from your neighbours kitchen. When such an assault happens, my husband, would silently pray that our neighbour is generous enough to share some of the food with us :-)
When you observe things keenly, you cannot escape the smells.. smells of the kitchen mostly. Have you smelt the smell of boiling milk? (No, not the artificial white thing that passes off as milk in the US, the true thing.. that comes our of cows, not machines).
We have an Assamese dish cooked with cucumber (usually Indians do not cook cucumber, this is a rarity) - when we do that, the cooking cucumber sing a nice smell!
Most of all, when I do a simple marble cake with french butter at 11 PM, I am overcome by terrible thoughts - what if the whole neighbourhood wakes up and comes for a bite? It's that powerful a smell..
The smell of good natural vanilla! (Lulu Strand says, she has vanilla everywhere in her house - even the bathroom sink.. so much that she stinks of Vanilla always. What a nice stink that would be!)
The smell of my mom's sambhar, filter coffee, pure jasmine tea, lavender oil, the Assamese joha rice - Oh heavenly! When things emit such divine smells, we can't help but drool over the item and wait impatiently for the item to get cooked and served. Food smells are as important as presentation. Even if you're not in the kitchen, the travel to you, to attack you!
My neighbour once gave me modaks cooked in turmeric leaves. Oh! The smell of turmeric leaves mingled with the modak to create a wonderful sensation. We also have bamboo rice in Assam, which is rice cooked inside bamboo stems, which is hugely aromatic. Then the kannadigas have kadabus, a kind of idlis steamed in jackfruit leaves, which is then peeled, only to find that the aroma of the leaf has entered the idli. My MIL makes some fish dishes using lemon leaves and everyone goes gaga over it. We also have a wild coriander type there, which is a substitute for the regular coriander leaves, but a bit more stronger and stranger. Even that is a kind of magic substance.
Early mornings at our house is a fun time usually. I would start to make my milk tea and everyone else would prefer their black tea. But once my tea smells waft from the kitchen to the living area, many hands will go up in unison, insisting that they also want milk tea. So usually I would start making 1 cup and I'd end up delivering 4 cups. They all say "The smell of your tea enchants us. How can we refuse such good tea!". So, this drama happens everyday at my house. People cannot hold back their temptation once my tea brews. All their willpower for not having milk tea, goes out the window and is replaced by a temptation to devour the milk tea.
Once I had a kind of violent seizure, which made me frozen. Early morning, the aromas of idli, sambhar from a roadside stall mingled with the neighbouring shop's jasmine flowers. You cannot even imagine how the combination is. I was frozen and forgot why I was walking that way! That moment I thought, if at all someone has to attack anyone (Poor Syria) they should use such edible weapons. Throw a batch of idlis, sambhar and jasmine to overpower your enemy. They will face the most wildly pleasant attack.
So, the more time I spend in the kitchen, the more aromas I notice. I had never noticed the smell of boiling milk before. Also, when you roast your spices they smell divine! These smells and textures make cooking more joyful (yes, I do not always enjoy cooking. When I am reading, cooking is like an unwanted interruption which annoys me).
No wonder, we offer incense sticks to our gods! They too seem to love smells!
Also, that explains why we have perfumes.. since we are not as fragrant as the rose flowers or jasmine, we want to use their perfume to smell like one!
I had also planned to write about the other bad kind of olfactory assault that happens in the gym, when the equipments are placed too close for comfort, but after imagining the sweetness of the things mentioned before, I decided to let that go. Let's keep this one pure.. Simple charming smells...
Remember the story of padmagandha - the fisherwoman who developed a divine smell after falling for the sage! This thing about smells has lingered around for ages!
I almost forgot! I had a soap shop! We had every possible smell of soap! jasmine, rose absolute, green tea, chocolate and mint, cinnamon, green apple, ginger and black pepper, fresh from the ocean, aloe vera, calendula, tea tree, peach - the list is endless. How I miss my soaps! Our house used to smell divine all the time. Our bathrooms used to smell so heavenly.
How I wish, we had done well... that we'd got to where we really deserved to be. Let me not corrupt my thoughts with unpleasant smells now. Bye.
Addendum: I am surprised I forgot my favourite flowers! Rajnigandha!
To express their anger and disappointment at being forgotten by the host of the house which adorns them, these flowers directed me to the right place, where I could correct myself and pay tribute to my beloved Rajnigandha. I even have a small plant growing in our balcony. How could I forget?
Now, I am sure I must have forgotten a few more of my favourites :-( Effects of aging?
http://www.abhaencounter.blogspot.in/2013/08/rajnigandha-and-some-lemon-zing.html
If you're in India, in one of the crowded areas, chances are, you have been attacked by the smells emanating from your neighbours kitchen. When such an assault happens, my husband, would silently pray that our neighbour is generous enough to share some of the food with us :-)
When you observe things keenly, you cannot escape the smells.. smells of the kitchen mostly. Have you smelt the smell of boiling milk? (No, not the artificial white thing that passes off as milk in the US, the true thing.. that comes our of cows, not machines).
We have an Assamese dish cooked with cucumber (usually Indians do not cook cucumber, this is a rarity) - when we do that, the cooking cucumber sing a nice smell!
Most of all, when I do a simple marble cake with french butter at 11 PM, I am overcome by terrible thoughts - what if the whole neighbourhood wakes up and comes for a bite? It's that powerful a smell..
The smell of good natural vanilla! (Lulu Strand says, she has vanilla everywhere in her house - even the bathroom sink.. so much that she stinks of Vanilla always. What a nice stink that would be!)
The smell of my mom's sambhar, filter coffee, pure jasmine tea, lavender oil, the Assamese joha rice - Oh heavenly! When things emit such divine smells, we can't help but drool over the item and wait impatiently for the item to get cooked and served. Food smells are as important as presentation. Even if you're not in the kitchen, the travel to you, to attack you!
My neighbour once gave me modaks cooked in turmeric leaves. Oh! The smell of turmeric leaves mingled with the modak to create a wonderful sensation. We also have bamboo rice in Assam, which is rice cooked inside bamboo stems, which is hugely aromatic. Then the kannadigas have kadabus, a kind of idlis steamed in jackfruit leaves, which is then peeled, only to find that the aroma of the leaf has entered the idli. My MIL makes some fish dishes using lemon leaves and everyone goes gaga over it. We also have a wild coriander type there, which is a substitute for the regular coriander leaves, but a bit more stronger and stranger. Even that is a kind of magic substance.
Early mornings at our house is a fun time usually. I would start to make my milk tea and everyone else would prefer their black tea. But once my tea smells waft from the kitchen to the living area, many hands will go up in unison, insisting that they also want milk tea. So usually I would start making 1 cup and I'd end up delivering 4 cups. They all say "The smell of your tea enchants us. How can we refuse such good tea!". So, this drama happens everyday at my house. People cannot hold back their temptation once my tea brews. All their willpower for not having milk tea, goes out the window and is replaced by a temptation to devour the milk tea.
Once I had a kind of violent seizure, which made me frozen. Early morning, the aromas of idli, sambhar from a roadside stall mingled with the neighbouring shop's jasmine flowers. You cannot even imagine how the combination is. I was frozen and forgot why I was walking that way! That moment I thought, if at all someone has to attack anyone (Poor Syria) they should use such edible weapons. Throw a batch of idlis, sambhar and jasmine to overpower your enemy. They will face the most wildly pleasant attack.
So, the more time I spend in the kitchen, the more aromas I notice. I had never noticed the smell of boiling milk before. Also, when you roast your spices they smell divine! These smells and textures make cooking more joyful (yes, I do not always enjoy cooking. When I am reading, cooking is like an unwanted interruption which annoys me).
No wonder, we offer incense sticks to our gods! They too seem to love smells!
Also, that explains why we have perfumes.. since we are not as fragrant as the rose flowers or jasmine, we want to use their perfume to smell like one!
I had also planned to write about the other bad kind of olfactory assault that happens in the gym, when the equipments are placed too close for comfort, but after imagining the sweetness of the things mentioned before, I decided to let that go. Let's keep this one pure.. Simple charming smells...
Remember the story of padmagandha - the fisherwoman who developed a divine smell after falling for the sage! This thing about smells has lingered around for ages!
I almost forgot! I had a soap shop! We had every possible smell of soap! jasmine, rose absolute, green tea, chocolate and mint, cinnamon, green apple, ginger and black pepper, fresh from the ocean, aloe vera, calendula, tea tree, peach - the list is endless. How I miss my soaps! Our house used to smell divine all the time. Our bathrooms used to smell so heavenly.
How I wish, we had done well... that we'd got to where we really deserved to be. Let me not corrupt my thoughts with unpleasant smells now. Bye.
Addendum: I am surprised I forgot my favourite flowers! Rajnigandha!
To express their anger and disappointment at being forgotten by the host of the house which adorns them, these flowers directed me to the right place, where I could correct myself and pay tribute to my beloved Rajnigandha. I even have a small plant growing in our balcony. How could I forget?
Now, I am sure I must have forgotten a few more of my favourites :-( Effects of aging?
http://www.abhaencounter.blogspot.in/2013/08/rajnigandha-and-some-lemon-zing.html
No comments:
Post a Comment