When you are seated at the dining table, chinaware neatly placed before you, a flower vase at the middle of the table, the sunlight of the afternoon sun trickling in through the balcony, nothing adds more flavour to your comfy afternoon than the expectation of a hearty lunch just on its way to the table. The cooker lid is taken off and the whole kitchen fills up with the aroma of rice and dal (yummy Indian serving of pulses) - even a whiff of which is enough to let those butterflies in your tummy flutter around crazy!! Truth be told, nothing beats this combo for its s
implicity and tingling of the taste buds. I am a simpleton, I agree, when it comes to Indian cuisine - was never really a big drooler for those lavish extravagant four-five word long dishes nor the ones that sound more of a tongue-twister - love keeping it simple and boy was I hungry that summer afternoon, anticipating how after having spent almost 2 months on European stuff, and what I can only describe as Indian muck, I would be tasting the essence of what makes our recipes so renowned ;) There they lay - right in front of me, steaming hot, two huge pots - one with rice and the other with dal. For want of table manners I resisted pouncing on the two and gobbling up whatever I could get my paws on! As we spoke, twas hard to keep the drool from being noticed, come now don't judge me for this - I was being cooked for - its my right to drool !! ;)At this point the dream ends and reality bites you on the arse, for there is always a catch in everything that's supposed to be going perfectly - its God's way of telling you - "what da hell were you thinking?!" ;P She opens the pans .. err pots .. does it really matter anyways ? :P So she opens 'em, I close my eyes and take the fragrance in - only to regret having closed my eyes. I open them slowly - and egad - what the hell is that - black roaches - nah they seem too squishy for insects, I poke gently at 'em, make a face and look up - eyup its confirmed, those friggin' chopped balls of black goo certainly ain't from this planet ! :O She eggs me on to try 'em, and when you are a big time foodie, that teeny tiny voice inside your head tellin' you to be a tad sceptical DIES! So I swish a spoonful of the dal, splurt it onto the rice, still poking at the black UFO, before it finally touches the upper palate of my mouth. Not being too sarcastic, lets just say dehydration is too mild a description when there's frothing of the mouth after a snake bite ;) A quick gulp or two of water made sure I didn't choke on this creature from beyond. Aww you'd think the torture would end here wouldn't you ?! I'm told that the entire, the whole friggin' meal's just for me - talk 'bout luck going ugly on me ! :( I swivel the spoon once more, splurt again, and another shot of adrenalin shoots through my brain! Unable to frown, unable to slow down, my ordeal was far from over ..
At this very moment if I keep describing the flashes that went through my head - I'd either be facing charges for explicit violent content or would push it over the edge into the realm of the unimaginable. I did, however, conjure the courage to ask her what exactly those black demons of death were - olives - yes I know it is surprising, but I had never really tasted 'em before! :O In my defence, whoever puts olives in DAL man ?! I mean gimme a break, why'd you want to contrast a beautiful blend of green and yellow and a simmering layer of ghee on top with black boulders floating about like chopped roaches ?! Hafta admit though, that afternoon was one of the best ones on that trip and probably twas more so coz of da dal fiasco - bottomline we had a good laugh in the end, a perfect end to a warm sunny afternoon, with the pots still half full and the aroma still filling the room, and a slight streak of steam making its way out ;)
