One of my favorites (for which my diet manages to go for a toss… I just cant stop with one) I have a sweet tooth. I admit. But some things can be definitely avoided by me. Kheer, milk chocolates, gulab jamuns, jalebis etc. No they don’t entice. They can’t. I am strong willed. But some things buckle my hard will. That’s aai’s gajar halwa (not the usual khoya laden but just so good and wholesome…maa ke haath ka halwa) Bengali sweets (especially the malai sandwiches for which my better(?) half becomes real devil and buys a lot of it) , dark chocolate (for eg: bourneville), kaju katri and malai cake and of course kaju/badam puri. All these make me salivate. But I can avoid them with a lot of effort. Except ofcourse badam/kaju puri. That will always be the nemesis of my diet plans. I have a family of bankers (a safe and steady job at that time). And best time to enjoy that was at the diwali. The reason being that both of my parents got good amount of the ‘gifts’ from the customers. It usually used to be customary dried fruits and nuts. Sometimes a bit bigger box with the cashew nuts encased in dates and of course a small parcel of badam puri.
We used to wait for ‘dada’ (as we call our dad) in the evening. But we never pounced on this/these boxes. They used to be kept well away from us till the dinner was done. We didn’t mind it that much. I guess we wouldn’t even peek even if they would have been in front of us. Somehow that would have never occurred. Guess that’s what taught us patience and relishing even the anticipation. Dinner done, we used to sit around and aai (our mother) used to get the cardboard boxes. These boxes were of cardboard and gaily colored with gift paper. They had some kind of gold embossed rose appliqués on it, which we used to later carefully remove after the boxes were discarded, for our craft. When the box opened there was still a sealing of cellophane paper, usually yellow. The contents nestled in small individual sections, which were separated by white sectioned wax paper. My eyes widened each time the box opened. Mentally wishing on some of the favorite contents inside. There were AA sweets badam, kaju and kesar toffees (not to be confused with the divine confection called as kaju vadi..now extinct ) which we found delicious then but when I tasted one recently , I found pasty. There were the red sugar coated ‘strawberries’ with hard plastic leaves.I never liked them somehow as they were too bitter and left our lips in a very weird red color. Then there was usual fare of cashewnuts, almonds, rasins, walnuts, apricots , dried fig rings etc. my preference always went for the list with last one first. I loved and still love apricots a lot (called jardalu…the encased nuts, used to be collected and broke open together and the nut gleefully eaten…I still do that…) anjeer (dried figs) and walnuts and have gradually started liking bland almonds.
My mother used to give small share of each to us to munch along. However at times the boxes held some different goodies. Sometimes it had sweets like kaju katri ( my love but can be resisted), double decker mithai or mixed mithai . At times having wax /nylon halwa and jelly like Bombay halwa,or mysorepak (not be confused with mysorepa) netted with holes and carrying full cardamom seeds at times and sometimes there were bigger dry fruit boxes (which by the way were distinct by their shape). At such times I prayed for the other delights that I enjoyed. One was cashew nuts encased in dates and wrapped like chocolates in transparent cellophane and a half cashew decorating the top , or salted pistachios and of course the pièce de résistance called ‘badam puri’.
A small parcel of circular diskettes wrapped in yellow cellophane having an emblem like golden green and red sticker. The parcel usually contained 3-4 diskettes, which would be equally distributed among sisters. I don’t know about my sister but I used to relish every single bite. The way I used to eat these is still the way I eat my favorite stuff at lunch and dinner. LAST. (once incidentally my MIL prepared an out of the world alu baingan badi…and she wondered why am I leaving the badis {small dried dumplings added to enhance taste} aside…when asked if I didn’t like them I innocently replied “ohh..no…I will eat them last”). So I used to take my small parcel of goodies. The raisins used to be finished first, followed by almonds. Leaving kaju puri right in the end. And then I used to start munching on it. A bit hard to break, these puris used to play visual, olfactory and gustatory havoc on my senses. Smelling fragrant with cardamom and saffron, they used to be a bit hard and grainy and not too sweet with cashewnuts/almond taste intact, sparingly speckled with pistachio silvers and flecks of brown, indicating well done in culinary science, a bit oily with the oil nut grease and warm roasty flavour. The puris used to get over just too soon and make me wish to have them in another box.
In due course of time aai and dada retired and the boxes of sweets stopped. We started working and had available money to buy and according to our whims. However as much as I appeared to like food, I never felt like having a particular food a lot. Except of course a properly ripe wrinkly and fragrant alphonso mango and of course kaju puri. (the later which is the only thing shared just a teeny winy bit almost grudgingly with my kiddo)
We used to wait for ‘dada’ (as we call our dad) in the evening. But we never pounced on this/these boxes. They used to be kept well away from us till the dinner was done. We didn’t mind it that much. I guess we wouldn’t even peek even if they would have been in front of us. Somehow that would have never occurred. Guess that’s what taught us patience and relishing even the anticipation. Dinner done, we used to sit around and aai (our mother) used to get the cardboard boxes. These boxes were of cardboard and gaily colored with gift paper. They had some kind of gold embossed rose appliqués on it, which we used to later carefully remove after the boxes were discarded, for our craft. When the box opened there was still a sealing of cellophane paper, usually yellow. The contents nestled in small individual sections, which were separated by white sectioned wax paper. My eyes widened each time the box opened. Mentally wishing on some of the favorite contents inside. There were AA sweets badam, kaju and kesar toffees (not to be confused with the divine confection called as kaju vadi..now extinct ) which we found delicious then but when I tasted one recently , I found pasty. There were the red sugar coated ‘strawberries’ with hard plastic leaves.I never liked them somehow as they were too bitter and left our lips in a very weird red color. Then there was usual fare of cashewnuts, almonds, rasins, walnuts, apricots , dried fig rings etc. my preference always went for the list with last one first. I loved and still love apricots a lot (called jardalu…the encased nuts, used to be collected and broke open together and the nut gleefully eaten…I still do that…) anjeer (dried figs) and walnuts and have gradually started liking bland almonds.
My mother used to give small share of each to us to munch along. However at times the boxes held some different goodies. Sometimes it had sweets like kaju katri ( my love but can be resisted), double decker mithai or mixed mithai . At times having wax /nylon halwa and jelly like Bombay halwa,or mysorepak (not be confused with mysorepa) netted with holes and carrying full cardamom seeds at times and sometimes there were bigger dry fruit boxes (which by the way were distinct by their shape). At such times I prayed for the other delights that I enjoyed. One was cashew nuts encased in dates and wrapped like chocolates in transparent cellophane and a half cashew decorating the top , or salted pistachios and of course the pièce de résistance called ‘badam puri’.
A small parcel of circular diskettes wrapped in yellow cellophane having an emblem like golden green and red sticker. The parcel usually contained 3-4 diskettes, which would be equally distributed among sisters. I don’t know about my sister but I used to relish every single bite. The way I used to eat these is still the way I eat my favorite stuff at lunch and dinner. LAST. (once incidentally my MIL prepared an out of the world alu baingan badi…and she wondered why am I leaving the badis {small dried dumplings added to enhance taste} aside…when asked if I didn’t like them I innocently replied “ohh..no…I will eat them last”). So I used to take my small parcel of goodies. The raisins used to be finished first, followed by almonds. Leaving kaju puri right in the end. And then I used to start munching on it. A bit hard to break, these puris used to play visual, olfactory and gustatory havoc on my senses. Smelling fragrant with cardamom and saffron, they used to be a bit hard and grainy and not too sweet with cashewnuts/almond taste intact, sparingly speckled with pistachio silvers and flecks of brown, indicating well done in culinary science, a bit oily with the oil nut grease and warm roasty flavour. The puris used to get over just too soon and make me wish to have them in another box.
In due course of time aai and dada retired and the boxes of sweets stopped. We started working and had available money to buy and according to our whims. However as much as I appeared to like food, I never felt like having a particular food a lot. Except of course a properly ripe wrinkly and fragrant alphonso mango and of course kaju puri. (the later which is the only thing shared just a teeny winy bit almost grudgingly with my kiddo)
