The rare exotic Sunday breakfast.

My mother cooked really well. And she managed to do that with her job, two kids and a house. Dada worked till late and left early. She got up at 5.15 am to cook up a storm of chapattis, a sabji and a wholesome breakfast of pavachi bhaji, sabudana khichdi, dosa, toast , upma , poha and dosa / idli , sometimes multigrain puris with coconut chutney from Monday to Saturday in that order every week, without once getting exhausted. Sunday breakfasts hence were not something special as she cooked specials throughout the week. Sunday was more bread affair as earlier written. Or mostly batate pohe ( a staple in most maharastrian homes)

Winters was however a different story. When green peas were abundant and lesser than their usual high rates, aai would bring green peas by kilos. They then found their way in poha, upma, lip smacking curries and the piece de resistance matar pattice.

A hectic affair and with two growing children and a husband with voracious appetite, matar pattice was reserved for once in a while weekend affairs. I used to get up to the smell of the pattice sizzling, it's smell emanating and spreading in whole home. We would hurry our selves to teeth brushing and would rush to have hot piping bites of pattices with slice bread and ketchup ( I never liked it). The yellowish potato cover hid spicy green peas, the cover dark grown and crisp by fine semolina coating. I always reserved these for last, gulping the melt in mouth potato and green peas first. I never seemed to have enough. Definitely when I had matar pattice, that Sunday was definitely extra special.

One of my lost favourite Sunday breakfasts

No.. Not idlis or dosas.. My  breakfast from memory is related to bread and its avatars. Crisp rava toasted cheese sandwich, yellow (with onions) and white (without onions) bread up a or at my place pavachi bhaji. Bread was never in vanilla at my place but decked up in some avatar or other ( egg, kheema and chicken accompaniments included). Aai made a real good omelette with onions, green chilies and coriander , a full fry with/without chilly and turmeric. A half fry, a scrambled egg ( eggs I sadly never liked and never do even now) and bread toasted buttered or plain always accompanied them. My otherwise kitchen disoriented sister ( who is incidentally a good cook now if she actually decides to cook something than usual dal chawal) made a lovely bread roll with potato filling and flattened bread encasing. Aai makes a mean paovada which had bread,potatoes and green goodness of green chilies and coriender and cumin seeds, the small rounds were then shallow fried in oil. Bread actually ruled our kitchen because of availability (we had a bread loaf a week) and versatility.

These were actually never as Sunday breakfasts. Pavachi bhaji was on week day breakfast menu, mostly on Mondays as on Sunday dada got a good real loaf from the bakery. Bread roles were rarely made by my busy sister and paovada were made for guests. The simpler sundaybreakfast one that gave my mother a respite from cooking once in a while. Maybe because we're had so much availability, we were spoilt for choice. Along with ubiquitous slice bread from 'haria nana ( local baniya's name by my dada) we had paos ( a type of roll) from ahura bakery, loaf which was soft and sweetish with an awesome crust ( which was used  for pavachi bhaji), the paos came in two forms  naram paos ( soft rolls used mostly for flavourful  pao bhaji,  a mean missal pao , fiery vada pao or moping the juices of kheema or chicken gravy ( my sis favourite on Sunday evening)) and then there was the pao " kadak pao". A lot like French baguette, it was loved by  sis and she passed on the love to me. Just like dark chocolate, cheese and spicy red banana wafers.
But ahura was a bit far off and Sunday morning made my dada extra lazy. But he had a solution to it. Lucky. That is not an expression but name of the nearby bakery. Which was more for Sunday breakfast ware than usuals which were at ahura. There was no special something but more convenience for dada, who went there in his Kurta / shirt and lungi.  It was  nothing special. Rather, one could actually see bakers caked in dough  rather than ahura which was more shopfront and one rarely saw bakers. We had lots of other stuff from ahura as well like toasts (taste awesome in tea), kharis and their truly good elaichi fragrant masa cakes. Lucky was not not lucky that way as it was used for Sunday breakfast bread only. So dada used to slowly trod to the bakery where they would still be baking bread.  Sometimes, he would get the newspaper covered bread ( it's called ladi pao as in bread cluster if translated crudely) , the moisture making the Urdu news paper a bit soggy. When we hungrily slit the pao and slathered salty amul butter, it melted right in the  holes and crevices. It was always naram pao for me. But one day the then hidden foodie in me asked for a taste of kadak pao. I instantly fell in love with the way the pao crackled at a bite, the way the crumbs messily fell in the plate. The way the salty butter tasted with the bread and best, when amul cheese bits found your tongue. Naram pao was soon forgotten and it was always kadak pao, maska (salted butter) and chees (amul preferred) for me. Sometimes dada would get hot batata vadas from nearby shanty. They tasted equally good sandwiched flat between the hot bread. After this breakfast, tv would start and that would be just one glorious start to a Sunday.

Tinkle tinkle little star

I was reading a few blogs (my recent obsession...I mean timepass), out of which one I hold very dear to heart. its called the bongmom's cookbook. its special because, I like the way she writes. a bit funny, a bit poignant. One of her posts were on the time when the children's magazines were a rarety, something to be cherished.
Me coming from that generation. we in schools, had Saturday and sunday holiday. This was cherished by getting up late, enjoying a lovely breakfast ( more on that in the next blog) and sitting open mouthed in front of television. We saw any and every serial. The advertisements were counted and divided, whose ads came most ( we divided all products into me and my sister, who slyly chose popular products like catburys and thumbs up, and counted numb of ads per person. Needless to say, she always won🤐😜).
One of these memories which I hold very dear was arrival of monthly kids magazine called tinkle. ( chandoba was in Marathi, which my mother made me read on my own once. There was no looking back after that). Once a month, mostly on a Saturday, say by 9.00 am, there used to be a soft plop of paper falling in the safety door of our s cond floor apartment. My sister and I would rush to it. Survival of the fittest, which got it first...always. I waited for my chance desperately to read it once she is done. Tinkle was more of comics, and I read it from A to Z, including see and smile, a non word joke.
Along with readers digest, tinkle became my initiation to the lov y vast world of reading and imagination. I just so wish, that just like me my pilla gets a kick out of reading a book or re and rereading a favourite book.

CG sauce I found you..well at least partially.

My taste buds are wired. Wierd as in I rarely eat spice. It does not go well with me. Especially a spicy gravy, garam masala paste in food... Green or red chilly powder...

There are exceptions though. I love fiery green chutney or red garlic chutney with my piping hot batata vada or vada pav. Or toast sandwich. I love my pao bhaji fiery and I hate tomato ketchup but love the indo chinese green and red chilly sauce.
 Since I stayed near a wholesale market, where anything and everything was and still available, I got my dose of these sauces, which were incidentally in big glass "roohafza" bottles. I remember this red chilly sauce way before, when I was probably 7 or 8 and dada ( my dad) had got one small experimental bottle. I enjoyed the semi dried sauce ( expiry dates are checked now) with a slice of white ( not my favourite anymore...not health reasons, it's plain gummy..maybe made of gum.. Lots of it...just kidding) bread. It tasted like fireworks on the mouth, with the hot air emanating from mouth, nose, and ears. I fell in love with this sauce and never liked tomato sauce again.
We frequently stocked these sauces at home. I had them with anything.but mostly with piping hot all parathas that aai made. She added fresh coriander, green chilies and long sliced onions to boiled potatos and added that to dough as filling. They tasted too good. The weird part here was that I hated green chilies in it. I slathered this sauce on piping hot paratha and ate it bit by bit. The hot onion ring hitting my mouth hard and the sauce created a sizzle in the mouth.

For many years then I forgot about the sauce and en I asked aai, she said that sadly they stopped selling it. I didn't know how to procure it. As I still simply hate tomato sauce. I searched  and tried and failed at some lolu sauces in Walmart in name of chilly garlic.
Once I was searching the Asian section of Walmart when I came across a simple transperant bottle with green lid and white lettering saying "chauchau " ( I can't read mandarin or whatever it is) just understood that it's a chilly garlic sauce. I took the smallest bottle I could find and muttered  "trial basis" to my better (?) half's raised eyebrow. I put the groceries to their destinations when this bottle came in my view. Pursing my lips, I opened the foil seal of the bottle. A small spoon, and the fireworks brought my memories back. An extra all paratha and the sauce, and the memory was complete. Just that it's not smooth.. More thechasque. But taste is just so identical. Of course, I cook the paratha filling for my husband's liking but taste is still there.

I also came across something called gochujang  sauce uce when I was reading an article  by Sam Sifton in eat section of New York  times ( that is the only thing I read in it) . when I came across this sauce. A bit of googly and wiki helped me find it as a Korean chilly sauce. As you know chilly sauces are my favourites, this one also found it self in our shopping cart. I liked this one as well, though the Vietnamese chauchau sauce is top of my list. My next try..sriracha sauce...will surely tell you how I fared.

Tum mile yuh laga...talat aziz or...Jaswant Singh...

haha...song from memory. This I never heard whole. It was in the film and music album promo programme of vividhbharti...the one I heard in vacations after aai left for work . Some songs I absolutely seem to recollect from this promo section . "Dil ke jharoke mein Aja" from the movie dil ke jharoke mein...a really floppety flop movie of Manisha koirala in absolute fatso sweaty mode. Then there was "dil mein kuch" from the movie army a lady sholay version. But unfortunately poorly made. Dil mein kuch was incidentally copied from the english  song " she's got the look".

So as usual after much digression I am coming to Jaswant Singh ( no not the defense minister in AB vajpayee tenure). I heard this song quite a bit in the promo section. " tum mile..yuh laga". It's really a good song and nicely sung. Don't know, maybe talat aziz was also coming up with an album at that time ( khoobsurat hai aakhein teri raat ko jaagna chor de song was from this totally forgettable album). I remembered this song because of it's nice music, words and of course pleasant typical gazalisque voice.

Slowly college, friends, classes took its toll and I stopped being at home  beyond 8.00 am. Many years later I remembered this song. My brain cells really worked over time as I tried to recollect lyrics. But as much as I tried, I couldn't find any tum mile by talat aziz...I found a tum mile from movie tum mile. Tum kya mile ( really nice song) from saatwa aasman..later tum mile yuh laga by talat aziz yielded me weirder  results and with my digressing, I ended up reading and finding something different. Google groaned with my digressing. Then the bulb lighted. I just searched with tum mile yuh laga. And And And...tad a ...I got relevant results. A seemingly  innocuous Jaswant Singh popped up.. I played the song disinterestedly on YouTube...and voila...I found another song from memory.. Thanks to google's googly again...

The piyo man

Our building was one of the few in the area at that time. We could see the western train passing or chugging by and that was a favourite pass time whenever I got access on the rickety stool (which I strangely loved to play horse on..the noise it made...chikichiki still rings in my ears). Life was simpler then. We used to sleep at 9.30 pm even the , a habit that is a bit hard to break even now. After maximum 10.00 pm I am zoned out. Or I still find 10.00 pm late. God again I am digressing.
At such times when we used to have lights off and the suburb of the city that never sleeps used to go in quiet lull just like glowing embers of long gone fire, I used to hear loud but not shrill voice of ' piyo'. Even now I am amazed at how our brains understand the voice direction even if eyes are closed. I still remember my fuzzy brains registering the sound coming from far to near very near then far and farthest. My brain imagining the road the person taking to seek his piyo...( which I later understood was kulphiyo or kulfi for sale)

The same with " ram Narayan samosewala". Our building walls housed some illegal shantys. And like many poor who thrive on street ware not more than 5 INR at that time, they survived on popo ( mobile idli seller) and the ramnarayan samosewala. Now that was no name. But my ears initially heard it as ram Narayan...it was actually garmagaram..

Many years later, much to my mother's annoyance...I had ramnarayan samosas...at 10 INR, 3 small crispy ramnarayan samosas...with just a fried salted green chilly was simply out of the world. About the popo man. That I was initiated by my guy just foodie friend, on way to library. 5 INR for 3 fluffy softest idl is, 2 tasty chutneys and a sambhar like something. Sometimes 2 idl is and a dal vada. That was our morning fiesta after we finished 2 hours of cramming environment law and human rights.  This friend also initiated me to ber, tamarind and such ware on a 'thela'.
Life was definitely simpler then.