Time for some art

 A lot of online classes for Pilla, especially specials and except GYM, I can relax a little. I am just doing spatial prompting and relaxing till next batch of assignments come up. Except GYM (that I do it with him) and Spanish (that I want to do with him), all the others are sitting somewhere in perephery and reading news on cellphone (the only time I can do it). 

The year started with a very sweet art teacher. Ohh...she was cute in an old woman kind of way, with slow, low melodious voice, a sweet smile and very understanding voice. But her art seemed a little basic but yes, season and festival (read halloween...) related. Then the reshuffling happened and she disappeared, only to be replaced by a robust and boisterous woman. After bieng used to lovely warm water, when your shower decides to be cold suddenly, the very same way. My first impression of her was LOUD...and OUCH. I mean who teaches Yayoi Kusama in her second class?? But she kind of grew on me. Especially me and the teacher's assistant, as in first few sessions, we were the only one logged in for the session. But I was surprised but also impressed when she started passing a lot of 'gratuit' stuff like unused watercolors, construction paper and wise for the upcoming sessions. And I liked that she absolutely used all mediums. Be it paper, glue , crayons, color pencils but also a bit more tricky but rich watercolors. 

Slowly I started getting pulled in the sessions so much that poor Pilla had to fight for his turns. My hidden artist was getting encouraged and nurtured by this exuberant art magician...hope to learn ...I have a long way to go...

Chicken dance

 Pilla's gym class is good. They plan it in such a way that kids are not bored of the same old routine. (yup, inspite of it bieng an online class) A small choice of exercise video then a dance (new addition) and then ball throwing techniques.

What has slowly got my attention is the dance routine. 4 easy steps in 4 directions then a free dance then again 4 easy steps in 4 directions and so on till the dance gets over.

For someone who always had two left feet in dancing. Nopes, I am flexible enough to do yogasanas and have a nice voice. I am not tone deaf...but beat deaf definitely. But these steps caught my attention. So much so that I started doing them almost involuntarily in car, when cooking etc etc. And incase you are wondering if I have lost it...who cares, maybe I have but its worth it. Now I have to search for some such dances...that can get me in beat...cocka doodle do....

Just in case you want to see what I am talking about...here it is: voila....le dance de "chicken"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xmV5uHWNag 

The more we get together

 A few things created a deep ripple in thought process and a normal relaxed mind didn't understand when the tea ended, the taste absent in the brain register and so was warmth. Uthi uthi ba changed to majhe maher and my my mind was finding it hard to concentrate on the usual appealing highs and lows of pt. Bheemsen Joshi. After the song ended, I switched off the playlist only to start it again. Rereading a mediocre book that I kept away.

After a rather dwarf like structure of pattcharitra which looked rather a monster than a pleasant to the eye, I kept my pencil and got up to do what I had got so many days back. A cheaper piece of canvas from dollar store and an idea. And slowly I got immersed in it. With the folk art that showed a few dancing, a few giving the beats, and I came out of the trance only after I heard Pilla's excited voice as he does when when he gets up. Given a chance this guy would never sleep. I looked down at the canvas to see outlines idea. I had got the blueprint and now just a choice of colors. This painting had surely brought me out of the monologus questions that my mind was continiously   badgering me with. My mind did have questions now but strangely the badgering had stopped. I breathed hard as I smiled as I hummed the song from Pilla's online music class "the more we get together the happier we will be..."

A wierd tomato I fell in love with

 "Whats that?" my better(?) half asked as I sliced into a light orange brown beauty. "Ohh...you want to taste it?" but looking into his expression, I didnt pass the plate to him as I sat down with the few pieces with my current read "kitchen yarns" by Anne hood. "aha...next time I am going to buy a bit softer ones, I said to my self as I relished the softer flesh , my teeth biting into tomato like interior but unlike tomato, a crackly skin.

I laughed when my better(?) half gave my exploration a rating. "if I am 4 in exploring, you are 8 or even more than 8 on 10 in exploring. " I just shrugged my shoulders. "Unless its not vegetarian or smells like one, I can eat it" . That of course includes seaweed, considered by many as delicacy but which is so much stinky fishy in taste for me that I really cant eat it. But the same seaweed when combines in a miso soup (nope, I don't make, I just tear a packet in hot cup of water) creates a warming and comforting effect.

But yes, a lot of foods, condiments and sauces, I can explore. I want to put a taste picture into something read in a book.

So when once, we went to Hmart, I tried something called fuyu persimmon. Just one or two, so that I dont waste if I dont like the taste. As I bit into one, it tasted so good. A sweet honey like taste, the skin cracking under the teeth and the seeds crunching. A sweet aroma completed the taste experience. Next time I got more, 4 to be precise and so on till one day their season got over and my love got forgotten with many other loves like cherries which I can easily finish a pound and a half only for them to give my stomach a diuretic effect. But that does not stop me from having them or even a bit high on pricing pineapple, a ripe to have jackfruit at whole foods (I always found the jackfruit at Hmart cut before ripe. The pieces confused if they should be eaten as a ripe fruit or used in a curry. As they are too ripe for gravy and raw to eat just like that. Whole foods jackfruit is a different ambrosial story.

Ofcourse I tried dragon fruit and liked its neutral taste but diddi had some nasty description, comparing the seeds to hair lice and I never had guts to put a piece in my mouth again (yes I hate her)

Back to persimmons. So my this love was lost only to surface when due to COVID scare we went Hmart rather after many months. While cherries and lychees had already bid bye and ever present grapes and apples jostled for attention, my eyes went to these cuties. And I jumped on them. Not the pristine ones in boxes which cost more for their perfection but those which were set aside because they were not good enough for the box. A soft spot here (sign of perfect honey ripeness) or blemish (only physically, not flesh deep to allow "KITANUS" to ruin them). And every single time they please me. I try to save them for saturday fasting but I am not that lucky every single time. And just yesterday when I sat with one ripe perfection , my normally disinterested pilla tried some bites.

I wish just like my dada exposed me to myrid collection of fruits costing a few pennies or a fortune, I wish I can expose pilla to same passion of fruit eating as I have.

But more than that I hope I can teach him that perfection is not in the interiors of box but interiors of so called imperfect specimens which stay waiting for that someone who can appreciate them without their external imperfections.

A new favourite author

I dont know how many people know this but I LOVE reading about food. Food memoirs are a pleasant way to read while eating and most of them (read MFK Fisher, Jaques Pepin , David Lebovitz) have received stains of whatever I am eating then. I avoid reading them any time else for the fear of developing phantom hunger.

A seemingly new but an old favourite Anne Hood (whose the knitting circle is dogeared at aaibai's) led me to Laurie Colwin and now I have a bit yellowed Home cooking and More home cooking (yellowed because she died young at the age of 52 in 1992)

Laurie colwin is very straightforward. No high fi, dictionary seeking language but here is someone who genuinely loved food and not only that but also knew how to write. People do like Ruth Reichl but as many as books I borrowed of her, they were a one time read. Needless to say, I preferred spending my pennies on Colwin, Lebovitz (his humor is wierd and can be understood only by wierdos like me) MFK ( a legend but nice to read and reread the encyclopedic volume I have consisting of her 6 books) and ofcourse some who have blogs like bongmom or the wednesday chef. 

As I finish this writeup, I searched and kept a stack of books that I essentially dont see the purpose on the bookshelf. Parenting books taken and never read, some book memoirs that I am not keen in reading again. In the near future I can see selling them on a website more in a hope to circulate them than gaining some money for them.

But Laurie Colwin, MFK or Jaccques Pepin...they are here to stay.