My current favourite manga and atashin'chi

Ahh...as I think about how I came across it, I remembered youtube search and more of ASMR food clips. A new interesting way of watching food. The exaggration​ of way something frying splashes in oil, the OTT way someone enjoys food...One clip led to the other and I came across a japanese cartoon with subtitles. And it had me flabbergasted. I mean its barely 8 to 10 minutes long. It gave you an idea of a modern japanese family, their habits, their daily living, at the same time a through development of individual main characters and a humorous way of telling a story. This cartoon is my store lunch buddy, its my end of the day refreshment buddy or just to relax buddy. This cartoon had a funny egg face shaped momma with a wierd and cute ( remember I am wierd??) voice. she is the creator of errors and total melodrama and since I love her so much, I get absolutely annoyed with her daughter character "Mikan". She is annoying, nitpicking on the momma and absolutely hopeless (in my eyes) girl , a typical lazy,day dreaming, chore avoiding teen who loves making teddybears (which is the only thing I like about her. Its not that I hate her but I can barely tolerate her.On the contrary I LOVE her younger brother. He is a boy of few words, idiosyncratic but at the same time hardworking, and a slicker for orderliness. He is a coinesseur and loves making midnight snacks and sometimes adding a little something to perk up mother's (often) tasteless food. But I get absolutely kick watching the father character.Clad in either a brown suit (he works in govenment), with sparse black hair and john lennon glasses, he is a man of few words and absolutely crude habits. But what I love most is his laughter. Its short and crisp "ahahaha"...thats it. Though as I write now, since I almost done with subtitled atashin'chi (translated :our family), I dont watch it that often. However, whenever I feel like my mood needs uplifting..."ata" is what I watch and will watch

Hic...hika bay cheese

Whenever I used to visit whole foods, the first thing I used to see was a pile of cheese, cellophaned in individual portions and labelled according to their weight and that was direct proportional to the cost. Sometimes there were usual awesomely smelling (but ones I avoided as they contained animal rennet) parmagiano reggiano (the real one, not parmasian cheese or the cheap substitutes and imitators) and sometimes gems like gouda (contained rennet from vegetable sources) or hika bay cheese (containing cultures). Gouda tasted divine (as it should be). Soft and slightly salty. It got over within no time in olive, onion and cheese toast or kimchi cheese toast. But I(mostly ) finished hika bay on it own. lopping a small slice after other till nothing remained. It was smooth and creamy and so tender that I just didnt feel like using it with anything else. Then I tasted one more gem called pavino cheese. It had cow's milk and enzymes (no rennet). Ohhh now, this one for me tasted like a veggie version of parm cheese. A hard cheese, sharp tasting and smelling (in a good way) It was a little salty and when eaten on its own, I could taste salt crystals (due to brine washing). I made lot of olive onion and cheese sandwiches with this one till it was gone one day. I wonder when I get to taste these two ones again.

Start of 2021 with a post for change

 Nopes, not the usual...

As years pass by I become more and more curious as in why we do the way we do. As rightly said Hinduism is a way of life and not only a religion. Why not live that way rather than move to something else.

This maybe trickles to festivals as well. Rather than having some old man distributing gifts, or killing an animal to attend "the moksha", festivals in Hinduism are more deeply rooted in nature and each having a reason as in why they are celebrated.

Today's example is makar sankranti. It is celebrated in different avatars in India but the base is the same. Food centered around harvest and of course til/ sesame. The reason: sesame warms the body and january bieng the coldest month, the warmth of sesame protects against cold. Not only this, the preparations (especially laddus) are made small, to be savoured bit by bit rather than a big laddu like boondi as a small marble of a seasme laddoo is powerhouse of energy.

The seeds are sprinkled on unleavened bread while cooking, so that they give a lovely taste to the end product. Bajra (which is also warmth inducing) rotis are preferred and so is jaggery .

One such thing that attracted me to it was bhogi (firsts day of sankranti) chi bhaji, which is a mix vegetable preparation. Found more or less in whole India in some form or the other and Khichidi.

Surely next year I will explore bhogi chi bhaji but till then lets eat til laddoo...

Till then, "tilgul ghya, god bola"

As a rather wonderous and interesting year end: Adieu 2020

 The year started on a nice note. The stress that we faced for past 3 years, the uncertainty of will we or wont we (blame on visa status) got pushed to two years later. Two years where we will breathe ....and not wonder what next...then came pilla's thread ceremony which called for a visit to my motherland. A lot of internal stresses and more so since I am of that tendency of internalizing. Trying to calm too many flared tempers while becoming a rock to Pilla who was at his confusion best but the only person stronger was him at the end of the day.

We came back to have one last breath before COVID took the would and lives by the storm. Schools closed, so did so called lifestyle of eating out and travelling so much so that we didnt do our nearly annual pilgrimage to Pittsburg.

But lots of things came to perspective in this rough patch. This life taught me to let go and take a deep breath in that mask. That there are options, there are tomorrows and if nothing works, a daily masked walk always helps. Writing helps, art helps.

Getting attracted and trying different arts. Winning a small art contest on third place boosted my never existing enthusiasm.

And finally life decided to teach me to live...atleast a little bit for my self. Cook a little something just for my self. Buying foods that I like and ofcourse moving towards using anything to maximum, reducing waste and basing life on minimalism (hope to work on this continiously in 2021)

Lots of resolutions that I dont want to break. Nothing unrealistic but letting go procastination.

I hope this 2021 helps me achieve all that I thought was not worth it, of learning to let go and keeping my self a priority once a while.