At my parents’ home at Calicut, comes a sprightly old lady named Maniyamma. She started to work as our house maid ever since I was 3 or 4 years of age. Though she is probably in her eighties now, she looks more like 50. Short and stocky, with a smiling visage, she even plays with…
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Kadgi Chakko – A delicious Konkani side dish (Vegan + Gluten Free)
It is the start of the jackfruit season in India. Everywhere, millions of jackfruit trees are in celebration. While the younger trees bring forth just a few, the ancient matriarchs sometimes produce hundreds, covering their trunks and branches and even a few exposed roots with beautiful fruits. The fruits usually ripen in the months of April…
Mango Blossom Chutney (Vegan + Gluten Free)
Covering the courtyard of my ancestral home at Thalassery stands a huge old mango tree. Proud and tall, it produces baskets of delicious country papaya mangoes (also called popai ambo in Konkani and kappa manga or ko manga in Malayalam) invariably every year. During the ripening season which coincides with the summer holidays, we children used to run to the base of…
Vegetable Macaroni (Vegan)
Whenever you think of cooking something for children, it is best if you can be a child at heart again, if only for a moment. The world of a child is magical – full of colors and lights, of attractions and fears, of greatly accentuated tastes and smells – a life of wonder and beauty….
Collard Dal – A hot and spicy curry (Gluten Free)
Collard greens is one of the perennial leafy vegetables I love most. I only need to step out of our home to gather a handful of crisp, tender collard green leaves for the kitchen. We grow a dozen or so clumps in fully organic fashion. This ensures that we get extra-tasty leaves round the year….
Cherry Tomato Pickle (Vegan + Gluten Free)
Three years ago, my husband was traveling through our neighboring district of Coorg. Full of lush green coffee and pepper plantations, it is one of the more enchanting places on earth. Though planters for generations, the Coorgs (Kodavas) are a cultured, hospitable, good-natured, well-educated, honest and proud people with a rich tradition and a legendary love of…
Kobba Sukke – Sugarcane Chickpea Dish (Vegan + Gluten-Free)
In our compound, by the side of the house, there is a sizeable clump of sugarcane. Three years ago, my husband got a plant as a gift from one of his friends. Since then, nourished with farmyard manure and watered regularly, the clump has yielded dozens of juicy, sweet sugarcanes. When my husband goes out…
Moog Dal Fry (Vegan + Gluten Free)
In the remote mountain village that I live in, the only dal available at local shops is masoor dal – split red lentils. Whenever we need tor dal (pigeon pea lentils) or urud dal (black gram lentils) or moog dal (split mung bean / green gram lentils), we have to go to the nearest town…
Dali Toye – A Konkani soupy curry (Gluten-Free)
For a traditional Konkani person, a plate of rice without dali toye to pour over it is simply inconceivable; nay impossible; for such is the passion for this delicious, simplest of lentil curries. In fact, dali toye is so simple, one could safely call it a soup, rather than a curry. Dali toye is prepared…
Agasthya Phulla Upkari – A stir-fry of good health (Vegan + Gluten Free)
Just outside my window is a beautiful hummingbird tree (Agati or Agasthy in Malayalam, Agasthya Rooku in Konkani, Heta in Marathi, Gaach Munga in Hindi, Sesbania Grandiflora). Every morning, I wake up hearing the happy chirps and songs of countless birds from tiny little lovebirds to bulbuls, mynas, parrots, hummingbirds, wild pigeons and several others…