Thiru Onam @ USA

This was my first onam celebration in USA... and hopefully not many to follow. Atleast after the disaster of yesterday i hope not many onams to celebrate at school.


Well y'day was one of my favourite festivals Onam. (For more details on onam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onam ) From my childhood I've been celebrating it just like anyother malayalee and since its the biggest festival in Kerala i've always looked forward to it. Now here I am sitting in USA and unable to enjoy the onam sadya (special lunch on onam day- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onam ). This wasnt bad enough that i have a cold ... sneezing every now and then and the head weighing like a 10+ kilos. I had a meeting with my advisor and practically i was not concentrating enough and now i'm stuck with more complications than what i entered his room with. So with a confused and heavy head I headed to the simulation class to be greeted by an assignment to be kept next week . Can things go worse???? well yes... i had to skip lunch too otherwise i'd be late for work! So the grand onam day was not goin on very well and when i reach home all tired and hungry i realize that its my cooking turn


Anyway its onam... so smile n be happy. Lets celebate is what my roomy's said and now again i had to cook Mallu dish for onam special! oh no... i'm tried, sleepy, sneezy and heavy. Whatever it was i had to cook so i decided to as well make it a lil keralite.. as a special treat for myself after a very hopeless day. So i started with the idea to make sambar and aviyal one of the main things and my favourites.


If there is something called beginners luck, then i dont have it. Cause one look at the fridge and i had to change my plans. So now i'm thinking about cabbage curry (thoran).. ok not a bad choice... i dont mind.. but to my surprise the cabbage was purplish colour. hmmmmmm... so not only do i not have beginners luck.. but i think i dont have any luck! Anyway by then i had lost hope on luck and decided that luck cant decide my dinner. So I put my foot down for cabbage curry. Started making a few calls to Divya on the reciepe and i was done with cabbage... i donno how it tasted or smelled... but anyway it dint look great cause it was purple!


Wanted to proceed to make something else... so called up divya again and after a lot of discussion we decided that with the vegie's and dal's i had its better to make paripu ( the yellow dal that begins the 'sadya'). So i burnt the dal in the first 2 mins of the cooking... anyway was still going to proceed... and finally made dal and added a grated mix of coconut, green chillies, onions etc etc...Now the dal dint look anyway close to the paripu i had eaten all the while in kerala.. because it had black spots of burnt dal in it even though there was no burnt taste in it!.


You need infinite amount of patience when it comes to cooking and i was i just reaching infinity . Anyway to cover things up i just added coriander leaves... something thats never added to paripu.... .So now the paripu was atleast looking good

My roomys appreciated the food.. they said it tasted yummmm.... hahahahaaaa and were discussing the yummy food they make in kerala! I hope they never eat a real onam sadya to realize that the 2 things that i made was not even close.....


Hope next onam will be better and I get an invite for onam sadya