MCC (Malnad Cuisine and Culture)

This Oct, my brother-in-law got married in coastal Karnataka, place called Kumta that is close to Gokarna and Murudeshwar. It was a welcome break for both of us to get rid of busy schedules for atleast a week.
The girl’s family had organized a Yakshagaana show the previous evening for all of us. The hall was completely packed with people and I was watching the show for the first time in my life. It was abt “Jambhavati Kalyana”, how Krishna loses Shamantaka mani and goes in search of it and encounters “Jaambhavanta”, teaches him a lesson while recovering the Mani and end up getting married to his daughter, Jambhavati. Three people were stationed on the stage – one for singing and explaining, one for beating drums for female character and one beating the drum for male character. The beat used for female characters is very gentle, slow and mild while the beats used for men are more loud and fast. Eyes are the most important feature for describing various emotions and the artists gave full justice to the characters they portrayed using the right expressions.

It was worth watching each and every move displayed. It was much more entertaining than watching any bollywood movie. I sincerely appreciate the talent of these people and I hope to get more chance to see such kind of programmes.
Another unforgettable thing abt this wedding would be the food prepared at the groom’s place during reception. The entire food was prepared using firewood in a traditional way and I must say that the taste of the food is definitely tastier, than the food prepared using LPG. Being a flavourist, I can vouch for it and can give a detailed explanation to it.
Some of the delicacies from this region includes – an appetizer prepared using buttermilk, with tempering of cumin seeds and ajwain leaves, mango pickle (prepared using small whole green mangoes), kashaaya ( prepared by boiling coriander seeds, cumin powder with water and jaggery and added milk before serving) – truly gives a refreshing experience, green mango rasam and saasve – prepared using grated cucumber, coconut and yoghurt and tempered with mustard seeds and red chilli are just a few examples.
After enjoying all desi cuisines and culture, I had to pack off immediately to go to Shanghai – to experience a totally different culture and cuisine.. I will soon find time to update the blog.

Hello Singapore

Recently I got a chance to visit Singapore for 10 days for a training workshop. I wasn’t really in my usual enthusiastic mode, due to work pressure.. I had to complete some line trials in our factory before departing to S’pore and barely got 2 days to pack off. Three of us were to go to S’pore in the same flight. On Sunday- 27th July, it was a bloomy day and was raining slightly. Fearing that there would be heavy rains, I left home quite early and my spouse was kind enough to drop me at the airport. The whole process got finished so fast that I reached the gate almost 2 hrs before time. I got a chance to roam around the renovated airport and started reading a book. We landed in S’pore by 7.30 pm and reached hotel by about 8.30 pm. We were too tired to go out for dinner. So I ordered food in my room only. I got a first hands experience on the vegetarian food. It smelt a little different than normal- probably the food was cooked in sesame oil..
Next day after a sumptuous breakfast, met up with old colleagues from Australia, Thailand and China – started chatting about the recent happenings in our company. The conversation lasted till the time we reached office in Woodlands, almost an hour’s drive from the hotel.After the training, I planned to extend my stay for a project and met a college friend over the weekend. The thought of meeting her kept me motivated and charged throughout the training. Over the weekend, we covered almost all places in S’pore except Sentosa. Singaporeans have a distinct English accent one cannot miss… Ok la, I go with you.. The taxi drivers are very helpful and it is very easy to go around places..I did manage to do a lot of shopping, that on the day of departure, I wasn’t sure if I had exceeded my luggage limit, but somehow managed to squeeze in everything in one bag. Not that Singapore is the best place for shopping, but I required retail therapy to get rid of my stress and chill out..During my next visit, I hope to discover some more interesting things abt this place..

Mumbai to Satara...

View of Satara city from Ajinkyataara Hill
I am blogging after a long time..…. blame my busy work schedule , or my laziness or both, nevertheless here is another trip overview… On Jan 26th our small group of friends decided to spend a weekend in one of our friend’s place in Satara.
A small intro abt Satara – It’s a district abt 4 hrs away from Mumbai and though not as popular as the other cities like Pune, Nagpur, it has got its own charm and we realized it after visiting this place.
Our journey started a day earlier in the evening straight from office. We met at Vashi, parked out vehicle there and started the journey in a TT, after breaking coconut and offering a small prayer. On the way, we picked up a few more friends from Poona, who were kind enough to get us all home-made food for dinner. After polishing away every bit of it – the fun part started.
Mr and Mrs VK had prepared some interesting games and they started off with a game called Telepathy. This involves a unique telepathy between two people A and B. The group decides to tell A a word – can be anything from air, water, space etc and person B recognizes the correct word without any doubts, however complex the word is…. It was interesting to solve the technique…I will not write it here, cos I will need it perhaps somewhere else..
It was past midnight when we reached our friend’s place. His family was very hospitable and they were kind enough to keep the beds ready for all of us and all we had to do was just crash down… Early next morning, my spouse volunteered to warm some water by lighting firewood. One group had the privilege to take bath in this water, while some had to manage with water from geyser. By 9.00 we were all ready and started off in the bus to a place called Ajinkyataara.

The TT stopped at the foot of the hillock and our friend recommended us all to trek all the way up the hillock. What looked like a 30 minute hike took us almost 2 hrs to go up and we enjoyed Misal Pav there on top of the Ajinkyataara hill. The view of city was beautiful from that point and the weather was absolutely perfect. From there we went to a place near a stream, found a suitable place to cook food. The lunch menu comprised of Bhakri ( rotis made from Jowar) Baingan Bharta (Coal roasted Egg plant mashed with added selective spices), rice, kadhi (prepared from buttermilk and chickpea flour) and some yummy fresh jalebis. The guys took care of heating firewood and somebit of cooking, while the girls completed the cutting, cooking and finishing the cooking… While food was being prepared we played some group games – hitting the ball, badminton. The food prepared on charcoal wood tasted great… The flavour of the eggplant after cooked on firewood was something really intesting. The Papad prepared on the hot charcoal simply tasted superb…

From there we started off to another plave to take a look at 100’s of windmills. After taking pictures there, we went to a place called Sajjangad fort to enjoy the sunset. We had to climb abt 300 steps to reach the top of the fort and spent good time there.

In the evening we had a campfire on the terrace and got good chance to interact with the entire family of our friend and also played some interesting games…The next day too we ventured out in a different direction and stopped by a water body to warm the food.. The josh to prepare the entire course of meal on firewood had diminished. We’d rather spend time in playing games… There was a game on ‘ how well do you know ur partner and we managed to win the game marginally beating our nearest competitor… What made us lose points was a Q on my favourite fruit and I said Orange ( it was actually water-melon) My spouse guessed it right, but I messed up.I don’t know how it skipped out of my mind, inspite of this we were able to win the game.
From there we went back to our friend's place packed up and started back to Mumbai. On the way back, we shared good memories of the trip. Overall the trip was excellently managed.
We were almost 10 people, with a small girl. There was no messing up on anything - time of food, planning of places and even games - everything was executed to perfection. I would attribute this successful trip to good planning, good team work, excellent co-ordination between all members... Kudos to us all and hope to have more excursions in this way!!