Fenugreek seed is one of the superfoods in an Indian pantry. As a kid, however, and even today as a grown up 30-year-old, I haven’t developed much liking for it. And so, most of the times, I just remove it aside in my plate when I see it in my curry or Kadi (made with buttermilk). The elders in my family, however, love fenugreek seeds (methi or मेठी as we call). My dad used to try feeding me Methi ki Kadi–that my mum makes especially for him–ever since my childhood days, but I always ran away when he brought a big morsel towards my face.

With age, however, I have started liking the flavour it gives to the Kadi or any other dish, but there’s still a long way to go. Yesterday, my mum made Methi ki Kadi with a side dish called Methi ki Launji (or loon-jee). It’s extremely healthy as it keeps digestion in check and controls inflammation. But there’s more to it. Methi ki Launji is both sweet and tangy in taste, and has a hint of bitterness to it; at least I feel so, unlike my dad. The raisins in it add a soft element to the dish, and it surely gives you a break from the regular vegetable recipes.

Recipe: Methi ki Launji

Ingredients:

3/4 cup – fenugreek seeds, salt to taste, oil for tempering, 1/4 cup – raisins (soaked for half an hour), 1.5 tsp coriander powder, 3/4 tsp red chilli powder, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1 tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp mango powder, a pinch of cumin seeds and asafoetida.

Method:

Boil the fenugreek seeds (my mum simply boiled it for 20 minutes); once done, strain it and keep it aside. Now take a kadai (skillet), add oil (according to your preference), and let it heat up a bit. Add the asafoetida, cumin seeds, turmeric powder and quickly add the boiled fenugreek seeds and the raisins. Now add all the other spices, salt and sugar. Let the fenugreek seeds soak in the spices for about five minutes and switch off the flame. Serve it with a parantha or roti.

I think when I start eating Methi ki Kadi and Methi ki Launji wholeheartedly, my dad would surely be proud of me. For this, according to him, is the good stuff! Make this and tell me how you like it.

During our summer vacations in Jaiselmer, we kids munched on these Khokha pods and spit its seeds aside. It was something that was done while playing or talking to the cousins. It requires no cooking or washing. Khoka is mostly sweet in taste but not overtly sweet. When the Leeli Sangri (the green pods) grow up on the Khejri tree, they become stiff in texture (when not plucked from the tree) and are called Khoka.

When a bag of Khoka is kept in a room, its sweet fragrance takes over so much so that you can almost find it difficult to bear; but not me! I love it! My Nani got this bag full of Khoka for her eldest son, Deenu (one of my dear Mamas).

The nearby deserts of Jaiselmer enjoy the goodness of Khejri tree; each stage of the tree gives back to its caring keepers. No wonder people worshipped trees back then. And for someone living in the desert, each tree mattered so much!

My blog is all about my mother; it’s my personal journal where I save my mother’s recipes. When I got married into a different community and in a different state, I started to notice the difference and valued Marwari food, especially my mum’s hand-cooked food even more. She never gave us stale or leftover food; she knows how to cook a meal in 15 mins and we have always had freshly made food on our plates. Food trends never mattered for her, but native grains did. In spite of having three kids, mum managed the kitchen extremely well. Abundance, that’s what her kitchen is all about. Abundance of food to feed the family, nearby animals and birds and the underprivileged. Even when we did face a financial crunch, mum never let us feel that we have less; our platter was always full with healthy and flavourful food. One thing I have inherited from her is her love to feed the family and friends without praising herself. Good food is meant to feed souls not your ego; and she is the one who taught me this. For my mother and I, it’s not about how perfect the food is but how we can share with more people around us. I hope I succeed in my endeavour to save all her recipes through my blog; it might take years, but I hope I do my best. Can I cook like her? Not in this lifetime, but I will keep trying till I breathe my last. And so, today, I want to wish all the mothers of the universe, on earth and in heaven, a happy Mother’s Day! A mother’s magic never ends even if she is far away amidst the stars or just a feet away.

I paint my dreams auburn, when I know they’ll never come true, when I know they’ll be broken again.

Sometimes, I just feel life is about sailing by.

But if you live a slow death, yes, there can be such times, you need to look at the other side of life.

Look into the mirror, see those freckles and eye circles, the strands of white hair that act like a crown on your head, that chapped smile and hopeless eyes.

And force a smile. May be, just for one more instance, pray, saying that this time, God will paint your dream pink and make it true.

“If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”

– Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre (also quoted in the Netflix series, Anne with an E).

They say time heals everything. Every wound. Every cut. Every scar. But, I somehow, don’t think anything can ever heal the minute broken pieces of the glass powder. When pressed against the skin, it can hurt the most. And when there are a million pieces of glass broken into a powder, the jar can never be kept close. Never. It has to be abandoned. Immediately. And forgotten. Wish, we could abandon our dreams too. Forever.

“Our lives are not in the lap of the gods but in the hands of our cooks. Hence befriend your cook because so much of the enjoyment of life lies within his power to give or take away as he sees fit. It is the invariable test of a wise man whether he has good food at home or not.”

– Confucian (Chinese teacher) view of food (as read in the book, The Essential Andhra Cookbook)

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing direction. You change direction, but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverised bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.”

– Haruki Murakami in Kakfa on the Shore 

“If you can’t write a decent short story because of the cold, write something else. Write anything. Write a long letter to somebody. Tell them how cold you are. By the time the letter is received the sun will be out again and you will be warm again, but the letter will be there mentioning the cold. If it is so cold that you can’t make up a little ordinary Tuesday prose, why, what the hell, say anything that comes along, just so it’s the truth. Talk about your toes freezing, about the time you actually wanted to burn books to keep warm but couldn’t do it, about the phonograph. Speak of the little unimportant things on a cold day, when your mind is numb and feet and hands frozen. Mention the things you wanted to write but couldn’t. This is what I have been telling myself.”

~ The Cold Day by William Saroyan

PS: Found this short story in a book titled The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (Faber and Faber) written by William Saroyan. Bought this book from Any Amount of Books, London.