PANCAKES, SMOOTHIES & A CONTENT SELF

We are always in a constant battle with ourselves. The pointless self-censorship is a problem that would strike a chord with many (it is required, but at a controlled measure). When is it, that you discover yourself? And is it important? I do not know. It is a matter of choice. And it seems a bit fancy for those who have dedicated their life for our happiness. I am referring to our mothers who toil themselves day after day in our homes. Ask them the above, their answer would be simple and I hope you have guessed it right.

What has made me write this is that, I started cooking. It is not my debut in kitchen (you do remember 'OUR' CHOCOLATE CAKE right?), but it was mostly joint ventures. With the magic wand in your mama’s hand, it rarely goes off the track. But now, the situation is such that I have nothing else to do in the house other than cooking, so as to engage myself, which will in turn feed two moderately hungry tummies. My brother, never hogs, he just eats right. He is doesn’t qualify as a Malayali when it comes to drinking tea. I still remember my friend Achsa saying, "Hey you know what, it is important to learn to make good chai if you are a Malayali, our men are ‘the chai’ people", and that’s absolutely true. On a holiday, you are sure to hear this on a majority of our homes, “edi oru chaaya” numerous times. And you should crack it, because they know it better, but they just don’t. And our mothers do it for the ‘chai pe charcha’.

So, he doesn’t drink either tea or coffee, so I decided to follow my aunt’s idea of the yoghurt smoothie. She does it with bananas alone, but I tried to bring in an apple to the scene (since it was available in the fridge). A glass of smoothie calls for half a glass of yoghurt, ¾ of a ripe banana and ½ an apple diced well. Since he doesn’t have a sweet tooth so I did not add sugar. Blend it well. You have your smoothie ready. It looked fine and tasted good I supposed, because he found out that I have added something apart from the banana. The next day I swapped apples with few pistachios, expecting the light green colour. That expectation in vain, but it tasted fine. Next day he had a cold, so we just went with the normal fare of eggs and chapathi’s. Now that can never go wrong, if you are an egg lover. In an inspired thought of making life interesting, I cracked my brains for something, which I haven’t made but always wanted to try. So I came up with the idea of pancakes the previous night and it cooked in my mind the entire night.

We often laugh away when we hear our mothers worriying over breakfast when people are coming over or just us alone. When it is considered a responsibility, it becomes a priority which should be done right, which she does, with love.

I ‘googled’ my way to the perfect pancake. With many sites giving me do’s and don’ts, I jotted down the basic recipe. After seeing that I have the basic ingredients, I looked at the over ripened bananas were left untouched the past two days. ‘Google’ to the rescue again. I got the perfect match for the ingredients available. I made Spiced Banana pancakes, which used buttermilk instead of milk.

The dry ingredients included, a cup of flour, a tablespoon of sugar, one-teaspoon baking powder, half a teaspoon of cinnamon and nutmeg powder, half a teaspoon of salt as well.

The wet ingredients would include a large egg, three tablespoons of melted butter, the ripe banana and a cup of buttermilk.

It is better to begin with the wet ingredients because they are messier and requires attention. So mash the banana, add the buttermilk, melted butter and beat in the egg. Keep it aside and go for the dry ingredients, which should be measured accurately and mixed well with a fork. After the pan is set, make a well in the bowl with the dry ingredients to make way for the wet ones. Mix it well; do not overdo it so ignore the lumps. The mix comes out a little thick. Brush the pan with some butter and the pour ¼ cup of the mixture onto the pan. Wait for bubbles or holes to appear on the side up and turn it over. There comes your first pancake of the day, which has made my day. With the last batch of batter, I tried some bananas and sugar on top and turned it over, for the ‘last but not the least’ phrase in action. With it being photographed as my creation by him, he had his breakfast in bliss and me in delight.

In the movie  ‘Julie and Julia’, Julie says that the fact she likes about cooking is that, ‘ After a day, when nothing you are sure about, knowing that whisking in egg yolk to chocolate, sugar and milk will make it thick, is such a comfort. True that. Cooking is escaping from the reality into another reality that you are sure of. It can give you hope that things can thicken up for the best. No wonder mothers are so full of positivity. They teach us that nothing can go wrong with love, hope and patience. By ‘they’, I mean both mothers and cooking; theirs and ours.