The Aaloo Sheddho Gang!!!

It happened quite by chance today. I've always really loved eating that typical Bengali comfort food - aaloo sheddho bhaat with ghee and kaancha lonka.... While growing up in Delhi, this was never a part of our menu, but yes, sometimes if ma wasn't well, or if the vegetables were kind of in that stage when you're about to head for the sabzi mandi (those days we didn't have vegetable stores in malls, remember?!), the quintessential aaloo was what most homes would still have, and ours was no exception. So it would be a meal of daal bhaat and aaloo sheddho. And that's how I got introduced to it and fell in love with it.
Image courtesy kichukhonn.blogspot.in

Of course this isn't a dish that people from other cultures or regions know of, and I don't expect them to like it either. It's requires quite a different kind of palette to enjoy this one I feel. I remember once as a kid when I was visiting Kolkata and went to a relatives' house for lunch, they asked me what I would love to have and I replied - aaloo sheddho bhaat! Poor people! The poor things had toiled the whole day preparing a lavish Bengali spread, complete with various kinds of torkari (sabzi), daal, bhaaja, maachh (fish) and chutney and sweets, and all I wanted to have was aaloo sheddho! They were aghast and my parents were quite embarassed! Of course I didn't get to have it, though I did get to have that amazingly delicious Bengali ghee that I have loved ever since and of late have asked any visiting relative to pick up from Cal if they happen to come over here. I'm talking of that grainy brown ghee - Jharna Ghee!

Bengali Script: My First Memories of Learning The Bangla Words

I've always been an avid reader, a compulsive reader who can't live without books! And for as long as I remember, I've been reading, my oldest reading memories being around the age I was 3.....While I was a kid, the scripts I was reading were English and Hindi.

My ma used to read me a lot of Bengali books of rhymes and stories that she used to buy on our once-a-year or once-in-two years trip to Kolkata, and if my grandparents or aunts were visiting, they would always brings some new Bengali books for me, that my ma would read out to me...Of course I didn't understand most of it, the words sounded unfamiliar and I there were so many unknown and alien words that I stopped asking about them after some time. The situations and the settings sounded different, like a different world out there, and I loved the dreamy, faraway feel of reading these stories from Bengal.

The Hand Rickshaw

image courtesy thehindu.com

For those of you living in Kolkata, this may be a regular, every day image. If you're a reader who doesn't live in Kolkata, does this image mean anything to you? To me, it instantly brings up words like An Evening In The Streets, A cosy day with books, nostalgia, many cups of ginger tea, old-world charm, crowded streets, footpaths, bargain, old age.....will add more words here as they come to mind.

 Isn't this just gorgeous? Though I completely condemn the practice, I found this hand-rickshaw parked outside my guest house when I was staying in Kolkata, India, a few months back.


- Debolina Raja Gupta

Beginning of Winter: The Aaloo Kopi Way!

Winter is slowly creeping in, and there's one very very special fragrance that I have always associated with winters, and I guess always will.

When I was living in Delhi, every time the winters would start drifting in, ma would cook a cabbage dish (as this was my absolute favourite) and this would be the season when the vegetable would be the freshest in the market. It was a really simple preparation, hardly any spices or masala, the only special touch being the extra-than-usual adding of peas, and the one ingredient that is almost a must in every bengali household - aaloo (potato).

I made this yesterday (you can see the cabbage, tomatoes, peas, potato and bay leaf) and my hubby and daughter loved it too. It wasn't as delicious as ma makes it, but it did bring back to me my memories of my years spent in ma's kitchen, and also the fragrance of the beginning of this year's winter.

- Debolina Raja Gupta