A disaster far away

When I got back a while ago from a meeting in connection with the walkathon in March, I was quickly, mentally reviewing the list of chores/things to do at home and during the day and re-started the computer in order to check and reply to any e-mails before I go to school in a while for the session at the library with Indira’s class.

The online accounts, in various news sources, of the earthquake in Haiti this Tuesday and it’s terrible effects made me pause though.

And I find myself thinking that while life must and does go on, there is something unreal and somehow not right about this, that the devastation of a country and it’s people has not really registered on my mind in any significant way, so that I continue about my affairs blithely…

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A Fantastic Herb Chopper

This is just the coolest kitchen tool, one that’s always such a pleasure to use.

As Bou di says, there is something almost elegant about it.

I got this one from IKEA and it works like a beauty.

Butter Churner

This kitchen tool is not exactly a favorite.

But it deserves its own post here to record the memory of this evening, when the story of “The Three Little Pigs” led us to attempt making butter by hand…

One of my not-favorite memories of my Ma’s kitchen is of all the times I was roped in to help make the butter. It required working, with one of these hand-operated churners, the large quantities of cream she collected ( this was done over several days by removing the layer of cream formed on top of each day’s supply of milk- delivered fresh every day by the neighrborhood doodhvala –  after it had been boiled, and adding it to the previous days’ collection which was stored in a large pot or box in the fridge) . The process always seemed never-ending and very tiring.  So, much as I enjoyed helping her in the kitchen, I simply dreaded being around when Ma took the cream out with the intention of making butter with it !

But these churners do have other uses, such as to make daal more smooth, if the grains do not appear as well-blended as they should be, so I do have one in my kitchen too, though until today I had never thought I’d ever use it to make butter.

Then, some days ago, Noor wanted to know what a butter-churn is. The version of  “The Three Little Pigs”  we were reading that night says that the third pig hid himself inside a butter churn to escape the wolf and I found myself suggesting that we could try and make butter ourselves, with the kind of churner I have, to understand how this works.

The girls of course jumped at the idea since they love any such experiments.

Which is how Shri and I found ourselves bent this evening over a bowl of creme entiere, churning away, as we all watched the news after dinner.

Here’s the result of over half an hour of our hard work  –

I do look forward to eating this with a parantha tomorrow 🙂

Sometimes, when in Ma’s kitchen we happened to make the butter in time for breakfast – she planned it this way when possible –  a pat of the freshly made butter on a hot aloo ka parantha made the effort suddenly worthwhile …

The girls could not stop exclaiming about the effort this task involved as Shri and I worked at it. Well, I certainly hope they’ll remember this particular experiment !