Warning: this post has no recipes what so ever. Just a collection of funny incidents that happened over the years in our family.
Well, this whole thing started with me making Rava Dosai for dinner. It was a long day and I was tired and in my hurry to make the dough, I picked up the Cream of rice / idli rava instead of rava and made the dough. When I was making the dosas, it was not getting crispy and not getting cooked enough at all. Still my family enjoyed them and had at least 4 each, while appreciating the 'tasty' rava dosais. I realized my mistake the next day and told them what I did. And then one by one went, 'Oh! Is that why it was not good', 'Oh! Is that why it was not crispy' 'Oh! Is that why it was not cooked'. We all had a good laugh about it.
I was telling about this incident to my grandma(paati) and she recalled this particular incident.
It was a time when they had moved to a new house and all the stuff in the kitchen was all over the place. My aunt was there during the move but had to leave to her husbands house by train in the evening, so she quickly arranged the kitchen for my paati before she left.
My Grandpa(Thatha) was hungry in the evening and asked if my paati could make 'Gothumai (Wheat Flour) Dosai' for him to eat. Gothumai dosai is very similar to rava dosai except its made with Gothumai (Wheat Flour), Maida(All Purpose Four). Well, my paati made the dosai with what she thought was Maida but it was actually bleaching powder. She was struggling to make the dosai, and somehow made a few and served it to him on a plate. She also had tasted the first itty bitty one, and thought it tasted a bit funny but was too tired to notice anything major.As soon as he had the first one, he felt that his throat was on fire. He immediately lied down and accused my paati of serving him a poisonous dosai and said that he was going to die soon :) My paati found the whole situation funny and was giggling and said 'What are you talking about'. Just at that time, my (Chithapa) Thatha's younger brother who's is actually my Chinna thatha but since my mom and uncles called him chithapa all the grand kids also called him chithapa (who lived diagonally opposite us) happened to be passing by out house and stopped to say hello. He noticed that my thatha was lying down rather uncomfortably and asked him about it. My thatha narrated the whole story and then my Chithapa turned and asked my paati, 'Well if you wanted to poison him, why go out of your way and make dosai out of it, why not just give it directly!'
That's how matter of fact we are in our family!!
And then he tasted it and found that it was bleaching powder and told my thatha he had nothing to worry about and asked him to drink a litre of water to wash it out!
This one again involves my paati, the time she made Rava Kesari. She let the sugar melt and then when it was time to add rava, she added sugar again and then was wondering why it was all melting and not coming together!
Speaking of crazy families, our family friend also have equally crazy incidents. My aunt told me was how her friend 'Mrs.C' had gone for a wedding in the morning and told her family that she would do a simple 'paruppu podi' dinner. She put hot rice and ghee on everyone's plates and then put a spoonful of paruppu podi. When her son tasted it, he complained something was wrong with it and 'Mrs.C' chided everyone until she had a taste of it, the alleged 'paruppu podi' was actually Horlicks!!
This is my cousin S's first experience making Mango Cake in the form of a poem!
My attempt @ Eggless Mango Cake By S
Was my first baking experience (alone) ever.
So all the baking equipment including measuring cups & spoons, ingredients & me got together.
Made a near perfect dough – “perfect”, according to my standard.
Poured into the baking tin & off it went into the oven and me hoping my baking journey would continue onward .
The oven is new so is being tested for the first time so..
It conked off!! Tried once again but it wouldn’t budge & so hard we did try though!
But giving up is not the solution right?
And so put it in one of the saviours of the kitchen for 7-8 mins – The Microwave which put up a good fight.
Now that was a whee bit too long and so the result was a spongy edible cake..
BUT.. something told me that it was going to harden up and turn into stone bake .
So what did I do? Quickly literally gobbled up two huge slices of the cake!
Almost 60% of my first “masterpiece” of a cake
Before it turned into stone and it did eventually turn into a hard rock filled with stress,
Relished the “taste” & was pretty satisfied that none of the appliances burst in the process.
And now, my baking equipment, ingredients & me are all waiting for the oven to get well soon
So that we can together bake my official first cake hoping that doesn’t turn into a mishap too!
PS – All words within “ “ are sarcasm hints.
