Practice Safe Eating - Always Use Condiments

Instead of heading straight to the freezer for a bowl of mocha almond fudge, as you and I would, Gauri, mom spent the whole week moping inwardly and pondering on the meaning of her goal-less life. (She usually mopes outwardly to get dad’s attention, but he was out of town.)

“Why was I born?” she wondered. “What is my true identity against the backdrop of this temporal existence? How do I make rational decisions despite living in an irrational universe? Does existence precede essence or essence precede existence? What do deconstruction and postmodern linguistics mean, anyway?”

Clearly, the woman needed a goal - something that would give her a sense of achievement and restore her spirits before dad returned.

Finally, on Thursday, somewhere between rahu kalam and yama gandam, enlightenment hit mom the way it did Cary Grant in the climax scene of Charade. Resisting the urge to shout, “Eureka!” mom snapped her fingers instead, grabbed the closest pen and started writing furiously in her Franklin planner. As she voided her thoughts on paper, a strange sense of inner peace and relief transcended her, much the same way one feels upon finding a dry restroom - with toilet paper - in India.

My resourceful human had planned the weeknight dinner menu for the next four weeks!
(Disclaimer – Please note that the below list is not an open invitation to dinner. It’s just an illustration to show that mom’s somewhat smarter than she looks.)

WEEK 1
Onion adai w/vegetable kurma
Roti w/mushroom sabji
Veggie quesadilla
Mor keerai and roast potatoes
Roti w/paneer jalfrezi


WEEK 2
Mor kozhambu w/beans paruppu usili
Roti w/chole
Penne pasta
Palak parantha w/tadka dal and salad
Dosai w/sambar and bhindi


WEEK 3
Mexican lasagna
Punjabi kadhi w/gobhi – mattar
Methi parantha w/dal makhani
Vazhakai kootu and rasam
Roti w/aloo dum


WEEK 4
Roti w/rajma and salad
Chow chow dal w/rasam
Veggie burrito
Dosai w/aviyal
Roti w/palak paneer

Feeling rather pleased with herself, mom set off to the grocery store, armed with her weekly menu and a new resolve to not wander down each and every aisle like she normally does and throw random produce into her cart that would eventually rot in her crisper.

Buying only what she needed for the week (with the exception of those chocolate doughnuts as a pat-on-the-back treat), mom headed home Friday night, eager to start her project the following morning.

Circumstances beyond her control, however, like baseball practice, play dates, a sick child, phone calls to all and sundry to tell them about her plan and a long-overdue DVD, delayed the undertaking until late Sunday night. When dad and Anu returned home from tennis in the evening, the smell of sambar powder and slightly singed red chilies assailed their nostrils as soon as they opened the garage door.

“Why are you cooking now?” frowned dad, as he rushed to open the patio door for ventilation, allowing the hovering moths outside to fly right into the kitchen. “Turn the vent on,” he said, in a tone that implied that it was somehow mom’s fault that Indian spices were so pungent and made one want to sneeze.

“Yuck! What’s this?” Anu muttered, eyeing the mushroom curry and mor keerai lying next to the adai batter. “Why can’t we just have pizza every day?”

“I want igly,” whined Kuki, when clearly idlis were not on the weekly menu.

The revving ventilator drowned further grumbles and protests, and mom diligently continued cooking, until she had crossed off every item on her list.

It was close to midnight by the time mom gently lowered herself into bed, reeking of onions and ginger-garlic paste. As dad turned on his side in a huff and pulled the covers over his head, mom realized that while dhana-jeeru and garam masala can titillate one’s taste buds, the spices do precious little to lift one's libido.