STORY OF A PICKLE JAR

For those who are fermenting in life's vinegar under harsh sunlight.

[rijutapakeezah]

[rijutapakeezah]

[rijutapakeezah]

CURRY ON A LIFEBOAT

Meena was waiting for her mother to come back. She was sitting cross-legged on a wide chair peeking out of the main door every 2 minutes. Her eyes watched and her ears intently listened for the sound of her mother’s slippers flip-flopping on the first stair. She had been waiting for more than an hour for her little red-yellow tomatoes. She had eaten more than 10 a day before yesterday. Those little tomatoes were more precious to her than any other fruit of the season.

Drumming her fingers, humming a random tune, clicking her tongue, shaking her leg once in a while, she waited and waited. At last, her mother came. She dashed for the bag. Only their tangy smell filled her mouth with water. It was more than 2 kgs this time. Their cheap price made her day a lot more enjoyable. While she was washing them, her mother told her about cooking tomato potato curry for dinner. She stopped, gaped, and moaned. For her, it was the most boring dish one could have.

Hello fellow pickles,

I know it has been a while.

Yes, you guessed it right. We are cooking the same curry today, eaten widely in Northern India.

Take 5 medium potatoes, peel, and wash. Cut them into pieces of the size of your liking and put the pieces in a bowl filled with water, otherwise, they’ll oxidize turning them brown. You can BOIL them too.

Take 5 medium tomatoes, preferably thin-skinned, locally procured tomatoes. Wash. I find the tomatoes having sweet, tangy, sour flavors all at once, immensely mouth-watering.  The cocktail of flavors adds to the richness of your yet-to-be-cooked curry. Cut them into pieces any way you want ( we don’t need to be fussy every time).

In a kadhai( iron kadhai, preferably), take some mustard oil, heat, lower the flame, and add cumin seeds, after they crackle, add asafetida. Add some grated or chopped ginger. Please do not burn it like I do sometimes. Now add tomatoes. Add half a teaspoon of turmeric. Saute well. Add green chilies,  and salt to release the moisture. Cook till tomatoes are soft and mushy.

Now, add potatoes. Before adding potatoes, you can add some ketchup too, trust me it will give you a lingering umami flavor. Fry the potatoes at high flame for a minute. Then add water.  If you don’t want a curry, then lower the flame, put on the lid, and let it cook. The acidic property of tomatoes slower the cooking process of vegetables (don’t say, I didn’t tell you. So, patience my dear. For the curry, let it cook for at least 10 minutes before checking. When ensured, remove the lid and thicken the gravy if you want it like that.  Now add coriander powder ( to prevent it from turning brown), mango powder ( layering of flavors is the best), and if you have, some crushed Kasuri Methi. Lip-smacking!

ANNNNND! Tadaaa!! Done and cooked.

I don’t care for this curry much like Meena, especially, if it is cooked in a pressure cooker which gives it a boiled flavour. I prefer a fried flavour.  You can add onions and garlic too. But on days when your motivation cannot find you, this helps a lot. As soon as the flavours hit my taste buds, my mind starts dodging vicious self-doubts, given it is cooked properly. It brings me home, not that I am somewhere else. Safe, secured and relaxed. A sense of control arises with an assurance that no matter what happens in the future, I could come to this recipe for a sense of easy reality. To bring me on the ground to keep me sane on one of those days when your mind looks like that universe where Doctor Strange found collapsed reality. I believe food, more important, such recipes are like finding a newspaper clipping you saved in a book when you were a kid to make yourself grow and then forgot to read.

You might not be a fan of ingredients but could love a whole recipe. You might love the ingredients separately and hate the outcome of their togetherness.  In the end, it is the life you see on your plate. So, my fellow pickles, boring as it may be, this is the one curry that could keep your boat of diet, morale, discipline, or, survival floating when you fail to find the shore.

[rijutapakeezah]

PEAS OUT OF A POD!

“Harry’s mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now filled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, chips, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup and, for some strange reason, mint humbugs.”

- HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE

Hello, fellow pickles,

Whenever I think of cooking meals, my mind quickly goes to this scene. How I wish I were at Hogwarts. The dishes appear out of nowhere, I keep eating till I am full, the leftovers disappear and there are no dishes to be done. Aah! Heaven..! Then I go to my kitchen, try to swish and flick my knife, but nothing appears. WHY AM I NOT A WITCH?

After some daydreaming, I come back to this boring muggle world. Eventually, I have to have a meal plan. In the last winters, I found something which was close to having food out of nowhere on your plate. Haa! PEAS! MATARR!

Now, I know you would say I am crazy because who on earth would take the peas out of their pods when we are already scraping the bottom of the barrel of motivation to cook. Here is the catch. FROZEN PEAS! They have literally been the lifeguard of my sinking-homemade dinner plans.

You know, when I was little, my mother used to scare me off with the green worms curled inside the pods for the obvious Indian-middle-class reasons, “agar padhogi nahi to keede se kahenge tumhe kaat le?” Well, I was not a fan of those green worms, so, apparently, I used to run in another direction.

When I think of winters, one of the first things that come to my mind is my mother and other ladies of my neighbourhood collecting peas in their spare time under mild sunlight. They used to exchange their worries, good news, anticipations, judgments, and sometimes cooking advice over this activity. Strange, right? A simple plant, once loved by Mendell, can spark a fire of conversations on any mundane day.

Interestingly, they say that proper etiquette for eating peas is to squash them on the back of the fork and then eat them. All I have learned is first you steal some peas, a handful if you are lucky, right under your mother’s nose and run as fast as you can away from her while throwing them in your mouth. In 1984, Janet Harris broke a Guinness World Record by consuming 7175 peas in 60 minutes using chopsticks. What a waste of time! We Indians take a pod, peel it, eat the peas between two blinks right in front of the vendor without his knowledge. We love PISUM SATIVUM.

Had it not been for peas, I wonder what would have been the topic of conversation among the guests in a vegetarian wedding over a buffet. Shockingly, before the 1600s, the French thought it was madness to eat peas green. How times change! Good in Vitamin A, C, B1, Iron, Phosphorus, Folate, and protein, what would have been saving my life in the kitchen in 2°C? I guess this is the reason why England has varieties named Early Superb and Little Marvel. We too have Jawahar Matar, Jawahar Pea, Mithi Phali, Hissar Harit, etc. *

As for me, I love peas, not the worms, but little green pearls. In the peak winters, we have the sweetest variety. When you cook it, a sweet smell rises from the pot and fills the room. This is basically any winter night aroma of my kitchen. I wonder, does humanity too have a season like this, the season which brings the peak of ethics, morality, beauty, conscience, and strength in us at a certain time of the year? If it comes, does it come for each individual at a different time? Or does a community have it together? Or a nation has it together? I would love to find my that time of the year.

In the meantime, we can enjoy the plant's sweetness. What I do is:

Take a dollop of ghee (remember?)

Heat it and lower the flame

Add cumin seeds, let them dance in the hot ghee. Then, add a pinch of asafetida.

Add slit green chilies (as per your tolerance to heat)

Add the peas. Mix them. Add salt to taste.

You can also add turmeric but I like to go green.

Sauté the mix. Let it fry till the peas start to shrivel. Keep turning it over so the peas don’t burn otherwise your friends will never let you forget that you had black peas on your plate. 😁

Add some Garam Masala, my favorite ingredient. If you want you can also add some chopped coriander.

TADAA! Your recipe is done! It is THIS SIMPLE.

What I learned from this dish is sometimes we need to take the simple route in an otherwise complicated life. We don’t need to create a mess for ourselves just because we have big goals. Be in physical, philosophical, intellectual, or spiritual growth, such small and simple steps help us become a much better version of ourselves. These steps keep us afloat, not those complex ones that might look like they are helping but, in reality, they actually are pushing the boat an inch deeper into the river.

I know, this recipe is exactly not bringing food on your plate out of nowhere. But if we look closely, this does make us a better Muggle if not a Wizard. And that’s what counts in every world. Doesn’t it?

*From apnikheti.com

[rijutapakeezah]

[rijutapakeezah]

THE RIGHT SIDE OF A ROTI

Whenever a girl is born in India, the countdown begins for her to learn to make Rotis. I remember I was hardly 7 or 8, when a neighbor mama (everyone is a mama there) of my Nani’s house asked my mother, watching me ensconced in her lap if I could prepare the entire meal.

“Khana bana leti hongi ye?” would be the ultimate question. I was lucky that my mother was more worried about my education. Sadly, not all girls are. Obviously, his daughters were adept in all domestic activities by the age of 10.

Fast-forwarding to the time when I was in college, I started preparing lunch first thing in the morning. I realized that I didn’t find it taxing. I enjoyed cooking, realizing this really late. Another privilege actually, enjoying the activity which is used as a benchmark of someone’s worth even today. All my school friends (a girls’ school) were experts in cooking by the time they had reached the 10th standard. I wasn’t. I reiterate I was privileged.

Skipping 7 years, coming to 2021, making Rotis was not a choice anymore. And when it is not a choice, the process certainly comes with some obligations. One would think that making bread, which is prepared almost three times a day in almost every Indian household, would be easy.

Let me burst the bubble for you. IT IS NOT. IT IS SO NOT. Did you know that you have to make a round roti? Not too chewy, not too thick, not too crusty, not too thin? Did you know it has a right side? And, if you do not recognize the right side, other people will judge you. The right side of a round bread can be a litmus test of your integrity as a cook. Moreover, the test of the ability of you being a good housewife or simply a good girl? Sick.

Every person who lives in a hostel or a flat or a PG knows really well the importance of a good roti. But enforcing this as a must-have, how fair is it?

With time I learned, you knead the dough and do not start making Rotis right after out of it. No. You wait for the gluten present in wheat to activate. So, my beginner friends, if you often wonder, why your dough doesn’t look the like the ones Ranveer Brar or your mother use, you start letting the gluten activate. And see that the dough is round and fluffy. PATIENCE! PATIENCE! Pinch a ball out of dough and roll it with a Belan, which by the way, is the most favorite weapon of mothers in every Indian household.

Interestingly, I have had some people telling me that boys make round rotis and use more flour for dusting than girls do. RIDICULOUS. Would this leave any area of our life? Can a girl or for that matter any person make food and eat without having these non-sensical “facts” heard? Can those boys or men or anybody, who like to cook for themselves or fortunately, others, enjoy what they do without having a stereotype attached to it? I say you light the gas stove, mount the Tava/ pan (preferably Iron Tava since it is healthier for you), and make Rotis of any shape you want or any thickness you want. If you don’t have round dhakkan of any dabba to shape the roti, have a square dhakkan, USE THAT! If you have ghee, coat the roti on both sides and break the generational habit of making others feel worthless.

They say if life gives you lemons, make lemonade, but I pickled them. Life has also given me wheat flour that too without bran. One will need more than a lemon pickle to digest them and lead a lighter life. The question “Hua kya?” will not haunt only your kids but you too. Those who can afford are taking ‘Aashirvaad’ of ‘Fortune Fresh Chakki Aata’, those who cannot are eating dust peppered with flour.

My friends, who do not have anybody to cook for them, who love to cook for themselves and their families; who cannot have anybody to cook for them;who do not want to have anybody to cook for them; who hate to come back from their offices and do not want to use Zomato or Swiggi or any dabba of “ghar ka khana”; who work from their home; who work for their home; who love to make dinner for their parents; who want to sleep without nightmares; please, please, do not burden yourself with any “rules” or “sahi tareeka(the right way)"; if you keep doing that, it will eventually come to you. Even if it doesn’t, nobody should stop you from doing what brings you peace. Life has already many sides to blow you away, let not the food you cook come with sides and take your peace away.

You know, roti or chapati is a very fundamental element of an Indian thali. At the end of the day, we all crave Rotis made and served with love. I remember how my friend told me one day how she only wanted her mother’s roti after having lived in the US for 2 years. As for me, no thali is satiating enough for me if it is lacking Rotis. I think we all want to be this fundamental in somebody’s life. But, I also realized in the last couple of years that if we are not being this fundamental to ourselves, we cannot be someone else’s or have someone else. WE MUST BE THE ROTI OF OUR LIFE’S THALI. I know we would take some time to recognize our right side without any judgment, but eventually, we will get there.

[rijutapakeezah]

Something to think about!!!

[rijutapakeezah]

NOT SO BHARWAN BAINGAN

“Ye wala 10 rupaye kilo, beech wala 20 rupaye kilo, aur wo 30 rupaye kilo”, a busy vendor telling me the prices of three tomato mounds on his cart, on a regular “sabzi mandi” day. The qualities of tomatoes don’t bother you with a question like “why?” 10 /kg ones are small, juicy, not firm, yellow-orange tomatoes with dark spots on some; 20/kg ones are not exactly tomato red but red enough to qualify as a tomato.; 30 /kg ones , sitting respectably on a wicker basket, are obviously, the big, round, with only one eye, tomato-red tomatoes. Each mound has some demand. Yet you would never find shouting at the top of his voice the prices of the costliest mound. I bet you can hear “10 ka ek kilo tamatar” or something similar in your native language.

Hello fellow pickles, welcome back to my blog.

India is a diverse country, something which has been taught to us from the 2nd standard of our education. We are different people. From different religions to different regions, from different castes to different arts, we have everything. However, I find the deepest diversity in people when I see them standing with a vegetable in their hand asking for another variety of it. It can vary in price, quality, size, shape, or sometimes even color. It is actually an integral part of our deep-rooted culture to look for different opinions and perspectives, then, why not vegetables. It is a ritual, a deeply-ingrained habit that is passed from one generation to another as an entity. We only realize it when we face the world alone. Quite like Amazon’s ridiculous ad, I HAD IT AND I DIDN’T KNOW IT.

“Bhaiya, chhote aaloo nahi hain kya?” “Bhaiya, laal mirch nahi hai kya? Sirf hari mirch hi rakhe ho”

There is one vegetable that actually keeps our desire to choose, rightfully so, satiated, without actually changing its core characteristics. Brinjal. Eggplant. Aubergine. Don’t ask me why exactly there are three different names. Baingan. Baingun. What not. Brinjal, by the way, is used as a vegetable but, actually, is a BERRY BY BOTANICAL DEFINITIONS. This plant is NATIVE TO INDIA. As far as this vegetable/fruit is concerned, we are lucky in more than one way.

If you visit any “sabzi mandi” or “sabzi bazaar” on any winter day, you will find not 1, 2, or 3 types of brinjals, but 4 TYPES OF BRINJALS. NOOOO! (Oh god, I just heard Monica screaming in my head, I KNOW!).

They are:

1. BHARTE WALA BAINGAN- probably the biggest edible variety, round and deep purple.

2. BHARWAN BAINGAN- probably the smallest variety, tear-shaped and deep purple (it actually feels like berry, now coming to think of it, hunh, who knew?)

3. TYPICAL BRINJAL-THE BAINGAN- tear-shaped but long and big, sometimes curved at the end or not, deep purple again

4. SAFED BAINGAN- WHITE ONES- I have never eaten them. But they have a similar taste and are fairly easy to grow in your backyard. The variety actually earned the term “eggplant”. Looks like eggs with green shades sometimes.

If you have come across more varieties, then please let me know.

Thus, you can see how interesting it can be to visit a market, have your mind boggled, and totally forget what you had come into the market for.

For me, the BHARWAN BAINGAN does the trick. Now, before, any of you, who hates BAINGAN and leaves the device you are reading this on behind, let me tell you, I used to hate it too. Quite literally. I used to say, KAUN KHATA HAI YE?

But, thanks to this simple dish, designed by my great-grandmother, I fell in love with the vegetable (ok, fruit). The dish is called BHARWAN BAINGAN. I know, I know. Not here to confuse you. Then what it is?

Interestingly, there is nothing BHARWAN about this recipe which means you would not have to stuff anything inside the brinjal. Quite contrary to the ones you often find on a big tawa stationed on a corner in a wedding buffet. It is actually a child’s play.

· You start with buying the right brinjals. By right I mean, those which do not have any holes or eyes on their skin, are not too soft not too tight, just tight so that when you press a thumb, an impression is left. Wash them (pickles, we are living in a pandemic-hit world). Wash them.

· Cut them into 4 pieces after removing the crown and leave the pieces in a bowl filled with water. Do not leave brinjal pieces open without soaking them in water as the pulp starts oxidizing, thus, rendering the white pulp brown.

· Take a Kadhai (wok), (iron kadhai would be the best). Add the preferred amount of oil (mustard oil would be the best) and let it get hot. Add some fenugreek seeds, asafetida, split green chilies. Add brinjals.

· Now, add some turmeric, coriander powder, cumin powder, and salt to taste. Mix them and cover the Kadhai. Do the entire process on a low to medium flame.

· Turn the sabzi over after every 3-4 minutes. The entire process takes time since brinjals take time to absorb oil to their core. After you feel the brinjals are cooked, keep the flame low, and add the ultimate and lip-smacking spice-mix, THE BHARWAN MASALA (my favorite part).

· For the masala you need, 6 teaspoons of fennel seed powder,4 teaspoons of coriander seeds, fenugreek seeds- 2 teaspoons, cumin seeds- 2 teaspoons, mango powder -2 teaspoons, and black pepper powder-1 teaspoon. Roast them and grind them. Add it to the sabzi as per your taste at the end, give it a mix at a slightly higher flame than earlier.

Now, I know being a beginner cook, this may sound exhausting but believe me, there is a reason this recipe persisted for four generations in my family.

· Switch off the stove, cover the lid, let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Let the spices release their flavor.

TADAA! Done. Have it with parathas. You won’t regret reading this long waffling.

To look for the legacies and cultures of your family, we don’t need to look far. Maybe it is not some jewelry piece, a piece of land, a dialect, a language, or an article of clothing, it can be a simple recipe like this. As ELIF SHAFAK says in “THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES”:

“Because in real life, unlike in history books, stories come to us, not in their entirety but in bits and pieces, broken segments and partial echoes, a full sentence here, a fragment there, a clue hidden in between. In life, unlike in books, we have to weave our stories out of threads as fine as the gossamer veins that run through a butterfly’s wings.”

[rijutapakeezah]

PANEER PARATHA, A ROUND SHAPED BLESSING

Paneer..what can I say about this which is not been said before? My dilemma is like Ayesha’s from Wake Up Sid.

“Is shehar ke baare mein kya keh sakti thi main, jo pehle nahi kaha gaya?’’

She didn’t know what she could say about Mumbai which wasn’t said before. She found a friend and unknowingly, fell in love with him. Her love was for him, he made her Mumbai life exciting and worth hustling for. I know, you must have already watched the movie and do not need me to revisit the story.

As it turns out, my tryst with paneer (cottage cheese) was exactly like Ayesha’s tryst with Mumbai. My Sid is tightly stuffed, soft, evenly cooked, without too much dough, cooked in desi ghee, Paneer Paratha.

Like my non-vegetarian friends point out at every opportunity they get, paneer is all we, vegetarians, have got. I didn’t start liking paneer until my college life started. Obviously, this was the only way I could eat something out of the heavy curry made with excess refined oil. But I really started liking paneer last year. How?

The mainstream media had us gripped with the fact that we cannot have enough protein without having an animal killed for us. But there had to be another side of the story. I started looking for protein-rich options to have after a good workout. Paneer was the first thing spitted out by Google.

You know, paneer is not something any lower- and lower-middle-class family would eat daily, let alone once a week.

Remember?

“Paneer to beta kuchh dinon mein itti itti thailiyon mein sonar ki dukan pe bikega.”

Raju’s mother was not wrong. She couldn’t afford it like innumerable families in India. My mother used to go ballistic if we suggested even shyly to make Matar Paneer every week.

250 gm brick of paneer in the house heralds the change of temperament of the entire family. It has to be a festival or a really special day. Sometimes, not even then. For the children of the house, this means more cleaning activities, more people, more guests, more chaos than a regular day at a vegetarian Indian house, and definitely, a feast to look forward to. This also sometimes means the family getting dolled up. This certainly means the wafting smell of fried onions, garlic, and ginger from the kitchen. I have seen chicken working just as same for lower- and lower-middle-class non-vegetarian households. It looked like a party whenever my neighbors had chicken on a Sunday. A good meal or at least an expensive food item on our plates validates our existence as someone who is doing something worth enjoying in their life. I don’t know about other countries but in India, it most likely is.

But it is also true that one cannot get enough protein with only having lentils and legumes in their diet. This again becomes a big issue for kids who want to thrive as sportspersons. India has battled with this problem for ages. My health-conscious vegetarian friends would agree with me.

When I was in PG in Delhi, paneer was provided to us almost twice a week and students like me would goggle at it like it was made of gold. Before that life, I had had it only on festivals.

Coming back to earth to the present moment, paneer has become an integral part of my life. 250-300 gms shredded paneer, mixed with chili flakes; oregano; roasted cumin seeds; roasted

coriander seeds; pink Himalayan salt( I prefer it over table salt because it keeps the body electrolytes balanced); chopped green chilies; chopped coriander( if it has not turned black in the refrigerator basket); and some mozzarella cheese( on some really good days) WILL NOT AND CAN NOT DISAPPOINT YOU. If you ask experts, for paneer paratha, they would tell you to add salt in the dough as well, so that taste remains in the entire bite. Since I don’t like salty rotis(chapatis), I don’t add salt to the dough.

Now, after stuffing the paneer mixture and rolling the paratha, you put it on the tava. You don’t want to grease the tava with oil (I make parathas with homemade ghee) before placing parathas. You place the paratha, let it cook on one side on medium flame. Then, turn it over. Let it cook. Repeat the process one more time. When you are sure your paratha does not look like any road of India in the rainy season, you apply oil on it.

Voila, my favorite breakfast is ready.

I don’t know what big success looks like. I am looking for it. I don’t know what hustling is either. I am a UPSC aspirant who, temporarily, has stopped thinking about it. But I do know that if any person or family eats a healthy breakfast, they end up making life better for themselves and others. I do know that having the privilege of eating breakfast without any rush and a smile on your face is a blessing. If your mother forces you to eat more and do something good out of life, nothing, I REPEAT, NOTHING can be better than this. YOU ARE ALREADY A WINNER; YOU JUST NEED TO BELIEVE.

[rijutapakeezah]

THE GREAT LEMON PICKLE

I am not an expert on pickles. My mother was. The shows like The Pickle Nation on Epic Channel helped my mother in honing her art. She could make the pickles out of anything.

Being an Indian, I am privileged with the presence of endless fruits and vegetables ready to be pickled and eaten as a side dish. Sometimes as the only dish with Rotis too. My favorite is mango pickle( aam ka achar).

“maine, ek..ek martaba na.. aur aam ka achar banaya..to main mar jaungi..main mar jaungi rakesh.”

Wailed Babli in front of Dashrath Singh in Bunty Aur Babli.

Well, if we take the cue from this movie and many others, preparing pickles is taken as an intensely domestic activity. One cannot be professional and smart if one prepares pickles. But, as my mother used to say and as I observed over the last 15-20 years, one cannot prepare really tasty and sustainable pickles, if one is not smart. But, why stereotype it?

There is a reason why some dishes are referred to as grandmother dishes because they need precision. Our generation cannot be trusted with that. My mother had inherited the art of pickling not only from her mother and grandmother, also from her neighbors’ mothers and grandmothers. This activity was very much like the one we got to see in Sasural Genda Phool song. Waheeda Rehman, Aditi Rao, Sheeba Chaddha, and others lovingly prepare spices and oils to put them together. Again, a domestic scenario.

But, what about the people who don’t have nanis and dadis with them? Thanks to Covid, many of us don’t even have mothers, to begin with. Does the tradition die here? Should it? I mean, people (primarily women) working 9-9 on their laptops or in their office cannot and honestly, should not bother themselves with these preparations. So, what should be done? Switch to Goldee, Tops, Mother’s pickles? Or simply don’t eat them. Eventually, we don’t eat them. So then what?

Then, comes the deadly viruses which push us to go inwards and start healthy and traditional eating habits. Back to desi daal, chawal, sabzi, roti, salad, and achar for the good gut bacteria. After all, we all want to live a healthy and longer life. Thus, begins the search for the recipes.

Now, if a person is like me who, thanks to her mother, knows the difference between a good achar and a badly prepared one, cannot settle for a less than a perfect recipe. We turn to Youtube. The ultimate dadi and nani of 21stcentury. If you are a Hindi-speaking Indian, you must have come across tons of channels giving you the recipe on a tap. Keep scrolling and lo behold, you find Nisha Madhulika. I tell you, this woman has literally been a savior of my life. With the wisdom imparted by my mother and her tips and tricks, one can make anything. Well, I know, she prepares only vegetarian food primarily without onions and garlic. But, I also know, that my Bengali friends have their Nisha Madhulika in Bong eats. Basically, youtube is there to save the day, if by any chance you are into cooking.

You must be thinking, why I am rambling about here. If you are a person like me who wants to have the traditional delicacies in your life, you would understand how life becomes without any magical hand with you. Because I love them and the onus of preparing them solely is on me. Obviously, because I want them. Home-made, simple, and healthy. Hence, I made one. The simplest, the healthiest, and the Digene of every lower-middle- and the lower-class person suffering from indigestion, flatulence, etc. NEEMBU KA ACHAR ( Lemon Pickle).

The recipe is really simple:

Take as many lemons as you want, depending upon the money you have and the distance between the market and your home. Distance varies according to the love for it and willpower to go there. If you are lucky, you will find a pheriwala with just as juicy and big lemons as you might find in the market.

Select the lemons which on touch tell you that they have thinner skin. In Uttar Pradesh, one finds the best and cheapest lemons in the month of December- January.

I remember how my mother used to scan the entire market in one walk and then go back to a seller who would have 3-4 mounds of lemons. She would then try to scavenge the juiciest lemons from the mound of middle-range price. Like, 8 for Rs.10, 6 for Rs.10, 4 for Rs.10.

Soak the lemons for 5-6 hours (currently, I don’t know why, but if I will come to know, I’ll surely share)

Cut the lemon into 4 pieces; before cutting, remove any trace of water present. Dry them with towels. they look cute this way and( the jar looks fuller, believe you me).

Take a bowl, add the lemons, add carom seeds ( if I take 20 lemons, I add seeds till each lemon gets coated with 7-8 seeds), add salt. MIX THEM UP.

My mother always added two salts- black salt and table salt. It really takes the taste a notch up.

For my friends who are as beginner as I am, I added 5-6 spoons of salt for 20 lemons and left the matters to god.

Now, the trickiest part is the jar selection. You might want to have a jar that displays how able and desperate you are. I took a glass jar with a wide mouth. So that I could take a pickle out without having my hands pickled every time. WASH AND DRY IT. Leave it in the sun for a few hours if you can. Not a trace of water should be left otherwise your pickle will turn into fungal vanilla ice cream.

Place the contents into the jar. Shake well and leave it in the sun.

If you live in an apartment, appoint a person to put the jar on the terrace and bring it back at dusk. Or if you want leaner legs, do it yourself. Do this for at least a month.

Shake the contents once in a while without breaking the jar.

After 25-30 days, taste it. If the salt is less, add some more; if the salt is extra, blame it on god.

If it is perfect, then what are you waiting for? EAT THE DAMN PICKLE! ( if you are a fan of simple pickles, if not, please don’t call me names, ask Nisha aunty!)

WHEN LIFE GAVE ME LEMONS, I PICKLED THEM.

As the days went by, I saw the lemons submerging into their own pulp and juice. The jar was emptying. The anaerobic fermentation process under warm sunlight took all the shine, shape, and superficial beauty of lemons away. Just the way hundreds of suns would disappear under the sea and leave bright orange radiance, the feeling of longing for love and care, and the sense of accomplishment. What was left after a month of the grueling process was their pure and unadulterated essence. Is this what hardships do to us? Are we submerging into our own essence with the constant struggle of finding ourselves? What about after struggling with grief, the pain of losing loved ones, and pieces of oneself with them? Would we know ever? I hope we do. After all, we are just small pickles in this huge jar of the universe.

[rijutapakeezah]

Welcome to STORY OF A PICKLE JAR.

As you might have read, this space is for people who are fermenting under the oldest and finest vinegar of life under the harsh sun. Otherwise, you would NEVER get the FINEST PICKLE.

Now, you might think, what the hell is this?

It is my humble attempt to realize what I have been learning in my kitchen without any guidance, obviously, apart from Youtube( thank god for the ultimate grandma). I am doing this for helping me ease my journey in the kitchen.

Well, I am a student aspiring to land somewhere. Since somewhere is getting farther from me with getting me wrestling with ladles and spatulas, I decided to understand "somewhere" through this blog.

I lost my mother 9 months ago in the deadly second wave of Covid-19. After that, I had no choice but to put myself into that space and whip up at least 2 times a day whatever I could to survive. After 9 months, I realized there must be many people who are forced to explore themselves without any guidance or maids for one reason or another.

Thus, welcome aboard.

[rijutapakeezah]

Hi there,

Tumblr people, pouring your hearts out.

Like anybody else, I wanted to make something out of my fondness for writing. Lately, life has been kicking hard which makes hard for me to say that I am alive and kicking. I googled THE BEST BLOGGING WEBSITES 2022 and decided to go with TUMBLR( exactly not sure why). Before googling, I did some severe overthinking. After googling, I did some severe overthinking. Nonetheless, I am here.

Actually, I am here because I watched and loved Julie and Julia( a Meryl Streep movie streaming on Netflix). It made me think that I too can bring something better out of my kitchen.

But, first things first.

Hello, I am Rijuta, a 25 year old Indian girl, who loves photography, writing, singing unknowingly literally everytime, and also, likes to paint. I didn't know earlier but I happen to like cooking too. The sudden changes of my life made me realize that cutting, chopping, slicing, boiling, rolling, crushing, beating, etc make me feel better. Who would have known?

Sadly, I cannot express my inclination towards cooking openly in my real life, wait, is that different?. So, here I am. IN MY VIRTUAL LIFE. I mean, what else social media is for?

It is exactly here for people who feel they are not heard enough or seen enough, for that matter.

Hence, I commence my journey of ranting, complaining, oversharing, overthinking here. With you. Right now. Oh, wow. I AM NERVOUS.

Okay Bye.