Lijjat Papad -- Karram Kurram

(This post was drafted on Friday but then we had guests staying over the weekend and this never got edited & posted)

I was on my way back home driving and suddenly I hear this voice over NPR saying Papad and Pappadam with a thick accent. Ahhhhh, some new fad of Indian cooking they must have discovered I thought.
And then the news caster went on to talk about Lijjat Papad and I was pleasantly surprised. I had a warm fuzzy feeling driving home in the sun listening about Shri Mahila Griha Udyog Lijjat Papad, popularly known as Lijjat, completing 50 gloroius years on March 15, 2009.

Representative of a typical middle class Indian Kitchen, my Ma's pantry was always stocked with Lijjat Papad. They were fried to be served with tea when impromptu guets arrived,roasted on fire and served with dal, roasted and crumbled on some sabzi's and sometimes even made into a dish by itself.

That Lijjat was the brain child of seven semi-literate Gujarati housewives from Bombay who wanted to start a venture to create a sustainable livelihood using the only skill they had i.e. cooking, makes me very proud.

We talk about women getting more independence, equality, freedom and I think of myself and these women. Having had the exact same opportunity as any boy would while growing up, having had the same education and starting off a career in a similar role as the husband, today I bring back home less than 2/3rd of his salary not because my employer pays women less but because I chose such a role to enjoy motherhood.

Am I privileged because I have a choice to do so or did I put my freedom to wrong use ?

I do voluntarily contribute more as a parent in our household and I get immense satisfaction of shaping two lives but then again really I haven't achieved even a fraction of what these semi-literate women have.

So what is it that personifies women power? Is it the choice that many educated women like me get today or the financial freedom these semi-literate women (with very little freedom possible in a India 50 years ago) struggled to achieve 50 years ago and have achieved not only financially but also socially by empowering a large population of Indian women

More about history of Lijjat Papad here

To roast a Lijjat Papad, pop one in the MicroWave for about a minute at 100% power.

To fry, deep fry in hot bubbling oil

Bandhakopi'r Ghonto -- a dry Cabbage Dish

Bandhakopi'r Ghonto |  Bengali Cabbage and Potatoes Sabzi

Bandhakopir Ghonto or Bandhakopir Tarkari, is a regular in Bengali homes during winter, the season when the best cabbage is found. This dry stir fry of finely chopped cabbage with cubed potatoes and sweet peas is served with both rice or rotis. The uniqueness of these vegetarian dish in Bengali homes is that they are easily turned into a non-veg side dish with addition of fried shrimp or even a fried fish head(Maacher Maatha diye Bandhakopi)

Jump To Recipe

What is a Ghonto ? In simple words it is a dry vegetable dish cooked in a Bengali Kitchen

But the simplicity ends there. All dry vegetable dishes are NOT Ghonto, ghonto is a mere subset of all possible dry vegetable dishes in the Bengali Kitchen. Incidentally there is also an area of intersection with dry non-veg dishes.

What is the unique feature which binds all ghonto ? No clue, except for use of some common spices. For some strange reason unknown to me, there is BandhaKopi'r Ghonto (a dry Cabbage dish), Lau Ghonto( a dry Bottle Gourd dish), Mulo Ghonto(with radish) but there never is a Dharosh(Okra) Ghonto.

After much brainstorming(yeah I need to storm my brain on such complex matters), it dawned on me that "Ghonto" is derived from the word "Gha(n)ta" in Bengali, which means to mix.While Charchari derived its name from the method of cooking which lets the veggies char a little, I guess Ghonto too derived its name from a cooking method where you basically, mix/stir and cook. So while you wouldn't stir a Charchari much in a Ghonto you would. Following that logic, you would need veggies that can retain their shape even on mixing and so you choose veggies like Cabbage, Bottle Gourd, Radish etc. for your ghonto and not softer ones like Okra. This is just my theory, if you have any idea on the nomenclature, please do share.

For carnivorous bongs, every veggie dish has a non-veg equivalent so though Ghonto is largely a vegetarian dish you also have Muri Ghonto with Fish head and you can add fish head or shrimp even to a BandhaKopi'r Ghonto or a Lau Ghonto.

Again for some strange reason though a Bong will add Fish or Fish head to a very vegetarian dish(as above) they will not even use onion or garlic when cooking the same vegetarian dish sans the fish. So a typical BandhaKopi'r Ghonto or Lau Ghonto or whatever will not have onions or garlic and same is true for any charchari

The recipe I have here is a niramish(veg) BandhaKopi'r Ghonto that my Ma makes. To make it amish(non-veg) she will just add fried shrimp to it or fried pieces of fish head. This is usually served with Rice and Dal for everyday Lunch, with Rotis for Dinner and sometimes with Khichuri in a comunity feast like Picnic etc. You can squirt a little lime juice and have a bowl of it, just by it self too, I like it that way.

I usually don't cook my cabbage to death, I like it crunchy but usually in this dish it is cooked till the cabbage loses all its crunchiness. The hubby says my Cabbage dish reminds him of the cabbage cooked during the neighborhood picnics that he went to as a kid. That doesn't sound like a compliment, I am guessing he says that because my cabbage has a crunch and not because he has bad cabbage memories from the picnics.

Mommy of 2 -- Lesson # 3

Your child starts reading, now you better stop.

Your child has started reading, now she is reading books, she can read an entire book by herself, you are one proud Mom or Dad, you have a feeling of déjà vu BUT wait don't get too elated. There is a downside to this whole thing which might not have crossed your mind when you were desperately trying to teach her the difference between "C" in Cinderella and "C" in Cat.

Pros of Reading:

• The child can read, reading is definitely a good habit, being a voracious reader myself I don't have enough words to say how reading can change one's life.
• You no longer have to read your child a bed time story and so can utilize that time for better things like maybe blogging
• If the older one reads, you might just get away reading a bed time story to the younger one. Yeah, delegate and so now the older one reads to the younger one. Yippeee!!!
• Your child can now read road signs and give you directions from the back seat.

Cons of Reading (not to be taken seriously) :

• You no longer can read whatever you want. If you are the kind of person who has hoity-toity coffee table books and cheap romantic trash in the bedroom, your life is doomed. You wouldn't like it if your 5 year old picks up one of those and reads a page aloud...ahem
• You can no longer take her and roam freely through all aisles of the Super Market, you never know what might spring up. I suggest keep away from aisles labeled "Feminine Hygiene" and such
• You can no longer write a blog where you exaggerate and basically write stuff which might not be exactly true to life, small deviations like "I made Chicken Curry yesterday" might make her comment, "No, you did not make it yesterday, it was 2 days back"
• She peers over your shoulder while you type and suggests that you put her stuff on the blog too, so your personal space is no longer yours now.

Since Big Sis S started reading fluently a year back, I have to be more careful around her at home. More than her own books, she is interested in reading my e-mail or the bills or even Toys R Us fliers and at times my blog. She does read to her sis, which is a good thing though

Last snow day, when we all were at home, she baked some cookies and wanted them to be put on my blog. I am no baker and we made the cookies from Betty Crocker Cookie Mix, it didn't matter she still wants it on the blog.

We also used up our time that day by making a book. I cut up some of her old daily sheets (we reuse all such papers by using them for printing, drawing, writing etc.) and she made a book with a story and illustration. The book was much liked by her teacher and classmates. When she had first started reading books, she would read every page from the cover to back, including the author, publisher, illustrator, etc. and in the right order. She has gotten over that now but she insists on writing "By S...." in the cover page and insists that she is an author.

Also here are some of her recent drawings. Check out Dora in high heels.
The little girl might object to some of the above things I have written, but come on there is something called the author's license

On another note, to get your kids interested in reading try these

• Start early (as in once they recognize alphabets) and ask her to read out aloud and sound out letters when you are at the store, on the road where ever
• Get those fridge letter magnets and form words with them which she can read. This can be done any time, all the time.
• You need to read to at least initiate her interest. If you don't have any books at home or a reading atmosphere, and ask her to sit and read that won't help a whole lot. Once she is into it, go watch your TV
• Go to the library or the bookstore and spend time browsing, borrowing, reading.
• Ask her to read and write your grocery list to show how reading is incorporated in daily life. She will get a kick out of writing and reading simple words like Milk, Egg etc.
• Ask her to read instructions of her new game, the card she has received, her school calendar which shows the "pizza day"
• And again each child will read, write, do whatever at their own pace, don't rush and be patient.

Happy Holi and Happy Reading !!!