The occasional cook

I had a glimpse of my husband’s culinary skills on the first night of my arrival in USA. It took almost 48 hours to reach Wichita from Chennai. I flew from Chennai to Singapore, Singapore to Seoul, Seoul to San Francisco, SFO to Denver, and Denver to Wichita. I had six hours of lay over at SFO.

A big group of my college friends came and received me at the SFO airport. Everybody worked for Silicon Valley companies except for CB. Most of them were in US when we got married except for one friend. He came to US few months after our wedding and he arranged the welcome party at SFO.    We had huge respect from our friends during our college days and everybody who knews us wanted our love to succeed. We were the first ones to get married from our group , CB at the age of 26. I got such warm reception at SFO . They had planned to take me out for lunch but we came back to the airport after a traffic delay. I had to settle with smelly, yucky shrimp fried rice at the Chinese restaurant in the airport. I expected Wang kitchen fried rice quality but ended up throwing the entire food in the trash. We were regulars at Wang Kitchen (in Parthan hotel complex in TNagar) and Southern Chinese restaurant near Anand Theater in Chennai.

I boarded my flight to Denver with empty stomach.  In Denver I had to catch a flight to Wichita within an hour.  I had just peanuts for lunch and dinner till I reached Wichita at 8.00pm. But my hunger went away after meeting CB. I was so happy and eager to see him after six months.

CB had prepared the best dinner for me. He made my favorite Tamil lunch spread sambar with egg plant, potato curry and Halibut fish fry. The food tasted so good except for one small glitch – he used channa dal(kadala paruppu) instead of toor dal (thuvaram paruppu) for sambar. Not bad at all for a guy who never made a cup of tea. The aroma of vegetable oil permeated the entire house and it was different from the cooking oils I had used in India. Even today when  I smell the aroma of vegetable oil, it takes me back to that night.

When CB was working for Microsoft in Seattle , I used to pick him from train station around mid night every Friday. He wanted  me to sleep more during the weekends and took over the duty of preparing morning cup of tea from that year. He prepares the best chai.

Whenever I returned from my business trips, he would cook my favorite south Indian food Sambar, potato curry and fish fry every single time. He was comfortable preparing those dishes without any cooking disasters. I looked forward to coming home to have a tasty home-made food after eating in restaurants during the trip.

Fast forward to 2008 February when I was eight months pregnant with NR, I had gestational diabetes. I was in bed rest from 20^th week and we got food from restaurant daily. Gestational diabetics required strict food regiment calculating carbs so CB took over the duty of preparing my daily lunch. He would get up early every day to prepare two big batches of vegetable dishes.   I was pleasantly surprised with his cooking skills. He made my favorite bitter guard or Kovaikai(tindora) masala everyday . I controlled my diabetes with food and never took insulin shots. After pregnancy I leant that bitter guard and tindora are good for diabetes.

After NR’s birth he never cooked. His hands were full being full-time employee and dad. Thanks to my SAHM status,   I fed them well.   And this valentine’s day thanks to NR, he got his groove back. We had planned to go out for dinner but NR decided to take late evening nap. CB happily stepped in to make my favorite breakfast menu for dinner – French toast, egg omelet with onion/tomatoes and hash browns. 

Life does get better when you reach your forties. As a couple you will start reading each other’s feeling so well even before we speak. We were like that from our twenties but with forties I could feel some extra dosage of care and love.

I am planning to induct NR into mama's culinary school as early as possible to get some brownie points from my future daughter-in-law : ).

My first day in US

CB arrived in US two weeks after our first anniversary. I worked for a software firm in India, so I knew the pitfalls of arriving in US with work visa. If  the  US placement is through a consulting firm, you need to share the accommodation with others for first few weeks (or for months for many friends who were not able to get a job within couple of weeks).  And then you can be posted anywhere depending on the clients requests. This works out fine for bachelor’s guys /girls but not for the married/family people. I wanted CB to settle down in his job coz having me with him meant he will have to consider lot of option before accepting a new job. I decided to join him after six months. Meanwhile, I resigned from my job, vacated our first home and moved back with my parents/in-laws for those six months.

 I landed in US on a cold winter night of February, a week before CB’s birthday.  CB relocated to that city just two months before my arrival. He never bothered to buy a car or get a driver’s license. Well having had a car since childhood he never bothered to learn car driving or never used his dad’s car. He made very conscious effort to hide his status and used to commute to college by bus.

 After arriving at the airport, I was searching for him and never recognized him until he came few yards from me. The six-foot tall slim husband I knew six months back had gained tones of weight, had a big belly and his face was twice as big it used to be.  After the initial bear hugs followed by flowers, teddy bear and box of my favorite chocolates we decided to hire the cab from airport.  The cabs are usually outside the airport complex and when we arrived there was no single cab in view. I have never seen a desolate airport like that till today. And Wichita is home to all big air craft companies like Boeing, Cessna and Lear jet.

 We waited for more than 30 minutes outside the cold, dark area for cab arrivals because getting inside airport complex meant we might miss the occasional cab which came to drop passengers. After half an hour we called the cab service to pick us and the cab arrived after 45 minutes. I was numb due to freezing temperature  in spite wearing two jackets.

We arrived at our apartment after what seemed to be an endless drive from airport. Thanks to a sensible husband our apartment was fully furnished.  The warm bath I took after two days of travel and two hours of waiting on the cold cab shelter felt luxurious .

I found the reason behind his weight gain. Our kitchen cabinet had plenty of gallon size ice cream buckets with Indian groceries. He was a kid in candy land surviving solely on chicken/cheese pizza, Fried chicken and gallons of ice cream.

The husband, who never made a cup of tea six month back, had cooked a sumptuous dinner spread with my favorite dishes.

 This is one of  the happiest memories of my life - my first day in US.

Carrier Monkey

I watched the movie - One Fine day  , on cable at my first US apartment  on a remote place ( remote to me at that time since I never saw one desi living in that area) in a remote city . Then my husband was working for an aviation software development firm in the heartland of USA and his colleague HP lived in that apartment who gave him a ride to office everyday. 

There is a scene in a movie one fine day where Melanie's boss looks at her little boy and asks, "Do you know what I think of when I look at him?" Melanie smiles, ready for a compliment but the boss's answers,  "Carrier monkey." I cringed a bit and thought do such Boss/people really exist here?. Now after 14 years or so  and having had a boy after many years of leading a healthy life where we never went to doctors office for fever or cold , I officially declare that toddlers are - CARRIER MONKEYS.

YES,  my son came up with cold, cough and sore throat three days back conveniently on a long weekend when I had plans to do some heavy weight sewing . I had a perfect nanny aka Appa to look after NR for the long weekend to do something I wanted  to stitch. But instead, we spent last weekend taking his temp every one hour and not having any sleep during night. He had mild temp up to 100.8 and are anticipating  another fever episode any time now : (.  I 've started feeling little sick too.

I DVR my favourite shows and watched  them at the only time I get in a day-  night  after 9.30 or 10.00pm when I fold daily laundry or iron my/NR clothes after NR and papa goes to bed.  Last two weeks even that little luxury was taken away from me :( . He refuses to sleep until I join him . 

He hasn't started his school yet and I am already dreading the school days ahead this summer. God please send me a  good house keeper to help me during the sick days along with the  money to afford that keeper. hee hee ,I am sure almost every mother in US says this prayer all too often.

2011- our 20th Valentines day

The ritual of celebrating valentines day started in the year 1992 with two young souls expressing their love for each other with cards and gifts.  They never had any clue how their life is going to be as a couple  and how they'll feel about each other in coming years. I knitted a woollen scarf  feverishly for three weeks as my first valentine's day gift for CB while attending graduate school in 1992. He still has the scarf though I was the one who used  it most of the time.

Life turned good in the relationship department with no extra work done to nurture it. With work and making a life for ourselves in a far away land, it took us long hours, absolute dedication and extra hard work to get to where we are now.  Nothing in life came easy for us including our baby. But with absolute faith in our partnership , mutual respect for each other's feelings, enormous patience and with god's blessing we got everything we wanted in our life.  We took that journey together and still continuing to tackle the challenges holding our hands and hearts together. For last three years another set of tiny hands and precious little heart joined our journey .  I thank god ,every day for this life and asking his guidance at every possible moment.

For this valentines day this is the scene which greeted me when I came downstairs to our kitchen.

This year's  valentines day card

With love to my wife

If you could look into my heart

you' see

All the lovely things

you are to me

All the thoughts

I somehow can't express

About our love, our home,

our happiness

If you could look into my heart,

you'd know

The many reason

Why I love you so

Happy Valentines day to my wife and my little hero.

 

Signed HUBBY

For all youngster who are taking the journey like we did twenty years ago, my only wish is give your best  before thinking about walking away or giving up. There is a special and valid reason you fell in love with each other and stick to that feeling. It's easy to walk away from situation we think are difficult, but it takes immense courage, dedication and patience to stand for the things you believe in, especially your love. You'll never regret it because you will always feel special as the years go by. I am wishing success for all those couples who are celebrating their first valentine's day this year.

Birthday

We celebrated my husband’s birthday this month. It was a low-key affair with just me and NR wishing CB .

Last year I planned a big surprise party with a 22 month old boy in tow.  I invited friends, booked the venue and got hand written birthday wishes from his friends, my friends and family few weeks before his big birthday.  I shopped for birthday decoration few hours before the party and decorated the venue with a help of a friend. I came back home and made entire birthday dinner from my neighbor’s house. I finished everything within four hours of time with  CB not having a clue about his surprise birthday party. I never thought I would be able to pull off  the surprise party without a glitch.  But I did.

This year I planned to make a cake for him. But baking and decorating a cake at  home meant he will see his birthday cake before his birthday. So I got a strawberry mousse cheese cake from store.

We would have missed the cake since it was raining that day and NR decided to sleep when we were about to go out. A friend went shopping for us . When I opened the door to receive my friend , CB pulled up in our driveway  and got a peek into his cake and birthday balloons. This is first year I decided to skip getting him gift . The gifts I got for Christmas is still in the wrapper: ( .  I will not buy “ books as gifts “.

I cooked a simple dinner for us. The day was over with just three of us having a good time. He had  two tiny hands and legs hugging him and giving the best gift for this birthday –Kisses and sweet laughter. And appa was so happy.

Billy Mora aka my appupa

My appupa was a good-looking guy and a very funny man.  He was a man of few words just like NR. NR has his good looks just like his great-grandfather. My grandpa spoke only Malayalam till his death though the majority of his adult life was spent in Tamil Nadu.

 My grandpa came from a well-known family (tharavad) from Aluva, Kerela. There is a hearsay that his grandfather was the first one to study law in Chennai under the orders of then travancore Maharaja. We knew very little about his family back in Aluva , since he migrated to Nagercoil at a very young age after his mother’s death. He worked in police department and went for special duty at Thanumalayan temple during festivals. My ammuma’s (maternal grandmother) father was a top temple official at Thanumalayan temple at that time.

He was car crazy guy just like NR. He had the latest cars like  Morris Minor in those days and my first two periyammas are only witness to his wealth.

I remember the long evening walks I used to take with my appupa from my grandmother house in Saidapet to my eldest periyammas house at Nandanam on the sidewalks of Mount Road in early 1970’s . He had a crooked walk due to an accident. He used to talk to me about things that interest him on the road  like cars on the road. I never used to understand him well since ammuma and younger siblings of my mother who stayed with my grandparents house at that time spoke only tamil most of the time.

In those days , I saw only few cars on the Mount Road but many autorickshaws, rickshaws , bullock carts and  Pallavan Transport buses . I remember a lone traffic police at Mount Road - Nandanam/VenkatNarayana Road intersection. Current Temple tower complex opposite to Housing Board was a huge sunken lot with overgrown grass and it had an old  jeep in an upright position at the rear end of the lot.  During our walks the sight of the old jeep meant we are closer to my periyamma house. I was less than 3 years old at that time and I can still remember everyting so vividly. The overturned jeep and the lot remained the same until the start of the temple tower complex construction .

I remember a funny incident that happened 32-33 yrs back. My grandpa lived with my mom’s eldest sisters after my grandma died. There was a ration shop just next door in a shopping area. That ration shop had a new hire named John. Occasionally my grandpa would go there to buy grocery upon my periyamma’s request. On one such occasion he had bought “Rava” (sooji) and I think it cost around 25 or 50 paisa in those days. Since it is government shop, the clerk (John) has to give receipt with the customer name for each transaction. He asked my grandpa’s name and my grandpa replied “Billy Mora”. His real name was Velayutham Pillai. He brought the receipt home with a name "Billy Mora" and shared the story with my periyamma . It seemed he was so annoyed that for a little change, he had to give his name as if it’s land deed. In his work days, even getting salary didn't involve any paper work  like receipts.

 John was a naïve guy from a remote village in Kanyakumari district starting his life as a provision clerk in government shop. He truly believed my grandpa name was Billy Mora. After few months, John befriended our family since we are also from Kanyakumari district and then knew my grandpa's real name. John worked in the same ration shop even during my Anna university days.

Whenever I heard this story, I thought my grandpa has made up the name “Billy Mora”. But after immigrating to US,  I came to know that this is a real name . I was curious to know -how my grandpa knew this name?  Did he come across somebody with this name or read this name in books?  Kerela has a rich history of Christian missionaries from Europe and South America especially Aluva district. May be he knew somebody with that name.  I wish he was alive to answer these questions. I wish he was alive to see his great-grandson who resemble him in every aspect.

First for me

I watched the live telecast of super bowl for the first time. Well it's the first time I watched football match - an American football that is. I am not a big sports TV viewer but I do love watching Tennis matches when my whole family spend (wasted) their entire weekends watching cricket. Even my periammas born in 1930’s watched cricket like teenagers. I hate to see the entire family in a grumpy mood whenever the Indian team lost the match. I never liked cricket when I was young but understood the spirit of it .

 I decided to join my husband yesterday since I had nothing to do (well there is always loads of work to do but I wasn’t in a mood to do more work on Sunday evening). Yesterday was the first time we watched TV program together when NR was awake. He too joined in and tried to get my attention as much as possible. So I read him books while watching the match. CB explained the rules of the game.

 At my previous work place, we used to have friendly but hard-core rivalry during the civil war matches between Beavers and Ducks. Most of them went to OSU and some of them to UO. The rival team members would sabotage each others office with  their team’s logos. Our office cabins had huge glass walls facing the interior hallway. The PM who had an office just opposite to mine was Beavers fan and my Manager who had an office next to me was a  “Ducks” fan . During one such the civil war season my Manager's windows got a big “Ducks Crossing” sign thanks to his rival Beavers fans. My colleagues talked proudly about their son playing quarterback position in school/college teams.

Yesterday, I realized the reason behind the well coveted, glamorous “Quarterbacks” position in the game. That was also another reason I decided to watch the game. The Greenbay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers went to Whitford Middle School in Beaverton, Oregon the city where we live since 99. And our local TV news station kept talking about Aaron and his Beaverton connection, which made me more curious.

Overall I liked the game. I felt little uneasy watching 200+ lb players forming a human pyramid falling over each other like a pack of sardines. And one more item checked off from my list of things to know/learn. Can somebody teach how to play poker and Texas hold’em?

 My son’s first time seeing us watch TV for more than 15 minutes when he was awake (we do regularly watch BBC and news for 10 -15 minutes during the weekends when he is around) .  And I couldn’t wait for him to grow up, so things would get back to normal phase of life for us.  

 BTW, can somebody please explain to me?

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   Who came up with the name “football” when players use only their hands 95% of the time?


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  Why on earth they call super bowl a world championship game when they only play against  US teams?