Stroll down the memory lane...

Somehow, the New Year is making me nostalgic. I realized the other day, right after i posted my "first" blog for the new year, that so many wonderful things have happened in all the years so far. I thought it was worth taking this special trip down the memory lane and writing about those memories that still make me smile!

Here starts the "Memories that make me smile" series...

As I washed and peeled potatoes the other day I found that they had grown a couple of roots. Carefully cutting them out I went on to plant the bigger ones. My friend asked me why I would want to plant potatoes. “cuz that’s what daddy always did” was my prompt answer. That got me thinking…there were so many many things daddy did to get us kids interested in common place things. Planting potatoes is only one example.

I remember as a kid I never liked the kitchen (unless I was hungry :) ) and always wanted to curl up with a book. The entire family would hang out in the kitchen and it always seemed they had more fun than I ever did. But hey I was only about 6 years old and felt silly sitting with all the grown-ups. My only sister is about six years older than I am and I always felt and got treated like a baby. On the other hand with my family it wasn’t always easy to escape “kitchen duty”. Whether I liked it or not, I was required to be there even if I had nothing to do.

Then one day daddy asked me if I wanted to see something really cool. He showed me a whole batch of potatoes that had roots and asked how I would like to be a potato farmer? He patiently answered all my questions starting with how the roots appeared on the potatoes to how to farm potatoes? It never occurred to me to ask why I would want to do potato farming…as a six year old I thought it was so cool to be discussing potatoes.

He explained that cooking was a way to experiment with different types of raw materials. There was always a story to go with each veggie and a moral hidden cleverly in the stories. He taught us some basic chemistry and physics right there in the kitchen…talked about carpentry while he made me a bird cage with banana stalk…made me little figurines with candy wrappers and cooked up wild stories. Most importantly he would ask questions and want us kids to continue the stories …

Mom would then tell us some special historical story (she is a history prof) and somehow link the wonderful things that happened right then to the ancient Indian science of aryurveda if not some obscure war that was fought some eons ago...Well, that was probably the start of my “interest” in the kitchen.

To this day when I putter around the kitchen and my mind wanders…it always seems to get back to the cozy kitchen back in Chennai where wonderful things seemed to happen…I guess that was rather is my personal “chocolate” factory!