Served with love

Preparing a recipe with that masterly touch comes with years of experience and, of course, a flair. MARIEN MATHEW discovers this over a meal with hostess, Sabita Radhakrishna.

IT WAS the brightness that caught my eye first in flat No: 3, Ramaniyam, Indiranagar. There was bright sunlight in the balcony adjacent to the sitting room and still more came through the skylights in the quadrangle before the dining room. It was almost 38 degrees Centigrade outside and yet I couldn't resist the sunlight inside. The cheeriness instantly put me at ease. So also did Sabita Radhakrishna, my hostess.

When I proposed this 'cook and eat meet' I wasn't sure whether Sabita, who is still mourning her daughter (Deepika had passed away recently) would agree to it. Besides the grief factor, there is also the privacy issue. Luncheon guests usually stop at the dining table. Stepping further in is intrusive. So when Sabita agreed to have me over for a 'Mudaliyar sapadu', I was both relieved and happy. Being a faithful user of her Aharam cookbook on Chettinad, Mudaliyar and Vellalar recipes, it was an opportunity to learn from the author herself.

The kitchen is a place where the generation gap has no relevance. When Lalitha Chander, Sabita's 80-year old mother, moved in to make kesari and rasam, I instinctively sensed mastery and finesse. Sabita may be a cookbook writer, but the gift, the flair comes from the senior.The assurance with which the semolina and ghee went into the kadai without the ml, gm and oz calculations was impressive. Between her patient tips on limiting ghee without compromising on taste, she stopped and said in a heavy tone, "I'm in no mood for this. My granddaughter used to love my kesari." Sheer discipline and hospitality made her carry on, I think.

Soon Mummy, as she is called by everybody, including her great grandchildren, decided, after careful peering at the still white rava that it had been cooked enough to add the other ingredients. And anybody hanging around the kitchen knows the pleasures of eating straight from the kadai. The warm kesari went down easily, while the aroma of ghee lingered.

Meanwhile, Sabita was busy with uralakizhangu soyikeerai varayil (fried potatoes with dill) and venthiya kari kozhambu (mutton curry with methi leaves). At every step, be it the smoothness of the ground masala for the mutton, or the amount of dill leaves to be added to the potatoes, Mummy's nod was sought.

A glance around the kitchen showed the microwave nestling comfortably against a copper sombu (traditional copper glass) and rice boiling in a brass pot on a cooking range. Another still-in- use remnant of an era gone by was the thandu vaalam kadai (made of heavy steel alloy used to make rail tracks earlier) that was handed down by a greataunt. "It's difficult to maintain the old vessels, but how can you throw them away when there is so much history attached to them," says Sabita.

As the rasam was cooking, Mummy told me things that are not found in the sterile pages of a cookbook, about her foray into the kitchen, the disasters, experiments, survival techniques et al. As a young bride, she was thrown into the deep when her cook deserted the ship. Oh yes, there were the usual round of gaffes like the sambar that never got cooked for hours as she had added the tamarind too early.

The success stories came from Sabita, who pointed to a huge brass planter in the drawing room and told me that it was her mother's biriyani pot in which she used to cook for nearly 40 guests on the occasions of their father's birthday. More entertaining were the stories of how she used to supply food to the patients at her husband's hospital in Bangalore. Women who came for their delivery had such a good time with good food and total rest that they refused to leave the nursing home!

The kitchen sampling had whet my appitite and lunch came none too soon. While tucking into the mutton curry and potato fry, I watched the great grandmother and grand mother feed Deepika's daughters.

The conversation at the table centred around food, of course. From the Mudaliyar fondness for soyi and venthiya keerai, to the spinach varieties, their qualities, to the latest restaurants in town, it went on.

Amid all this banter, when six-year-old Aditi, told Mummy how she liked the kesari and kept helping herself to it, I could hear the unsaid words, see the unshed tears and understand the unhealed hearts around the table. Sabita's words earlier, "Cooking has a therapeutic effect on me," rang in my mind.

It was time to leave. This time, I hardly noticed the cruel sun beating down while getting back home.

There was all that lovely food to think of, the people, the emotions and more than anything else, the mending, soothing love reaching out from the plate.

* * *

Urulakizhangu Soyikeerai Varayil

500 gm potatoes
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
3 tspcoriander powder
2 tspchilli powder
1bunch dill
4 tblspoil 

1 tsp mustard
1 tsp split black gram dhal
10 curry leaves
1 medium sized onion 
(chopped) 
saltto taste

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