My mother used to call me “Kozhukattai” which could have meant “you sweetheart, adorable pumpkin pie” or depending on her mood it could have meant “fatso.” In Tamil, my mother’s tongue, “Kozhu kozhu” is an affectionate way of saying someone is chubby. The Kozhukattai is a fairly average-tasting delicacy that my brother Atul and I […]
I have had to learn lessons on life and love at decibel levels that hovered around the 80 mark most of the time. It’s a miracle that I’m not stone cold deaf.
The comfort food of all a Tamilians (may be other South Indians too) is Thair Saadam, or simply, homemade yogurt with steaming white rice. The most basic form of this recipe, which is often fed to children by loving mothers and grandmothers, contains nothing else. Just the yogurt and the rice… not even a pinch […]
Cauliflower Upma So what’s Upma you ask. According to my Kaveri Mami (now concocting delicious South Indian veggie dishes in that kitchen up in the sky), Upma was the quickest way to shut me up when I was wailing with hunger as a 5-year old. Something she could whip up in minutes, delicious, and most […]
So I decided to write a song. Another one. This time what moved me wasn’t the backbeat, or complex chord harmonies. It was the sizzle and smell of a dosai. That oily, artery-clogging, carb-filled, nutritionally-challenged, pure veggie mouthful of heaven that is served up at breakfast time in many South Indian homes, so their little children can […]
Radha Thomas 