Early cooking endeavors

Most of my childhood, atleast till I entered my teens was spent in Kozhikode a.k.a Calicut, a northern district in God's Own Country Kerala.

For nearly thirteen years we stayed in the same rental house. It was a three storeyed traditional Kerala style house with tiled roofs . There was a well at the back that was always filled with sweet tasting water despite the fact that we were hardly a mile away from the sea. There was a huge open space in front of the house in addition to a car shed,  which my mother used to decorate with Kolam(Rangoli) everyday.A sprawling mango tree grew in front that covered the whole of the front yard. It allowed just enough sunlight to light up the space and always kept the house cool. Apart from that there were a couple of coconut trees and a betel nut tree in the space around the house. The latter had a black pepper climber running around it.

A huge cowshed that no longer housed any animals stood between our house and the landlord's house and that used to be a primary play area for kids in the compound.

At that age I was not mature enough to appreciate the loveliness of that house. I longed to move to one of those modern concrete mosaic floored houses. Now sitting on the 4th floor of a multistorey concrete complex , with not many plants around, I would give anything to get back to such a home.

There was a huge washing stone near the well, that our maid used for washing our clothes. Every morning I would sit on that stone with the toothbrush in my hand thinking about God knows what, for almost eternity. Then my mother's 'Jaish, go brush' would slowly transform to 'You are going to be late for school, are you going to brush or not?' and I would carry on with my morning routine.

All the houses in the neighborhood had so many trees and plants and many of them housed beautiful gardens. I had so much to explore and a lot of friends to play with.

One of my favorite activities now is losing myself within the walls of my kitchen experimenting with food. Of course, the favorable results do have only a 50% probability.  My cooking interests dates back to my years in Calicut as a five or six year old. Oh, I loved pretending to cook. Three stones or brick pieces arranged  together housing some sticks was my stove. One of the easily available materials in the neighborhood was the coconut shell that served as my vessel. I would fill it up with water , add some grasses for the seasoning and place it on the make believe stove. Take an orange brick piece or a tile piece, dip it in water and rub it against a stone and it would give a red colored paste. This would add color and look to my curry on the stove.Sand mixed with water would be filled in some of the coconut shells and then turned upside down and emptied to give us what we called rice cakes. Above all, I would pluck the still young green black pepper fruits, smash them to a paste and add them to the water on my stove to give it a thick consistency. The cowshed had a guava tree and some of the yet to ripen guava fruits would also meet their end in my cooking endeavors.

Soon, the landlord came to know how his precious crops were getting sabotaged by a mischievous brat in the neighborhood and a warning came flying in my direction. Then I could not fathom what was wrong in plucking and grinding all those fruits. Now when I pay a huge sum in my supermarket bill for a mere 100g of black pepper or 3 guava fruits, I find myself reminiscing those days.

The years I spent at Calicut hold some memories very very close to my heart and yes, I had a very fulfilling  and exciting childhood in a beautiful and green town.