Yesterday I landed in a Food paradise

Yesterday was meant for all good food. After celebrating the morning at home with my family, I had to come to my native place to attend a function - one of my very close childhood friend's function - his daughter's birthday. This was special, since, it was her sixteen birthday. There are so many traditions in my place - people celebrate the sixteenth birthday by holding a nice feast, calling hundreds of people to eat and bless. They did all the rituals at home in the morning and all the food was prepared outside by a team of chefs, whom I know since 30 years. So I drove straight to his home to have the lunch first. Here are the items, that were on serving as starters. Recognize this ?

Panipuri, Golgappa,Gupchup - so many names but its one of the most common street food. You will always see some ladies hanging around. I personally do not eat this on streets - there is a reason for that. I have seen many pictures / videos where the vendors do not maintain proper hygiene and I have seen these people growing them in unhygienic conditions. Only if I know the person's origin and where and how he prepares these then only I eat. So this fellow is a known person in my native and we know how he prepares - so I did not miss the opportunity to grab 10 of them 😀

And then comes the famous Dahibara Aludam - another mouth watering starter. This recipe originally started in my place but now quite famous all over India.

There was no rush - so we took a little break before getting to the main course. We have a very close group of friends, who would always stand with us any moment. That is how the relationship is in village or rural life. They don't have lot of money but the social life is much better there. These functions serves the purpose of meeting with many people at one place. I met some people and their family after almost a decade. I cannot explain, how happy it feels to meet them and talk after such long time. Whoever meets you asks about where we are now and how are we doing, how many kids, how is the family doing etc - in the city, the very next neighbor does not even ask. We have 100 families in our apartment society and very few know about others.

Here were the items in the main course - rice, daal, cauliflower fry, Pointed Gourd curry, pineapple khataa ( sweet and sour) and Paneer.

Each of the items were so tasty that, we just took time and eat slowly 😀 These were all prepared without onion and garlic even - yes, food can be super tasty with other ingredients as well. And the taste is a bit different than what we eat at home - these are like more yummy and mouth watering, you can eat then sometimes, but not every day. They are cooked using big containers in traditional chullahs using wood - that may be another key contributing to the taste.

And here comes the sweets - my favorite kheer. I grabbed six of these - there was ice cream as well, was happy with just one scoop. If you do not know, then kheer and khatta tastes better next day, so carry them (if you can) and keep in fridge and eat next day.

You can see these containers here - a lot of food was remaining, so we decided to give away to nearby people and carry some to home. If you do not know, then kheer and khataa tastes better on the next day - I brought all most everything to home because we have a family staying on rent at my native and there is a pregnant lady. So I thought, it would be good to give some delicious food to her. Usually people call pregnant lady and give them various delicious food ( another tradition).

By the time I came home, it was almost 3.30 in the afternoon and my mother also came at the same time from a nearest place where she had gone to attend the marriage. Recently she recovered, but she had to attend her close friend's function.

On my way saw these monkeys planning to take over the house - the way they were sitting, I felt, they could read that TOLET paper and have come with the entire family to inspect the house. 😀

Good food brings good sleep - yes this is told at our place. So I slept for an hour but when I got up , found out this sweet surprise - the last custard apple from our tree that my mom had kept. What a day....

And the evening - our friends called in for a meeting to discuss about our yearly cricket match - about to happen next month 25th with some delicious lunch - rice and mutton - sometimes you enjoy the food when you have very specific items.

Village life is way better socialized than city life I must say....Money cannot buy these happiness. And people care for you..