A pictorial of food & my mother's day ode to the baby that made me a mom

Happy Mother’s day all! Hope all of you mothers and motherly figures had a special day with loved ones. Wishing you all unconditional love and joy in life.

I am not at home this weekend, BH & I flew out to meet DD at school as she finished up her final exams and graduated from a nervous, new-on-campus freshman kid to a confident, young lady ready to start her sophomore journey after a quick summer break. It still seems like yesterday when we dropped her off at the campus last summer, the year went by in the blink of an eye and here we are, moving her out of her dorm room for the summer. The long awaited summer break is here, I know she is going to be able to spend only part of the next 3 months at home while she continues to do the activities her heart is set on for the rest of the time. The baby I hold close to heart is spreading wings beyond what I could have imagined 17 years back. With her kindness and happy enthusiasm to everything around her, she is making me aware of life the way I never would have imagined. She is teaching me via her infectious laugh and never exhausting smile that life is so much more beautiful than I choose to accept sometimes with my adult brain. She is showing me that as long as one is passionate about something, one can make the days stretch beyond what the 'clock on the wall' tells you to get things done. She says things that are so mature and while I am wondering where the wisdom came from, she immediately turns around and giggles like a toddler brightening up my world both ways. I don’t know if I ever taught her any of these things, I wish I could take all the credit for it :-). But she is so much more than me, shaped by the loving, caring family that surrounds her, her teachers and mentors all these 17+ years that have helped silently sculpt the person she is, her circle of friends that support her endlessly. There are several mothers involved in the process of bringing up this child of mine, I am just glad I got to be the lucky one that is called as ‘mom’. When I see this baby I held in my arms not a long while ago and whom I hold in my heart always, for all this and much more, I am thankful for the gift of motherhood and proud of being  her amma. 

Social media is bursting at the seams with all the pictures, quotes, memories, tributes to moms and the one I liked best out of all I have seen so far is this: “Moms are the best because of each of us have the best one” J. Think about it, isn’t it true though?

Every mom, no matter whether she is educated or not, working or not, rich or not, is the best when it comes to the role of being a mother. Something in motherhood that takes away the blemishes of the person and makes her pure magic atleast for as long as she is in that role. Something in the motherhood elevates the person to go beyond what is ordinarily possible, it gives her the strength, the spirit to bring up her child and provide opportunities that never existed for anyone without the ‘mommy’ glasses on eyes.

Tired after all the packing, moving and storing of stuff and a little discouraged by the hot weather in the area, we are mostly staying in and as DD says, “we are lazying out at the hotel room”. While she has had a wonderful time in every other aspect at the campus, food is something she is still struggling to fall in love with or rather atleast like enough to survive on L. She is heading out with a volunteering group for a week long trip, and home food is still atleast 10days away from her. So when I asked her what she wanted to eat during the 4 days she was to stay with us in the hotel, she said, “Everything” with the exception of bread, cheese, pasta. She didn't want to go out (not for every meal atleast) and also wanted as much home food as was possible to make. Knowing that I couldn’t carry my kitchen on my shoulders (Delta airlines wouldn’t have taken kindly to an ordinary passenger like me trying to transport truck loads of stuff on the flight J),  I also had to consider the possibility of setting off alarms by my cooking in an usually closed room. I did the next best thing I could think of, made a plan for the meals and prepped the ingredients as far as I could for DD’s favorite dishes and brought them in my check in. So here we are, sitting in the middle of a city, surrounded by quite a few decent choices for Indian and non Indian food but cooking full fledged meals in a hotel room and enjoying every bit of it. Home made food cooked in the hotel, works for us.

So, I don’t have a recipe today but lots of pictures of what we are serving up these last 3 days, yep, a little showing off too. All these are cell phone quality pictures, not blog worthy for their quality but they have so much love in them which makes them perfect for the blog :-). Most of the ingredients were hand picked and prepped at home, some fresh produce brought here locally, aided by a packet of store bought rotis.  So enjoy the pictures and have a joyous Mother’s day and I will see you all next week with a yummy recipe when I return home.

Uppittu made from a mixture of roasted rave & semia, served with chutney pudi

Uppittu, chutney pudi and delicious tomato saaru

Menthya soppina bhaath, with MW roasted papad and salad

Delicious bhaath studded with golden roasted spuds

Tender cucumber, carrots, loads of cilantro and fresh lime juice

Yogurt rice with pickle, yummm!!!

2 kinds of roti, eggplant palya, dal, sweet mangoes and mosaravalakki in the background

Red lentils cooked with lemon cucumber and cilantro

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Broccoli stir fry a south Indian simple carrot palya

And we have a favorite restaurant here in town we have visited a couple times and go there for the yummy, mysore special akki rotti and the thick, golden roasted Mysore masala dose just like you crave for, makes your day :-)

Akki rottiiiiii, special only means extra coconut :-)

Not hotel oily mysuru masala dose

And then there is a beautiful temple in the town where you get the perfect temple prasada :-) along with divine darshana!

Idli, chutney & sambar, yes pickle too :-)

Full plate - vangi bhaath, mosaranna, mixture, kesari bhaath & pickle

Another combo plate - replace vangi bhaath with puliyogare

I am sure you can all see how we are surviving with our limited access to our favorite kinda food :-), I am sure all the eating and sitting in the room is making me go back home heavier than I came here 5 days back with. Not something Delta will notice but I sure will have to breathe in, jump a little to fit myself into office clothes come Wednesday morning.