Between a mother who cooks, knits, blogs and thinks nothing of getting up at 4 and making some vadam dough because the sun is shining brightly, and a sister who works full-time and cooks for hubby late at night after returning home, I stand out as a person who happily thinks nothing of doing nothing .
One morning last week I got up at my usual time and walked groggily to the balcony to get some fresh air. And this is what I saw.
My mother had been busy - not wanting to waste the March sun, she had got up at 4 am and finished making the dough for the vadam and spread it out in cute circles on banana leaves which she had herself gone down and cut from the banana trees in the garden below! And all this before I had even woken up. (Every self-respecting Madras housewife knows that this is the season to make and dry vadam, and store them to last through the year.)
Enough to put anyone to shame. Fortunately, I am made of sterner stuff, and did not in the least feel any twinges of guilt. While she made sure that the vadams were dried thoroughly for three whole days, chasing the sun from this end of the balcony to the other, I (like the lilies of the field?) stood and took pictures. The vadaams then took on a glazed and shiny appearance, indicating they were well and thoroughly dried. Then my mother laboriously removed them from the (also dried) leaves, and dried them once again - to be stored, and ready for frying.
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| Dried and ready to be fried |
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| The fried vadam, ready to be eaten |
But guess who was the first to congratulate her when she fried them and served them to be tasted? Oh, they were so good, crisp and white and fluffy!.
The next batch is being readied now.....
