Meals were very, very simple... breakfast was a bowl of turmeric rice, and lunch and dinner included rice, one or two mild vegetable curries, and usually a chapati (soft flat bread) or poppadum (crisp bread). We ate from thalis - stainless steel trays - and most folks sat on the floor with the boys. (We did have a table for the few older hard-to-get-up-and-down-from-the-floor folks... and for most meals, I happily used a chair!)
After prayers (including a few rousing rounds of Hare Krishna!), boys would begin to serve. Boy #1 would offer rice, and scoop some onto the thali. Boy #2 would offer vegetables. Boy #3 would offer the other vegetable (if we were having two for that meal). Boy #4 would offer the bread (again, if we were having bread for that meal). As Boy #4 moved on, Boy #1's smiling face would reappear, again offering rice. The food was simple, but there was plenty of it!
Dishwashing was sort of a trip. Before each meal, each diner picked up a thali and a cup. The Indians at the ashram ate with their hands.... and for the arent't-they-strange Westerners, a spoon/fork was available.)
After the meal, each diner washed his/her own dish, here:
Those taps are cold water. On a good day, you found a bar of green soap (like Lava) and a plastic scrubby. This is all a little scary. The ashram folks do keep an eye on the boys when they are washing their dishes... but even a good rinse with cold water is ... scary.
One night we offered to cook dinner for everyone. I woke from a nap to find a gang of folks in the guest kitchen chopping vegetables (with the worst, rusty, DULL, bent knives I had ever seen). I said "What are we cooking?" They said "Pasta with red sauce." So I looked at all of the food piled on the counter, where I found about 15 bags of dry pasta, and two (2) small bags of red "pizza sauce." Turns out that the list of requested groceries, and the groceries that were actually delivered, bore virtually no resemblance to one another. I said to Yvette, "Unless you are thinking that you can pull off the loaves and fishes thing, I really don't see how we are going to feed 60 people with four cups of red sauce!" And then Michele (I think it was Michele!) had a brilliant idea... we could make pasta aglio e olio... pasta with olive oil and garlic, served with shredded parmesan. The veggies would all be stir-fried, and mixed with the tomato sauce, and served alongside the pasta. This all worked wonderfully. Swamiji got a kick out of our efforts to cook for the community, and really supported us... he had a great time stirring the vegetables and helping us get ready to serve.... but this is a man who finds fun everywhere! (Photo credit to Josh Hall.)
We had to cook outside, because we found out (after we planned and started working on our garlic pasta and onions in the veggies... ) that the ashram does not use garlic and onion. Sigh. So we compromised... it was ok for us to use garlic and onions, but we needed to do all of the cooking outside. I have run into this onion/garlic thing in the past - I have friends who do not eat onion/garlic, and I have cooked for Indian kirtanwallahs in the US who request no onion/garlic in their food. (If you're interested in this, learn more here: http://kurma.net/essays/e19.html )
We served dinner, bending to put food on each thali. The second little boy I served stopped me as I served his food... and educated me. Turns out that the server 1) dips the serving ladle into the pan, 2) scoops up some food, 3) moves ladle over diner's plate, and 4) with a deft turn of the wrist, delivers the food to the thali. The big spoon never touches the thali. He and I practiced that move a few more times, and I moved on... a more skilled server than before. The vegetables were at least somewhat familiar to the boys... different seasoning, but still akin to their usual food. But the pasta... I was concerned about the Parmesan, a completely new flavor for them. But when I made my second round of serving, only a very few boys said "no thank you" - which was shown by putting one's hand over the thali, sort of blocking the idea of being served. Overall, the dinner was a huge success -- fun for us, and fun for the ashram community. (And I need to figure out a way to get some good knives for that kitchen!)
And a few words about eating and drinking in India in general. First, there's the water. I was blessed with a terrific travel nurse before my first trip to India, and she really hammered me about the water. Don't drink the water. Ice is water. Washed produce (like salads) may have water. The shower is water. (Keep your mouth closed.) Your toothbrush requires water. Bottled water is good - but *always* check the seal, because bottles are sometimes refilled and resold. You want to hear a nice snap when you open the bottle. If the food is hot enough to burn your mouth, or you opened a container (a bag of snacks, a bottle of water) yourself, you're fine. In some five star hotels, ALL water is uber-filtered, and completely safe... but the bottled water thing becomes a pretty serious habit. Street food always looks so good.... and a few times I have indulged - when I could watch the vendor frying my food, so I knew it would be ok. Not often. (I bought a cookbook on "Indian Street Food," figuring that if I could not eat it on the street, I could just learn how to cook it!) The other thing about Indian cooking... if you really like spicy food, you need to work to convince the restaurant folks.... because the going-in assumption is that when an American says "spicy," he or she means a 3 on a heat scale of 1-10. (This was not an issue at the ashram where the curries were always in the 1-3 range. We're not talking spicy here!)
I love Indian food.... I like preparing it, I like eating it, I just like it. It was a treat to eat Indian food for three weeks in India!
Oh, and one more thing... chai. We had chai pretty much every day, which was very happymaking for me. I do make chai at home... but whether I grind my own spices or use one of the zillion or so chai teabag options, it's just never as good. I will admit that I add some agave or honey to my chai at home... but the Indians like their chai sweet (no, really, SWEET), so I try to exercise at least a modicum of moderation on the sweeteners!
After prayers (including a few rousing rounds of Hare Krishna!), boys would begin to serve. Boy #1 would offer rice, and scoop some onto the thali. Boy #2 would offer vegetables. Boy #3 would offer the other vegetable (if we were having two for that meal). Boy #4 would offer the bread (again, if we were having bread for that meal). As Boy #4 moved on, Boy #1's smiling face would reappear, again offering rice. The food was simple, but there was plenty of it!
Dishwashing was sort of a trip. Before each meal, each diner picked up a thali and a cup. The Indians at the ashram ate with their hands.... and for the arent't-they-strange Westerners, a spoon/fork was available.)
After the meal, each diner washed his/her own dish, here:
Those taps are cold water. On a good day, you found a bar of green soap (like Lava) and a plastic scrubby. This is all a little scary. The ashram folks do keep an eye on the boys when they are washing their dishes... but even a good rinse with cold water is ... scary.
One night we offered to cook dinner for everyone. I woke from a nap to find a gang of folks in the guest kitchen chopping vegetables (with the worst, rusty, DULL, bent knives I had ever seen). I said "What are we cooking?" They said "Pasta with red sauce." So I looked at all of the food piled on the counter, where I found about 15 bags of dry pasta, and two (2) small bags of red "pizza sauce." Turns out that the list of requested groceries, and the groceries that were actually delivered, bore virtually no resemblance to one another. I said to Yvette, "Unless you are thinking that you can pull off the loaves and fishes thing, I really don't see how we are going to feed 60 people with four cups of red sauce!" And then Michele (I think it was Michele!) had a brilliant idea... we could make pasta aglio e olio... pasta with olive oil and garlic, served with shredded parmesan. The veggies would all be stir-fried, and mixed with the tomato sauce, and served alongside the pasta. This all worked wonderfully. Swamiji got a kick out of our efforts to cook for the community, and really supported us... he had a great time stirring the vegetables and helping us get ready to serve.... but this is a man who finds fun everywhere! (Photo credit to Josh Hall.)
We had to cook outside, because we found out (after we planned and started working on our garlic pasta and onions in the veggies... ) that the ashram does not use garlic and onion. Sigh. So we compromised... it was ok for us to use garlic and onions, but we needed to do all of the cooking outside. I have run into this onion/garlic thing in the past - I have friends who do not eat onion/garlic, and I have cooked for Indian kirtanwallahs in the US who request no onion/garlic in their food. (If you're interested in this, learn more here: http://kurma.net/essays/e19.html )
We served dinner, bending to put food on each thali. The second little boy I served stopped me as I served his food... and educated me. Turns out that the server 1) dips the serving ladle into the pan, 2) scoops up some food, 3) moves ladle over diner's plate, and 4) with a deft turn of the wrist, delivers the food to the thali. The big spoon never touches the thali. He and I practiced that move a few more times, and I moved on... a more skilled server than before. The vegetables were at least somewhat familiar to the boys... different seasoning, but still akin to their usual food. But the pasta... I was concerned about the Parmesan, a completely new flavor for them. But when I made my second round of serving, only a very few boys said "no thank you" - which was shown by putting one's hand over the thali, sort of blocking the idea of being served. Overall, the dinner was a huge success -- fun for us, and fun for the ashram community. (And I need to figure out a way to get some good knives for that kitchen!)
And a few words about eating and drinking in India in general. First, there's the water. I was blessed with a terrific travel nurse before my first trip to India, and she really hammered me about the water. Don't drink the water. Ice is water. Washed produce (like salads) may have water. The shower is water. (Keep your mouth closed.) Your toothbrush requires water. Bottled water is good - but *always* check the seal, because bottles are sometimes refilled and resold. You want to hear a nice snap when you open the bottle. If the food is hot enough to burn your mouth, or you opened a container (a bag of snacks, a bottle of water) yourself, you're fine. In some five star hotels, ALL water is uber-filtered, and completely safe... but the bottled water thing becomes a pretty serious habit. Street food always looks so good.... and a few times I have indulged - when I could watch the vendor frying my food, so I knew it would be ok. Not often. (I bought a cookbook on "Indian Street Food," figuring that if I could not eat it on the street, I could just learn how to cook it!) The other thing about Indian cooking... if you really like spicy food, you need to work to convince the restaurant folks.... because the going-in assumption is that when an American says "spicy," he or she means a 3 on a heat scale of 1-10. (This was not an issue at the ashram where the curries were always in the 1-3 range. We're not talking spicy here!)
I love Indian food.... I like preparing it, I like eating it, I just like it. It was a treat to eat Indian food for three weeks in India!
Oh, and one more thing... chai. We had chai pretty much every day, which was very happymaking for me. I do make chai at home... but whether I grind my own spices or use one of the zillion or so chai teabag options, it's just never as good. I will admit that I add some agave or honey to my chai at home... but the Indians like their chai sweet (no, really, SWEET), so I try to exercise at least a modicum of moderation on the sweeteners!
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