Summer is officially over for 2015

Why is it that year after year every season, every festival floods my mind with memories from the past; of times when we were growing up. As a child our nascent minds were very impressionable and every new experience have got itself embedded in a very secure corner of our brain. My father eyes shines the brightest when he is talking about his childhood, though at times I am tempted write about his memories. Every time he visits me, I get so busy getting busy that it skips my mind. But this time  if required I will tie him to a chair and get everything out of him. I guess you reach a certain stage in life where all you have is memories, loads of them, and all you want to do is go back and relive them, course I am talking about the happy memories.    

Everyone is happy that Summer is over in Delhi, but I am not. All my experiments around drying food to preserve is almost over for the time being. I have cleared off a few of my drawers in the kitchen and have stacked up my seasons preserve. Sometimes when I feel down, I open those drawer and re-look at my stash, I am sure a smug expression spreads on my face. I wish I had space for a larder, now I understand what are store rooms for, they are not meant to dump your DVD's into, they are supposed to be stacked up with food reminding you of a very productive year which has gone by.

Sun Dried Green Mangoes

So here is the produce from this summer
Sun dried tomatoes
Sun dried mangoes
Mango leather
Peach leather
Mango jam
Peach jam
Plum sauce
Tomato sauce
Green Almond pickle
Mango pickle



I am unable to find fruit pectin which I could use a jelly setter for my Jams, in that case I would have made more of them knowing that they wont spoil. This weekend when we go  Kairi Bauli in Old Delhi, I will hunt for them.


Dad called the other day from US, I could sense the excitement in his voice when he asked me about my Mango leather experiment. Interestingly my grandmother used to make mango leather out of surplus produce by the end of every mango season. It used to be dad's responsibility to stay guard when the pulp would be laid out under the sun for drying.  I have a gut feeling that she actually asked a fox to guard the hen house. Those dried mangoes were given away to various relatives till even the most important bong festival came up, the Durga Puja. She would keep those inside folds of clothe and bury it in a box full or rice crisps, they still continue to be poor mans desiccant, no preservative however highly effective.

I am told my grandmother passed away when I was a toddler, I just wish I had more face-time with her to learn these age old traditions. Too late to realize that I do not contain heritages or wisdom from my culture which has been unfailingly passed on generation after generation. Somehow we as a generation have become shallow, we are so engrossed with our own lives with silly things like Facebook etc we are forgetting how to live, being human.

Food for thought, till then.