Sunday, July 16, 2006

Treasure hunt

Since the time my parents returned to India mid-October last year, this kind of conversation is very common place between me and my mom.

Me: You know what, Mee, I thought I had run out of sombu. So last week, I went and bought some from the Indian store ...

Mom (interrupting): But I thought I left behind quite a lot of sombu when we left in October.

Me: Yes, I realized that when I hunting for something else yesterday :-(. There were two packets of sombu in that big ziploc bag. Sigh! Now I have to finish all that plus the one I bought last week! As it is you left behind so many spices, enough to feed two families and now... (launch into my usual whining about how I hardly ever use any of the kitchen stuff which mom had brought along during her stay here and then left behind for my use).

Mom: See, that's why I asked you to make a list of things you already have in your kitchen.

Me: Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa - I know. I should do it some time.

A couple of weeks later, this conversation would again happen. Just substitute sombu with mustard seeds.And then again. Substitute something else. But I never made that list. Yeah, I know, I am one lazy person.

Anyways, after all those conversations, at long last, this evening turned out to be THE auspicious day. On the spur of the moment, I just opened my freezer and decided to make an inventory of the contents. When I took out all the stuff outside, I was amazed that so much stuff could actually fit into my not-so-huge freezer. You can kind of understand what I am talking about - this is what the door of the freezer looks like!
Anyways, what I thought would be a ten minute project turned out to take up an hour instead. Being the conscientious soul that I am I decided to clean up everything before putting it all back. My inventory list is about three sides long. I discovered some spices and ingredients which I did not know I owned. Yes, and all this is just the stuff which sits in the freezer. I am yet to check out the rest of the kitchen cupboards :-( - but I shall save inventoring those for the next prick of my conscience :-D.
I also discovered some interesting-looking unidentifiable powder in an unlabeled plastic packet. After doing the look test, the sniff test and the taste test, I was still unable to place it. And then I found a small card inside the packet. "Manna Health mix" it read. My smart mom had labeled it after all :-D. So tonight, my dinner is the health mix.
If I disappear from the scene for more than two days, someone please call the medical services!

In case you are wondering why I have put up this whole rigmarole about cooking and cleaning, I was actually supposed to write a longer post. But since the cleaning took up my time, I had to settle for a short post instead. After I racked my brain for ideas, it came up with this brilliant topic.

I know, I should try to sharpen my brain with brain-games from now on :-P!

14 comments:

Floridora said...

Paraphrasing someone or other, "Every refrigerator and freezer, no matter the size, will always be filled to overflowing."

kuttichuvaru said...

ha ha..... gud one!!

Prabhu said...

LOL :)
Your list reminded me of "puli rendu kilo plus rendu kilo, angavasthram maaadhiri iruku list" from MMKR :)

yet another advantage of staying with ur brother's family - kitchen pakkam poi its been months :)

Archana said...

Floridora - that's so true. I think every cupboard in my apartment is optimally packed with things :-(!

Kuttichuvaru - :-))!

Prabhu - LOL! That movie is really funny :-D! Lucky you - wish I could stay away from the kitchen too!

Prasanna said...

oh! If I try to do what u have done,I think I will need a 40 pages note book...

Ginkgo said...

or mebbe a better option..
Try talking to me...:P

It will improve ur 'sharpness' ;-)

Archana said...

Prasanna - 40 pages-aaa :-O!! Adi paavi, veetla evalavo periya freezer vechuirukkey?

Rahul - :-) - ah, a word a day :-D! How abt swapping refrigerators :-P?? And all my best wishes to you for filling up your refrigerator soon :-P!

Ginkgo - LOL - when none of the other techniques work, I shall get back to you :-P!

Archana Bahuguna said...

he he ... so you had a great time ;-) doing the listing etc. And you dint do the kitchen cupboards yet? ;-)

I used to have this roommate about a year ago and she used to get home made masalas of all possible herbs. After she left, I had a hard time smelling, tasting and racking my brains on which ones were which .. in fact 3 masalas remained "unknown" till the very end. Just recently I did a complete overhaul of my kitchen and got the hang of the enormous stuff I have.

And they say "there is no work at home". ;-)

BZ said...

:--) All the spice packets are so big, enough to last a year, even with cooking everyday.

But you must have a had a lotttt of time to take an inventory of your fridge :-)

And how was the health mix? We can see you are up and about. LOL! :--)

Archana said...

Archana - I think inventoring all kitchen cupboards will be day-long project :-(! Yup, whoever said that housekeeping is an easy task has obviously never done it themselves! LOL - we used to have this "guess what this powder is" game everytime someone moved too :-)!

Saranya - yeah, I don't think I can cook quite soo much to finish off eth :-(! Its not as much a question of time as it is of patience! Health mix tasted pretty decent. I don't feel any healthier - but at least, I am alive :-D!

Anonymous said...

hmm. after the blogspot ban here, we have to blog hop thru proxies :)

Shilpa said...

Arch,

reading ur blog after eons !!!

I was abt to ask what 'sombu' was...for a minute I thought it was the vessel and was a little confused heheheh

Archana said...

Spark - that is really one dumb ban! I did not know how to react when I first read the news. Looks like there are some really bright sparks (not you ;-)) out there handling government policies! Grrr ...

Shilpa - welcome back! Daily cook panra "housewife" ketkara kelvi-aa idhu ;-P?

Known Stranger said...

I had been into the same situation many a times. Since i started making my own living ( fine you doing in america - i do in chennai and mom at home town ) alone as single bachelore.. she would come with receips and ingredents.. i will start doing cooking and one fine morning will buy one from grocerry and will tell mom the next day , you didnt bring it - no clue she would tel me which row, which bottel the ingredents was left. hmm and the same situation now happening in brunei - atleast in chennai was able to buy what ever i want.. here - wonderfull..

good thing.. i learnt cooking at an early age of 17. helps yar.. cooking helps.