Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Runaway it's the ......BEETROOT :)


Mama has a phobia for vegetables, yes you read it right VEGETABLES. He has this huge list of I-don't-like-them vegetables which is like "all" of them. 

When I got married and came home to cook for my brand new husband he threw a shocker at me. He hated almost all the vegetables I had brought to cook for the week Carrots :nay!! cabbage :yuk !!, Snake gourd : are you kidding?, radish : hmmm not a bad idea, cabbage: is it even eatable? cauliflower: only deep fry and Beetroot  POISON!!Aaaaaaaa (scream).

 Imagine my state, I really thought he was ILL ;) . It was tough, very tough to survive with his fondness to vegetables. I believed pleasing him with food is like IMPOSSIBLE.

I am really not exaggerating here and mama will agree to this whole heatedly  He was so disturbing at first, nothing will fall into his "I-love-this" slot except for the stupidest POTATOES. We had nothing in common except for the non vegetarian dishes at first. We had trouble even with the egg scramble method, lol its still going on. 

 It was so much torture for him to eat carrot poriyal , not that it tasted bad. If it had tasted bad he would even skip lunch. He accepted nothing subtle  If I make kootu I know he will cry to get past it, its that serious. Dal tadka was the killer of them all, I have to eat it all by myself and he will go ahead with curd and pickle.

I have to talk about my side here. I adore vegetables better than so many vegetarians, so many of my veggie friends have a small list of vegetables that they 'mind' eating. But I never had such list and I am very proud of it. I never eliminate vegetables from my diet. I was made to respect them since childhood hence I never forget to incorporate them into my non vegetarian cooking too. I am that close and mama was that far.

Nothing could stop me when I found my love for cooking, he was all the "Guinea pig" I had and I cant let him have his way. It was very tragic for mama at first. he had to eat all of them so that I wont get hurt. LOL I had to blackmail him into doing so. Slowly I started cooking all those he hated and altered the recipe every time so that something would make him say yes. Kootu was weekly special and he still hates it. He does not understand how good it is for his health. I made sambar every week to let him know that I still was ready to cook what he wants. Slowly things changed. Now mama is more of a real person who can digest the fact that vegetables will be a part of every meal we eat. Not that he loves them he just wont show faces which is much more better. 

Probably GENEVA is the reason for this change in mind, here there is no comfort of getting okra, drumstick, Indian spinach or bitter gourd. We have to live with beans, carrot, cauliflower, cabbage, Italian tomato, white onion, only fall time pumpkins, occasional radish and bio beetroot  That is it the list is over. Can you believe it? I was really stressed over this problem when I moved here. There are 20 varieties of salad lettuce and greens which is of no use when it comes to Indian cooking.

 I watched mama eat carrots with love cuz he had no choice but he still wouldn budge, beetroots are his enemy. In Geneva beetroots are very special and uncommon so it is only available in the BIO / ORGANIC section and sometimes we cant find them. So when ever I get a chance I grab a packet for me much to mama's disappointment. You can even see the worry in his eyes, I always feel glad about it. Today after so many days I decided to make some poriyal with beetroot and I felt responsible to forewarn mama.  I gave a wide smile and said I was going to make"beetroot" while he got ready to work. Quiet taken back he left with out telling anything. 

When he came home for lunch he first checked what I had 'actually' made assuming that I lied. NO I NEVER LIE when it comes to beetroot. It was fun to watch his reaction, he said "really you made them. I thought you were kidding" LOL

Come on mama will I ever make food your way unless and until I want to eat it "that" way? and you hardly have a 'that' way :P

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