Me and my World

In demand from my friends, I thought would publish my mixed-vegetable pickle recipe. It was one of those days a few months back when there were those left over fresh veggies, that I was cutting to either cook kurma or just a vegetable fry. My pickle bottle (then near empty) was on my counter and suddenly I decided to make fresh pickle. I got some lemon and green chillies out of my fridge so I don't forget the pickle I wanted to make. Back home in Madras, amma would always make fresh raw mango pickle in the summer, manga-kari . This was just finely cut raw mango pieces with their skin to which spices have been added. This is exactly what I wanted to do with the lemon and chillies. By the time I finished cutting the veggie for fry, my mind was made up. I wanted to make vegetable pickle, but such that the process and ingredients was easy. So I combined the fresh pickle and preserved pickle process. Here is what I used - Ingredients: Mixed vegetables (cut into 1/2" cubes or...

Thiruvathirai came and went by in early January this year. I was in Phoenix with my parents and brother's family. Amma cooked this amazing, as usual, kali and sambhar . Coming from a family that celebrates all the small and big religious and non-religious festivals, we all kids wait for these even small festivals that come by nearly every month and celebrate it with the same enthusiasm as we would show the big ones. Thiruvathirai is one of the rarest festival where a sweet and savory dish is offered to the God as neivedyam. The sweet item is the kali and the savory item is the sambhar or poduthuval . Thiruvathirai kali and sambhar is the norm in my family. My mothers' family cook poduthuval instead of sambhar , which requires indegionous Indian vegetable ' kavathu '. Kavathu is a root vegetable with a kind of sour and bitter taste. There is a tradition on the number of vegetables that needs to go into the sambhar . Amma usually adds either 5 or 7 vegetable...