lovedale

puff pastry...

It happened during a school trip to that big town across the mountain pass: Ooty - and a stop at its legendary King Star Bakery (No Branch Anywhere).

There he was. With a friend.

We bonded over the éclairs, and drooled over the japonais cakes. He was cute and around my age...and I just knew we would have enjoyed Black Forest cakes together. His piercing blue eyes looked into mine as we shared our names and those of our schools.

Lovedale
[name of school tactfully redacted]

Perfection. Like one of King Star's chocolates. Until blue-eyed one turned to his friend and muttered sneeringly: Lawrencians...darkies.

I almost threw my chocolate éclair at him.

I remembered just in time that I was at King Star Bakery and to waste an offering like that would have been a complete travesty. A waste of superb cream filling.

You had to earn the right to be bashed about the head with a King Star éclair. The snarky kid with the piercing blue eyes just wasn't worth it. So I bumped him hard as I walked out through the narrow doorway...accidentally on purpose, of course. And in a ladylike way. And then we beat that school at the next inter-school competition. Revenge...best served on the playing fields.

As for the éclair, it was simply....divine. Judging by the picture, King Star remains the same size it used to be. A store that is small in size but huge on taste. L-shaped counters enclosing delicious treats and...oh, I can’t  type any more without visions of cream horns and éclairs. I wonder if they ship overseas?

...dosas as big as yer head...

ETA: Peter keeps me honest...LOL! The department store is Chellarams...

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....ah, this one brought back memories.

A Kurinji is, in fact, a flower that blooms in the Nilgiris. It also has an annoying habit of blooming only once every 12 years, which means I got to see it...once. 

Mention Kurinji to a Lawrencian however, and you can bet your bowl of chutney this is what they will envision: a hole-in-the-wall eatery in Ooty that made the most delicious paper dosas. And before you ask, yes, I do mean crisp Indian pancakes...dosas that were as big as your head. Although rumor has it, the store's offerings may have descended into culinary hell. The cars parked right outside may not help...it's a bit like dusting your dosas with a helping of car fumes.

Could we have just a moment of silence, please.

The original was just the red store; it hugged a curve in the road...which made seating an unknown concept. It was (still is?) right opposite Spencer's Department Store and across the road from King Star Bakery. Which, if you were a hungry kid on a weekend trip to The Big City, was the equivalent of the Golden Triangle.

noodles and soup...

...Founders 2010 is just around the corner. With the help of OL Peter Gantzer, I will attempt my third annual almost-live blogging of this three day event. Check back May 5-7 for updates. Like always, it is a bit dependent on connectivity, so I ask for your patience!

If you are headed up to school and need a little nourishment...there is always Shinkows, in Ooty. Remember the restaurant? I almost sold them my infamous Nattukai Soup. Or not!

The picture is courtesy OL Phil Verghis. The text is classic linguistic detente: English words about a Chinese restaurant, translated perfectly into Tamil.

The picture made me curious and I googled Shinkows. Look what I found on YouTube!

The sound quality is a bit dicey and the music doesn't quite match the visuals - but it IS a trip down memory lane nonetheless! The decor has apparently remained unchanged for 41 years and what caught my eye right away...is the distemper on the walls. It is identical to the finish on the walls at Girl's School.

shlurp...

His tongue snaked out with obvious relish, licking the river of sambhar flowing down his arm.

Let's step back a few follicles, shall we?

The Kanyakumari Express from Bombay pulled into Coimbatore station a little after midnight; in a fraction less than 10 minutes, it had decanted its motley pile of sleepy school kids, teachers, school trunks and bedrolls onto the deserted platform.

Sprawled across bedrolls, we waited for the green and yellow 'Cheran Transport' buses that would take us back up to the blue hills and another semester at school. Some slept, others read, some counted railroad ties and a hungry posse wondered when they could next get a quick bite to eat. It would be a glum few hours for the latter group until they too fell asleep.

Sunlight slid across the tracks until it reached the very last platform. One among the assortment of snoring kids, teachers, and luggage, I woke, stretched and looked over the group - wondering if I might persuade anyone to come across the street with me for a quick breakfast.

I'm hungry...muttered a voice muffled by a pillow. Me too...said another.
My tummy – an organ that always got right to the point - rumbled gently.

What were the odds!? The buses were running late that day and if we hurried, said a teacher, we could have a quick snack at the restaurant across the street.

Five of us set off immediately, dodging an early morning traffic mélange of people, buses, cars, rickshaws, cycles, scooters, and cows absently munching on leftovers.

The restaurant was a classic tiffin room: Formica tables with an overabundance of metal plates, spoons, tumblers and bowls. The room was loud and noisy...nearly full with those getting an early start on the day. Whirling waiters snaked between bus drivers, government employees, teachers and at the front door...five wide-eyed school kids.

The burp silenced us all.

Our heads swiveled to the table on our left. A well fed - and well dressed - man in a white shirt and a sharp handlebar mustache, was working his way through a large plate of idlis floating in a sea of sambhar. He ate - as is traditional - with his right hand...his fingers chasing the fluffy white dumplings around his plate with studied intensity.

Mr. Handlebar curled his right palm and scooped up sambhar in a clockwise motion, swallowing it with a satisfied shluuuuuuuuuuuuurp. When he lifted his hand however, a river of liquid quivered and, obeying every law of gravity....began flowing down his hairy forearm.

We watched wonderingly as his tongue snaked out and shlurped its way up his arm - chasing every runaway drop. Mr. H. then sat back with another satisfied burp and a glazed look before folding his hands across his stomach.

We had the idlis as well. Our handlebar'd connoisseur, the Egon Ronay of tiffin rooms, did after all give it a five-shlurp review.

Before you wonder...Sally was demonstrating a technique. Mr. Handlebar on the other hand was, quite unabashedly, enjoying his large breakfast. This delicious image is from Wikipedia, and was taken by Randhirreddy. 

one chicken, no head...

It was a feather ruffling phrase used in passing last week - running around like a chicken with its head cut off - that made me remember. 

Because - gory truth be told - I have, in fact, seen a headless chicken.  It happened one sunny, lazy, weekend afternoon at Girls School.

As any hungry boarding school kid does, I shook out my pillowcase and mattress...hunting for change that could get me a few snacks from  the little blue store - Pichaikanis, a.k.a. Pichees.

Success! I had enough for a full dose of two paisa murrukus plus enough to tip Cuppan, my favorite go-to errand man. Pichees - despite being just down the road and around a bend - was officially out of bounds.

Sidebar: Cuppan, like other support staff, needs must be memorialized for their yeoman service to generations of hungry boarders who wanted nothing more than healthy murukkus, chalk sweets, bulls-eyes and candy shaped to look like lit cigarettes. </end random thought>

Cuppan walked over to the area between the woodshed and the playground, stepped up onto a stone slab, climbed over the low wall and headed for the shop. I wandered over to that area myself and sat down on the wall to wait for his return - absentmindedly forgetting that the white limestone wash on the top of the wall would rub right off on my clothes. In my defense, it was a sunny, lazy, weekend afternoon. But I may have said that already.

The world settled into silence, broken by the lazy humming of a bee and a slight rustle of wind. I stepped off the wall and walked on past the woodshed and behind the kitchen.

Peace.

Shattered.

There was a sudden flurry of squawks and a muttered curse. I turned my head in bemusement as the scene unfolded in slow motion. Squawks....a hen running by me in frantic search of its head - blood spurting from its neck...followed by a flustered cook with a bloody knife and an embarrassed grin.

The cook eventually caught the runaway dinner entree and stalked silently back into the depths of the kitchen.

Silence reigned once more as everyone took their places again.

The bee returned to buzzing around the woodpile, I returned to the wall, the chicken headed for the pot, the cook headed for his spices. Cuppan strolled back from the store and I...I walked on, thoughtfully munching my murukkus.

Life goes on. As do chicken curries.


Note: This great photograph is from Wikipedia, taken by Andrei Niemimäki from Turku, Finland.

o the shark bites...

 I can't eat that - it's brown and tastes like something the shark ate, and then threw up.

Mum wasn't having any of it. She stood over me until I morosely lifted the spoon, sniffed at it, gagged - and ate the rest of my Sharkoferrol. It was hard to get away with anything when she was around.

Sharkoferrol was medicinal and unlike Marmite, that culinary staple that some girls brought to school one semester, I had no choice but to eat it. Prescribed by doctors who I was convinced hadn't left the era of leeches and bloodletting, this medicine supposedly helped anemia. This and Ferradol, another gloppy mess, were staples for the larger part of a semester at school. I can't say I particularly enjoyed either and to call them tonics would be euphemisms of epic proportions.

My teachers weren't particularly sympathetic either - often sitting with me as I wrestled with breakfast in a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable.

I don't feel like having this today, Ma'am. Ma'am? 

My words always fell into a grimly silent void. Apparently they had been warned of my aversion.

Occasionally, Ferradol was used as the binding agent when we played games of Pass The Spoon. The game had one rule...if you dropped it - you et it.

Ferradol doesn't seem to be manufactured any more, but I may have been on to something with Sharkoferrol. I found the product is still manufactured by Alembic, is now in a capsule form, and alarmingly...is prescribed for dogs, cats, sheep, cows, horses and poultry. Unless I missed it, humans don't seem to have a place on the list - unless you stick them in with 'Others'. 

A Google search reassures me that I was not the only snotty-nosed kid to have suffered through Sharkoferrol. I wonder if anyone still does today?

The product intriguingly claims to increase the production of eggs. That would explain the odd taste.

Cluck.

two leaves and a bud...

“Two Leaves and a Bud,” intoned the estate manager solemnly as we obediently raised and drank from our pink patterned cups. “That’s what we pluck from each tea bush, the top two inches….”

“Bit of a waste then, isn’t it?” I thought inattentively, as my mind wandered off the manager’s presentation and around the sunny, wood-paneled room. We were on a field trip to a local tea estate and the room was vintage Passage to India. One of my favorite kinds of décor – British colonial.

Tea plantations were, and are, ubiquitous in the Blue Hills and near Lovedale – whether  driving up from Coimbatore; dodging elephants in Bandipur and Mudumalai while driving up from Mysore; or taking the little toy train up from Mettupalayam.

They present a series of serene and timeless images: gentle mists wafting over flat-top bushes that spread over rolling hills; the rhythmic cadence of crickets; wiry tea pluckers hauling baskets virtually the same size as themselves; the lines of workers' homes; the plantation house itself…

For all my inattentiveness on that school trip, I was thinking about the Two Leaves and a Bud line last night as I made myself a cup. It wasn't Nilgiri tea, but a supermarket wannabe in a tea bag. No jaggery. And then, I couldn't help it -  I went looking for a video...

Interestingly enough, the process looks very similar to the one we saw as a class, especially the tray that’s shaking (curing?) the tea leaves. I can almost smell the tea in the video. Which visual is a bit alarming, now that I think of it…

Tea from these estates would eventually wind its way to our kitchens at Lovedale; remember my earlier post? Some of the best tea I have ever had in my life – was at Lovedale. The title of this post, by the way, is a nod to Mulk Raj Anand, whose dreadfully earnest book I never managed to finish. The image is from Wikipedia, taken by Dave Oceano.

butterfingers...

...Remember the pats of Amul butter at our dining tables? Silver and blue foil wrapped around golden deliciousness?

The limited numbers we'd get at each meal ensured Amul formed the core of our Butter Exchange...fast and furious, the deals would begin as soon as we filed in for breakfast.

I'll trade you my milk for two of your pats of butter.

I see your two pats and raise you your buns  (so to speak)

Wait, I'll throw in my fried egg as well - but you'll have to add another pat of Amul. I'm giving up my protein here...

My dosas for your butter...!

The pats of butter almost always arrived frozen. Which made them easier to chuck from one end of the table to the other - depending on where the highest bidder sat. For optimal spreadability, the pats had to be warmed up a bit; the easiest way, of course, was to place a cup of hot tea on top - just for a bit. Mmmm, delicious. On a dosa, on idlis, on toast, licked off the foil...to swipe their marketing line, it was utterly, butterly delicious.

For a fat-free walk down memory lane, check out some classic online Amul ads from the late 70's...

somewhere, a chicken is running around featherless...

...Brown bag lunches. Remember them?

Each time we would head out for any Inter-School event, or other assorted school outing, you could bet there would be a mystery box up front - behind the diver's seat. They held their secrets until noon, when a closer inspection revealed in no particular order of appearance: sandwiches, sandwiches, more sandwiches and the occasional puris, with aloo. There was almost always a sweet lime at the bottom - which, as we all know, helps prevent scurvy amongst snotty-nosed schoolkids.

Given the gastronomic variety we enjoyed, it was perhaps little surprise that hot meals prepared by host schools were always welcomed. Those invites were not without their own culinary hazards, however. Let's just say the unnamed school in this story...rhymes with a certain vegetable.

Hot lunch? Yummy. Lead the way to the dining room, Coach!

Okay, as a vegetarian, I was limited to the rice and overly salted raita. The others however, had delicious, steaming, chicken curry with rice. A reverent hush descended on our team's table...broken  by the realization that the gravy smelled a bit odd. Well, this might explain it, said a classmate with a grin and a pinched nose.

She reached into the red gravy and slowly withdrew a sodden chicken feather...

pink noodles...

...will the person who put the ketchup in the noodles finally 'fess up?

Each year, we had outward bound camps to various tea estates and assorted locations around the Nilgiris. For the better part of a week, we'd 'camp' out - and enjoy running around without the restrictions of classes and homework. Did you notice the apostrophes around 'camp'? Our idea of roughing it was to stay inside (usually empty) homes loaned to us by the tea plantation owners. I have a stack of stories around camps...for now, however, I will focus on just one.

The Sorry Tale of the Pink Noodles

Along with several of my classmates...I was part of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme; different levels required us to hike and literally camp out- under heavy canvas tents held down with iron pegs.

For the Bronze Award, we hiked out about 10 miles before pitching our tents in an open patch of land near Ooty. The scenery was bucolic - if a little damp. After a day of hard walking, dinner seemed like a great idea.

I was left in charge of the noodles for our tent. Seemed a simple enough task - let the water boil, add salt, the noodles, and when it was about done - chuck in a few peas to let them cook at the same time. So, I dutifully let the water boil, added the salt and the noodles, and when it was about done - chucked in a few peas to let them cook at the same time.

I then made the mistake of turning my back.

From somewhere under the tent flap came a hand with a box of powdered glucose; the entire contents went into the pot. Another hand followed with a bottle of ketchup. You guessed it - the entire contents disappeared into the pot of noodles. As a grand finale, someone else tossed in a bit of scrambled eggs.. The noodles by now were a tasteful shade of Pepto Bismol pink.

I came back to find an ominously bubbling pot with a pink gloppy, gooey mess flecked with green peas.

I think we had dry bread and butter for dinner instead. I was forever known as the Pink Noodle Kid...inadvertently branded by someone else's prank. :-)

When the noodles had cooled, we decided to test if any local mutt might find it edible...and set it out for them. One did come up to the congealed, pink, mass; he carefully sniffed his way around it...barked, and ran away with his tail between his legs. Wasn't that bad - surely???