My blue book

My blue cookbook started as a new Travancore Dewasom Board yearly diary presented to my dad in early ‘97. 

It is handwritten cookery book now. The initial recipes were signature traditional dishes shared by the elder ladies of the family before I joined my husband with my not-yet-one-year-old daughter in Dubai. I was in my late teens and knew no cooking. 

My thought were utopian in the beginning…neatly written down recipes in English which will be handed down as a family heirloom to my daughter but slowly my other languages found their way in to the pages. Somehow writing ‘kadugu thalikkal’ in Malayalam or Tamil encompasses more & is almost short-hand to the long sentence in English!! (Splutter mustard, urad dal and red chillies. Add curry leaf.) 

Now, the dog-eared diary contains recipes from so many wonderful home cooks, single-dish flaunters and also some shared by chefs in restaurants who were coaxed to not skimp the details!! My children have added to the collection after tasting cakes & other delights their friends have shared with them. (I love seeing their beautiful handwriting on paper torn from the ruled school books.) The book bulges on the seams with recipe clippings from newspaper’s and magazines. It even houses a booklet shared by ‘idayam nallenai’ given as a gift when buying their huge bottle of pure gingerly oil. (The then new-bie actress  Jyothika, who was their brand ambassador, smiles at me each time I refer it to make the ennai kathirikai recipe!)

Some recipes are very aspirational & never attempted. Some have proved to be disastrous but most have with stood the test, evolved and now part of my cooking arsenal.

The book might be old. And my handwriting has surely changed from teacher approved to pharmacists illegible! Pen, pencil and crayons.

The last pages of the diary with some ‘table of distance between towns in Kerala’ holds the measurements of sambar powder, dosa podi, mango pickle & poricha kozhambu!

Even the page sides have not been spared. They are filled with more traditional, continental, baking recipes.

The thought of a customised cookery book or a well-subscribed vlog with beautiful visuals or minimum a blog is still in the works. 

I have surely out grown the recipes in this book. I no longer make Semiya upma with Spaghetti!

But the blue bulging turmeric stained slightly smelly (is it garam masala or pickle?) diary is more than a book. It contains memories. I now squint to read the fading sambar podi recipe written with a nub of pencil borrowed from my daughter all those years ago. The recipe is etched in my mind after having made it so many times over the years but going through it ‘just to be sure’ is almost a ritual.