It is amazing how somethings just become a ritual without you even realising it. It may start as just a simple task and before you know it you look forward to doing it every year.
For my household making Gulab Jamuns for Deepavali is a ritual. I know you are wondering "Umm why is that so special and why is it worthy of a blog post?"
Being Tam Bram our Deepavali is almost always one day before other parts of India. More important than the Deepavali day is the night before Deepavali. We call it as Neer Roppara pandigai (Water filling festival) and that is when we have a feast with potato curry and onion sambar and vada and payasam. If you aren't Tam Bram then you are surely wondering why onion sambar is a huge deal. We don't use onion and garlic during festival time. Technically we are not supposed to use it at all but that is a topic for another day. Let's not get diverted.
Once we are done with the heavy meal and basically cannot move to do any work, mom cleans the kitchen and then we (father and daughter) get to making Gulab Jamun. This of course takes a lot "when shall we start" questions and "I just need two minutes to finish this" statements before we actually start. Now the steps are split between us.
I make the sugar syrup. Dad will interfere and say add more sugar, more vanilla essence, more everything. Also mom has keep all the ingredients out, preferably measured and kept.
Dad mixes the dough after asking mom where the ghee is and whether the consistency looks soft enough.
I roll the small balls while whining about it is not coming evenly and trying to decide on the perfect size.
Dad fries them while complaining that the oil in the kadai is not enough and the jamuns have just go down and then float back up like in the oil commercials.
Sister turns up in time to eat them. (Yes she is extremely useful. NOT)
This whole process takes about an hour and half. We generally start around 10.30pm and end at midnight, Taste atleast one gulab jamun and then go to sleep. God forbid if the spoon doesn't glide through the jamun when it is cut and it doesn't melt in your mouth. Deepavali is then effectively ruined.
During this whole time we sing, play songs, disturb my mother by asking where the sugar is, where the weighing scale is, why can't anything be kept labelled in this kitchen, and generally have some supposedly quality family time.
Our awesomely soft sweet gulab jamuns is what goes for distribution to the neighbours and colleagues and friends while my mother says with pride that it was made by her husband and her daughter and she didn't have to do a thing. (We know the truth. Shhh..)
That is our little father-daughter(s) Deepavali ritual. What's yours?
krupa
Once we are done with the heavy meal and basically cannot move to do any work, mom cleans the kitchen and then we (father and daughter) get to making Gulab Jamun. This of course takes a lot "when shall we start" questions and "I just need two minutes to finish this" statements before we actually start. Now the steps are split between us.
I make the sugar syrup. Dad will interfere and say add more sugar, more vanilla essence, more everything. Also mom has keep all the ingredients out, preferably measured and kept.
Dad mixes the dough after asking mom where the ghee is and whether the consistency looks soft enough.
I roll the small balls while whining about it is not coming evenly and trying to decide on the perfect size.
Dad fries them while complaining that the oil in the kadai is not enough and the jamuns have just go down and then float back up like in the oil commercials.
Sister turns up in time to eat them. (Yes she is extremely useful. NOT)
This whole process takes about an hour and half. We generally start around 10.30pm and end at midnight, Taste atleast one gulab jamun and then go to sleep. God forbid if the spoon doesn't glide through the jamun when it is cut and it doesn't melt in your mouth. Deepavali is then effectively ruined.
During this whole time we sing, play songs, disturb my mother by asking where the sugar is, where the weighing scale is, why can't anything be kept labelled in this kitchen, and generally have some supposedly quality family time.
Our awesomely soft sweet gulab jamuns is what goes for distribution to the neighbours and colleagues and friends while my mother says with pride that it was made by her husband and her daughter and she didn't have to do a thing. (We know the truth. Shhh..)
That is our little father-daughter(s) Deepavali ritual. What's yours?
krupa
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