The Pizzazzy

Monday is fruit day in office. The break out area has two fruits of the season placed strategically so that anyone visiting there for coffee or tea will notice the fruits. And everyone ends up picking up a fruit or two. Today with the bananas, a permanent item making its appearance every week there were these small berries, light green, slightly yellowish and slightly reddish also. They looked like ber, an Indian drupe.

I had a look and thought wow.. for a long time I have not tasted ber. I took some of these so called ber and came to my desk. My colleague who shares the cube with me told me they were ju ju’s. I thought it sounded funny but took a bite from one. It tasted bland, but there was a faintly spicy, kind of sweet smell about it. Something similar to Cinnamon.

The fruit is like apple or ber to bite at but of the same size as ber. That also reminds me of the pickled ber, which we get in Manipur. We call it boroi there. I make it a point to ask for it from anyone visiting from Manipur.

Now this fruit I was telling you about, I did not like the taste so much first but the second one I tasted was better, more sweetish and juicy. Then I was really interested in finding more about this fruit I was enjoying while trying to keep work at bay on a Monday morning.

I first checked juju on wiki, it took me to something completely out of context. Then I tried all possible combinations of ju ju, fruit, date and singapore. Finally I read in one article a description of something similar to the small dates I was having and referred to as jujube.

So, I chucked the article and went to Wiki with this new name and read all about jujube pronounced jujubee. After a long time I have tried some new fruit and liked it. Jujube, red date or chinese date is so unlike ber except for the looks in taste and texture of the fruit and unlike ber, which causes soar throat this one cures soar throat. Will be buying this fruit next time I visit fair price.

Sometimes we hate them, sometimes we love them but we do have them. I am talking about left over food. As Indians we always respect food and value them primarily because food was never in adundance or cheap. Infact it is believed that if food is wasted, we may not have enough to eat in the next life.

Interestingly even the Chinese believe the same and once me and my Chinese house agent were sitting for hours to finish the hopeless tasting KFC crisps.

As kids we were always taught to respect food and never to refuse any food items. So even though we had our favorites we ate everything from bitter gourd to brinjals. I hated pumpkins but never refused them.

So with all that respect for food the leftovers never went to waste and were repolished in the next meal. Its a great skill to manage the kitchen and specifically manage the left over food. The next great skill is to create something out of these left overs. In Indian kitchens one can always find some left over food nicely stored away in the fridge till the next meal. There are many recipes in Indian cuisines for turning the left over into something really tasty and mouth watering. Paav-Bhaji one such delicious dish made out of left over bhajis and curries, khichdi (a preparation of rice and left over dal) is another one, then we have phodni bhaat (Indian version of fried rice made out of left over rice), even left over chappatis can be efficiently turned into delicious sweet dish by grinding the chappatis with pure ghee and sugar.

Sometimes the left over curries taste better the next day. The taste and the flavour develops better with a night’s rest. Infact mom sometimes kept a part of the fish curries away for the next day deliberately. In Manipur where the climate is colder compared to other parts of the country, the fish curry allowed to stand overnight is a delicacy. With the colder climate the curries settles down into thick curries and the taste.. oohhh mouth watering. Mom recreates the magic using the refridgerator and we all simply love it.

A few times I have wasted food as I forget whats in my fridge. Especially if we have eaten out the previous night. And guiltily I let them go to the waste bin and everytime make a resolution to not repeat this and manage my kitchen in a more efficient way to get more mileage out of it. Its a long way to new year but my resolutions list has already found an item.

I never got my site reviewed from anyone. So, when I got to know from my sister about OurBlogReview and the interesting review they did for her blog, I wrote to them for a review. I basically was interested in knowing what they felt about my blog and especially as they have read so many blogs.

So, here’s what Rachel had to say about my blog which you can also read at ourBlogReview

The Pizzazzy mainly has articles about food and travel. I liked the recipe post as not only did it have the recipe but described how it was to actually cook the dish. I especially liked the article about the authors sister and son’s trip to London. As someone form the UK it was great to hear what a 4 year old foreigner thought of the city. All of the articles have a lot of detail and most are quite long. I enjoyed the style of writing - it flowed well and I felt that I wanted to read the whole post despite them being long. I liked the photographs on the blog and the small amount of advertising made it more pleasurable.

Well, I appreciate the review and was very happy to know that someone who regularly reads and reviews many blogs has such good review for an amateur blogger. If you are a blogger do write to her and know what she thinks about your blog .