blogging away!

I had no idea about how interesting blogging would be. Some days back I wrote a small piece about the traditional aattukkal, the manual wet grinder that has now been replaced by the electrified version. My husband refused to buy the electrical grinder saying that idlies and dosais prepared by the manual grinder were superior in quality. I slogged for 26 years before he finally relented and bought one. The article was a leg pulling exercise and I had mercilessly teased my husband in it knowing fully well that being a man of few words he would not bother to defend himself. I put it on my school blog for my school- mates to read and enjoy. But wait a sec. I was not prepared for the outcome.

A good many of them reminisced on the uses of ‘aattangal, ammikkal,ural ulakkai yendirams’ and other traditional hand /manual methods of cooking. Some rued the fact that their children had not even seen one let alone use it. While a few vouched for the quality of food stuff prepared by the traditional method others congratulated my husband for standing up for a just cause and defended his opinion in the matter and asked me to give him a handshake on their behalf. One class - mate mentioned a community festival being celebrated in Kerala called AATTUKKALLU PONGAL where spices and condiments were powdered in the ‘aattukkal’. Someone claimed that their ancestral home still had one and their mother still used it occasionally. All this was fine by me but I had only one objection. All these ‘supporters’ of a ‘worthy’ cause were gentlemen who had not put in 26 years of faithful service! The ladies who read it were naturally appreciative of me. Any way the whole thing was interesting and I enjoyed myself thoroughly