He's from Barcelona you know!
I asked Mala to cut the chicken for me while I roasted some vegetables.The idea was that we would make two dishes. One, chicken cooked with rosemary and cold roasted vegetables and the other, chicken masala.
As I did my part, I noticed Mala also chopping the rosemary on the same chopping board as the raw chicken. She then took her chopped rosemary and attempted to sprinkle it on to my vegetable dish (so mixing the raw juices of the chicken with the cold dish)
"Mala that could be dangerous" I cried out. Mala, very confused was looking at the rosemary. (This is where Fawlty Towers comes in. Sometimes Mala reacts like Manuel does)
"ma'am, throw!" - so she gets the rosemary and throws it in the bin. So I said, "it's the chicken that can be poisonous" to which she stares at me again in disbelief and then looks at the chicken on the chopping board.
"ma'am, chicken, dead - no snake!"
I now turn into Basil Fawlty. "No, Mala raw chicken dangerous! salmonella" More staring so I repeated salmonella slowly .
"Fish?"
"No, chicken dangerous - bugs on it " Obviously, my choice of words was even more confusing because she then started checking the chicken for insects!
'No bugs, Ma'am"
At this point I decided to get Arjun from outside to translate properly for me.
Once he'd explained about cross contamination, we watched a quick youtube video on what I meant. I then showed Mala that everything you touch can get contaminated if you don't wash your hands.
So after quite some time, I thought I had managed to explain and everything was clean and sorted.
A man came for a delivery so I answered the door only to return to find Mala now washing the chicken in boiling hot water in a bowl and splashing any potential salmonella all on the kitchen worktop, the utensil rack, sugar bowl and everything that she had switched to that side of the kitchen.
I think we need one of those UV fluorescent lights. Needless to say, we are still alive and I never managed to cook the masala myself as I had to go to school to help with the guided reading programme.
I'll make sure I chop the chicken myself! We will also make sure that Mala gets a trip to the Micronclean cleanroom laundry when Andrew gets its up and running. I don't think she will believe the levels of hygiene that will be in operation inside the very special 'laundry'!
Ganesha Chaturthi
This last week has been a build up for a special festival celebrating of Ganesha Chaturthi. It is the Hindu festival held on the birthday of Lord Ganesha, who was the son of Shiva and Parvati.
Over the last couple of weeks, roadside stalls sprung up with a range of Elephant God Ganeshas ranging from 6 inches to probably 12 foot in height. The Ganesha statues are then placed in Pooja (prayer) areas in order for people to pass their offerings and prayers to the God. The ultimate event is that the statues are then sent into the local lakes, rivers or sea to sink from view. Due to the amount of pollution generated they have now banned plaster of Paris models and most models are now made from natural clays that do dissolve in the final resting places after which he is believed to go back to the Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati . The festival and actions are symbolic of new beginnings and removal of obstacles.
The Mystery tour : A little ride around the countryside
Last Saturday morning we managed to take a short mystery ride with Arjun into the local countryside. Unfortunately a tired little member of the family shortened the tour, but we did manage to see some of the less chaotic side to Bangalore. There were lots of opportunities to see typical Indian country life and luckily we managed to slightly distract Milo... He was given the camera to take some photos as we drove along. Even though slightly edited afterwards to reduce the wobble factor he did a very good job as you can see below:
