Chai and Paintings

Sheba is a stay-at-home mom (for the time being) who's forever in a scramble to slot her multifarious activities because her talents are a smidge too many to be cast in one human form. she's a tanjore painter. an OC baker. a classical singer. she resides in the book she reads till she's done with it. my friend she is and a great one too.

Tanjore painting is like meditation for her. when there was a short term course on hear it seemed to be a slam dunk option for her and she dived straight in. she held her first exhibition in nariman point, mumbai in october 2010. she paints to order for choice customers. here are her coveted specimens. 

However, she hates regular cooking and i actually caught her with these words: "I throw up my hands at making a decent cuppa tea." now that's unpardonable...you can continue making faces at those run-of-the-mill dishes but not our tea...our kerala tea. me being your friend cannot let you survive like this!!

We in kerala don't scrimp on, at least, tea. in fact men have it in spades if they happen to be at home....sigh. my friends have cracked up at the sight of those drawling incessant slugs we take from our dear mugs of tea. it is elixir for the quintessential malayalee, especially the older generation. the only thing thomas fusses is his cup of tea. give him a slopshod one and his eyes fill...haha

Lemme put down my tea recipe for sheba and hopie (whom i'd promised the kerala way of brewing this magic potion). this is for two cups.

tea (granules/dust)-2 to 21/2 tsp
sugar-3 tsp
milk-1 cup
water-11/4 cups

Mix the water and milk and put on heat. add sugar and let it boil. as it froths up add the tea powder and simmer for two mins. (i realise that if you're impatient with your tea then you end up adding more tea powder; so to economise slow down honey and brew it for a steady two to three mins.) turn on high heat and as the brew froths up turn off heat and quickly cover it with a lid. wait for a couple of secs. take off the lid and strain out the tea. pour into your cups and enjoy the mast chai. we use tata tea premium which is really strong (ek dam kadak). if it's a lighter tea you may have to add three tsps. again, we use skimmed milk here (i mean, it's thin by default, blah). if your milk is creamy/high fat use 11/2 cups water for a cup of milk.

Given this much next time sheba, you've a soiree, i should catch your guests saying not "lovely paintings" but "lovely chai and paintings" rrreeeeeeee!!!