Gabfest: And Thereby Hangs A Tail

Thank you Viswa! There is always something to learn from you. November is an eventful time for me. @Kohvachn was alluding to my wedding and my IL anniversary among other significant dates. It's been 12 years since I joined IL. My wedding has accrued a few more years over that. My marriage is the bedrock on which my life is built. I got very very lucky with my choice of life partner. These days we get on each other's nerves more often than not but neither one of us can contemplate life without the other. : )

 

Same here. I bring my exotic spices from Delhi. Though I have seen them on Amazon too. I have stash of long pepper from the last time my parents visited. I find they last well over a year if stored whole in the freezer.

 

It’s amazing how things have changed since I first came here. We used to make an hour long trip every other weekend just to find the most basic Indian vegetables and spices. These days Indian stores around me are stocked with every variety of rice, millets, specialty spices, even esoteric fresh produce like raw jackfruit and banana flowers. You can find multiple varieties of rajma! I didn’t think most people knew there were nuances in rajma varieties. I can buy Badarwahi rajma which is the authentic Kashmiri rajma from my local store. These days all but the most obscure spices can be found in stores here.

Soup reminds me it’s soup weather here. I could live on a bowl of hot soup and some sourdough bread until March. : ) It’s interesting we don’t have the concept of podis in the north. I only learned about them from my roommates in college. Now my pantry is stocked with chutneys and podis for days thanks to MIL. In Maharashtra they make a lentil-spice powder called methkut. A plate of steaming rice, topped with methkut, drizzled liberally with ghee is my husband’s favorite food. It is incredibly flavorful and can be used to spice up pretty much anything. I even mix it in my paratha fillings.

Oh my! That looks lush! I can imagine the fragrance around it. : ) Beetle leaf is a pan-India favorite. ; ) Terrible pun …lol. I haven’t seen podis but the dried leaves are crushed and mixed with fennel and a bunch of other stuff to make mukhvaas which is also used as a digestive aid. I always keep some at home.

 

Oh yeah there are quite a few varieties. I don’t like the large kidney beans that are sold as rajma in the US. They cook down to a flavorless mush. The Kashmiri rajma is a much smaller, darker bean. It needs a lot of soaking but becomes creamy after cooking while retaining its structure. One traditional dish that is made around this time at the onset of winter is rajma gogji (turnips) — no onions, tomatoes, or garlic. Just a lot dry spices and mustard oil, which makes sense. Most people would have had no access to fresh produce in winter. It’s a hearty one pot meal that doesn’t need any accompaniments. Still waiting for the first turnips to arrive from my CSA. I am so excited you like mustard oil. It is often an acquired taste for those not used to it. Kashmiris and Bengalis are huge snobs about their mustard oil. : ) There is one very specific brand I use. I drive an hour and a half to pick it up or pay a premium to have it delivered. I have a Bengali friend who has hers delivered across the country!

 

Substitution is unnecessary. They coexist, hand in glove. The fascists' modus operandi is to assume victimhood, play the oppressed while being the oppressor. Because it allows them to feel entitled to their rage. The rhetoric around the Kyle Rittenhouse trial is a case study on this victim mentality. A man with a AR-15 shoots three people and right rallies around him painting him as a poor scared teenager. And of course, the gun laws in this country allow him to claim self-defense. Do you know why California has the strictest gun laws in the country? Back in the day the Black panthers, a black political organization decided to openly carry loaded weapons to protect themselves from police brutality. They called it 'policing the police'. They openly wore their assault weapons to the state legislature as allowed by the law. This alarmed the White Republican state government so much that they introduced a ban on open carry and the bill sailed through. It was signed by none other than Ronald Reagan, the champion of the second amendment. You see when they talk about gun rights, they mean gun rights for White men, not for the rest of us. : )

Just because the 'system works' doesn't mean justice was done. The system works as it was designed, to protect one subsection of society at the cost of everyone else. In fact, It is doing exactly what it was intended to do — maintain the status quo. This is not hyperbole by the way. It is a much studied phenomenon, the underpinning of Critical Race Theory. I don't know if this is your cup of tea but if you are at all curious about the systemic discrimination built into the American criminal justice system I recommend a book by Michelle Alexander - The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. The book is dense and requires patience to get through but it is a seminal work which is now required reading in many law programs. The author is a law scholar herself. It will disabuse one of any simple-minded assumptions that justice in this country is colorblind.

Hypocrisy brings up that other related phenomenon - projection. It's almost a joke at this point with the American right, and the right wing worldwide. Accuse others of precisely what they themselves are guilty of. Pastor accuses the left of immorality and gets arrested for molesting minors, evangelical congressman votes against gay rights and weeks later get arrested for soliciting gay sex in a gas station bathroom, man files lawsuit claiming voter fraud and gets arrested for voting twice using his dead wife's ID. These are all true cases. It's as if every accusation is a confession. This is true of more things than alluded to. ; ) Doesn’t help to get agitated by such things. Reminds me of something I read recently: “When you realize that people's words and actions have more to do with their own internal struggles than you, you learn to disengage and offer them grace.”