Edible Shoots

The name must be sounding like an oxymoron - just like “pleasant pains”. “Prickly” is less likely to make you smile, but the latter half - "pear" - does. Lined up on the edges of each green pad, topped with short-lived flowers showcasing a desert spring, is a feast for our eyes. The wild beauty of those yellowish to reddish flowers allures bees to suck nectar and pollinate, though unaware of it.          Call me برشوم (Burshoom) if you find me among Arabs. Some even call me التين الشوكي (Thorny fig).My name tag on a botanical farm reads Opuntia ficus-indica . On Abha streets, vendors sell peeled ripe prickly pears, ready to savor. Go for it once in season. Fans say that prickly pears are rich in antioxidants and a great deal more, leaving me with the impression that their claims are exaggerated. But one thing I know for certain: nobody cultivates prickly pears over here, yet it grows on its own in abundance all around. As such it is perfectly organic.   

I love to cook and bake, but prefer baking, and baking sweet things is my favorite. Not overly sweet things, though - preferably somehow fruit-related, and preferably using vegetable oil (not butter) and self-rising flour. I have adapted several recipes to meet these requirements, and have also simplified the steps involved - fusing steps to make it less finicky and time-consuming - with good effect. Two days ago I made, in succession, apple cake, date loaf and banana loaf, and oatmeal squares, all of them in my mini-oven, using the same kitchen equipment (including the same mixing bowl) and utensils. I used to be frustrated by burnt baked goods (because the oven is so small and the heat so direct, it was VERY difficult to get baked goods not to burn, especially sugar-containing ones). Then I happened upon a "trick" in a YouTube cooking video: double-panning, and - voila - problem solved.    It truly was one of my biggest discoveries so far this year. I've been

     “Here I am up in the window, that indistinguishable head you see listing toward the sun and waiting to be watered. Through a pair of strong field glasses, you might be able to make out the color of my leaf (milky green), my flower (purple white), and the poor profile of my stunted growth. In open country with stem and root room, I could top four feet. Want a true botanical friend? Guess my species and you can take me home”.        If you can call into mind a dying houseplant at a deserted house during the worst war ever, get into her shoe and read again the above lines. That was yet another equally wonderful beginning. First lines of a novel by Stephen Wrights,  Meditations in Green . A great narrative about the Vietnam War (1955 to 1975). It was originally published in 1983. Not sure how many times I revisited these lines over years .     And one last note on the pic: It was shot on a cold Saturday morning from Jannathul Baqueeu, famous graveyard very close to the res

The place I call home being situated on an uphill slope, I had the privilege of getting to see things being moved by road from above. Bunches of unripe or half-ripe bananas, and burlap bags of tightly packed copra, were a few among them, getting transported on the rooftop carriers of the passenger buses from my hometown to the district central market. Unlike today's kids, we didn’t have many things to pay attention to. So we were naturally growing closer to nature, smelling its seasonal smells, feeling its changes, listening to its own ambient music, and enjoying the kaleidoscopic changes in colorful leaves and flowers.   The occasional call of vendors selling popcorn, cotton candy, ice cream, or milky or grape-topped ice bars really made us super-excited. We were never sure if our wish to have some would be granted, though. It all depended upon the unpredictable moods of our parents. Sometimes they were easy to persuade, but more often an emphatic “no” would be the only r

Because you really are one ... berry much so. Not from a punnet I dumped into my shopping trolley while strolling through the freezer aisle of the supermarket, but handpicked from a planter whose bushy growth I had watered to fruition at our doorstep. I bought her almost five years ago at the Thursday market from a farmer who was about to pack up for the day. Obviously the strawberry plant in question was among the few unsold ones, abandoned by earlier strawberry lovers after favoring her healthier sisters. She survived five Abha winters and withstood neglect during the few weeks I went mad grading papers without being able to nurse her. Almost zero care. Maybe my farm guru, Damoderettan, was correct when he said: “Lending your pair of eyes to your plants is the best fertilizer". Interestingly, three things conspired to produce this post. First, the Hijri New Year; second, the word ‘locavore’ as a new addition to my personal vocabulary; and third, a rather compulsive

The above is an actual wish someone expressed, using the common dandelion (Taraxcum officinale) as a vehicle for their seemingly silly wish. What lies behind that wish is the perception that dandelion is an invasive weed. The vigorous sprouting of wishes in our heart has been likened to the abundant growth and carefree propagation of weeds. Unsurprisingly, the dandelion (in the above-mentioned person’s mind) fits the bill perfectly, so they effortlessly linked together dandelions and the proliferation of human wishes. The dandelion, named after its dentate leaves that resemble the teeth of a lion, was so called by the French: “dent de lion”. It didn’t take long for the name to morph to “dandelion”. This picture was taken on the Graiger campus of King Khalid University in Abha, Saudi Arabia, where I work for a living teaching English. The photo may leave the impression that dandelions are bee-pollinated. That is not true. The dandelion bears perfect flowers. It is bisexual

      If there is a deeper meaning behind everything we do in life, what would be behind the practice of pickling excess seasonal produce?  We love hoarding stuff. We wish we could keep things forever. We assume that the things we save today will save us tomorrow. No matter what the common experience, we tend to overlook anything to the contrary. We believe in what we love. I don’t know what anthropologists will have to say about this, but I strongly hold the view that pickling culture has something in common with nature. Our ancestors, from the dawn of civilization, began hoarding things for a rainy day. They wanted to store things, not only for putting them to better use later, but also for keeping them from rotting. An excellent tradition. But at a deeper level, it also reflects their trust in tomorrows. In agrarian societies, seasonal plants fruit in huge quantities. Since the yield cannot be wholly consumed by the family, the fruits of their labor would go to waste in a re

     “Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.” So said Archimedes once. I wish I could say, in the same vein: “Give me some wheat flour and a rolling pin, and I will move hearts.         Water, salt and little else besides - just mix everything until well combined. Knead the dough into the desirable consistency, and then turn it into lovely shapes and sizes before baking these into anything you can name. Just like clay in the hands of a skilled potter, you can give your creativity free reign and shape, size, flavor up and color the dough, baking it into something beyond anyone’s wildest culinary fancy. Our love affair with wheat is said to have started between 12,000 and 10,000 BCE. It was in the Fertile Crescent, where Mesopotamian, Assyrian, and Egyptian farmers first began cultivating wheat. Obviously, the bread we now eat took millennia to develop into what it is today. The loaves our ancestors baked were definitely harder, less refi

Today is my 38 th birth anniversary, to be more careful with the language as my resolution for the new year was to. I'm feeling overwhelmingly happy after an outpouring of good wishes that started yesterday already, one of the well-wishers being my beloved director at my erstwhile training college. I had never thought he cared that much about me.  I stayed up late last night talking to a terrific friend of mine. You know, I overslept as a result of that and missed my breakfast, yet I went to work with a heart filled to the brim.           I tend to lie awake cuddled up in my comforter before I really get up in the morning. There was a toddler crying in a nearby apartment. I can't stand kids' crying and was wondering why her parents were just letting her cry. Why couldn't they hug and kiss her to console her? As she continued, I imagined walking up to her and hugging her, kissing her on the head, calling my Aishumol to mind. To my great surprise, the toddl

Recently, when I was talking to someone I did my M A with at Department of English, Calicut University Campus, all these came up to my mind. I was transported back to my university days. It was on a lazy after noon, I was  talking to one of my classmates. Now I am not quite sure what she was talking about. I only knew it was something a teacher had mentioned during the previous hour. I had skipped that particular session, though I wasn't in the habit of missing classes. I told her very casually: "Oh, I missed that period." "You missed WHAT? You missed a PERIOD?" she echoed dubiously, looking rather amused but not pursuing the matter. Nor did I care, as naivety was my second name back then. Maybe, even now at times for sure. One of the in-house English words I knew from the school I went to was "period". We would say "first period", "second period", "during  the PT period" etc. To me it simply meant a class session