Making of the Sambar, Secretly!

This event took place nearly 15 years ago but remains fresh as ever due to the fear factor!!

My husband and myself always used to visit his sister's house in nearby Thiruvanmiyur area, once every week, when we used to buy vegetables from the shandy outside the ancient Marundeeshwarar temple.

His sister had gone out that day. Her kids, my husband, his brother were passing time until she called up to say she will be delayed by a few more hours.

Usually I don't go into others' kitchens as a principle, as many women including me, have reservations about others working in our kitchens when we are not there.

But on this occassion, all the men were hungry to the core and over the phone my sister-in-law requested me to do something about it.

It was pretty late in the evening and it had to be dinner. So I took out some vegetables which we had got for ourselves and started preparing a vegetable fry, sambar, rasam and a curd dish. Of all the dishes the sambar was an elaborate one as we have to have some cooked lentils. As that would take even longer I tried another varient of sambar where we can roast the dry lentils, alongwith other spices, grind it and add it to the cooked vegetables of our choice alongwith the tamarind pulp.
Usually I add onions and tomato, some green corriander leaves, some sesame seeds besides the usual dals, red chillies, fenugreek seeds, aesofotida to add flavour to the sambar. A bit of rice flour would thicken it nicely too.

The vegetables were all ready and cooked with the tamarind pulp. The last step in the last dish was to grind the paste and tip it in so I started grinding the spices.
Since I was not used to the mixer-grinder there, the paste was under pressure after a while. The lid, inspite of my holding it tightly while the grinding was on, gave way and a quarter of the paste flew in all directions on the wall, on the shelf nearby holding her boxes of this and that. My heart skipped a beat. I was shell shocked.
I am always careful while I am cooking and to date I have never spilled a dish, broken a glass, been careless while transfering oil from the pouch to the container. When such was my record I din't want to appear as a careless person to anyone and that too in their domain!
I knew I never wanted my sister-in-law to see the mess I had made of her kitchen and there the men were hungry and waiting for things to come on to the table!
The first priority was to get the sambar going and side by side I started wiping away the mess in a mad hurry. It seemed like ages before the cleaning job got over. My ears were alert for any sound at the door!! God, how I was multi-tasking in those few minutes. I think that was one of the fastest clean up jobs I have ever attempted anywhere due to the fear factor. I was cleaning up like mad, searching for places where it could have splashed.

I put all the dishes on the table, they all began to praise the sambar so much. The kids were saying why doesn't mamma make the sambar like yours.
Then my sister-in-law came home. She also sat down to eat. When she tasted the sambar she said 'this is out of this world, it's too good'. I was happy to hear that comment.

She is a good cook herself. That was the only day she was not home to welcome us and feed us. As that is what she usually does.
She went to the kitchen and saw the freshly washed and wiped clean walls and was saying that she never does such thorough cleaning after cooking a meal! Only if she knew what a mess I made due to the mishandling of her grinder, she would have commented differently.

Some things are best left unsaid so I never told her about the mess-up till this day. Now the secret is out in the open.

Cheers.
Mahalakshmi