Breakfast Serial: Slow and soft aroma-filled Sunday mornings

This is a series of articles written by Silver Talkies members, following their participation in a writing workshop conducted by Silver Talkies Magazine editor Priyanka Borpujari.

It was a Sunday morning—relaxed and easy—as Sundays are meant to be. The husband sat with the day’s newspaper rustling in his hands as he sipped his first dose of piping hot filter coffee. I, too, nursed one between the palms of my hands.

The kids lolled around on the chair with their tousled hair and in pajamas. They were allowed to misbehave because it was Sunday morning. Discipline could wait.

That was a typical Sunday morning breakfast scene at our home in Bengaluru: a long drawn out one, and in sharp contrast to the hurried oats or a sandwich from Monday to Saturday. The highlight of this particular Sunday morning was the piping hot masala dosas (served fresh one after the other) with white coconut chutney, which, to me, seems akin to a smooth face with curious black eyes.

That Sunday routine—which continued till a few years ago, when both the kids left home for university—was one day of the week when I joined the family for breakfast, having given in to some indulgence by paying the househelp a little extra so that she could make the dosas for us.

The dosas were accompanied by soft but crisp golden brown vadas, to be relished with sambar full of small onions. The vadas cut into small pieces and soaking in a cup of sambar absorbing the flavor and the taste: a feast for the gods.

Lazy Sunday mornings always take me back to similar scenes from my childhood in Chennai, but with the meal cooked by the magical hands of my mother. My father, siblings and I would sit on the floor and lick our fingers, while my mother served the idlis to us, one by one.

What was it in her hands which made the idlis so soft and spongy?

Was it because the soaked rice and daal were ground under a grinding stone? Or was it because the proportions of daal to rice was different?

The coconut chutney, too, was just right: neither too coarse nor too smoothly-ground, neither too spicy nor too bland.

Having tried to solve the mystery I have come to the conclusion that the secret ingredient was the kindness of her heart; her love and care sprinkled generously.

The memory of those cherished childhood Sundays always makes me sigh in nostalgia.

In my home, the Sunday breakfast idli has been replaced by dosas. I don’t know why, but I have never managed to get the idlis like my mother did. What I have however tried, is to create the same atmosphere of excitement at the breakfast table, as me and my siblings experienced in our childhood.