WHERE IS THE MONSOON IN GOA THIS YEAR?It will be hell on earth for farmers cultivating their fields …

No Comments

WHERE IS THE MONSOON IN GOA THIS YEAR?It will be hell on earth for farmers cultivating their fields …

HONESTLY, hell’s bells are ringing. Count your lucky stars if you have a family well of old and there’s blessed sweet water in it to drink and cook with! There’s talk that the weather patterns are being manipulated by some evil technocrats who have got the permission to mess up weather patterns out in the South Asia to bring down the countries here on their knees…breed poverty, food scarcity and death by man-made calamities anew like they did in Africa for years on end…but who’s going to put these conspirators on trial for crimes against humanity? One story is that Bill Gates wants everyone to eat lab-made artificial meat and he himself has bought up most of the agricultural land in the USA – a bunch of smartarse millionnaires, billionnaires, trillionnaires want lots of empty space to plant these vile data towers which will guzzle oodles of water and much else. Don’t know about you, my dears , but I have no desire to eat any technology produced veggies or meat, industrial foods have already take a toll on the health of humanity big-time, our children are dying before their parents, so compromised is their natural immune system…
Air, earth, water, food, life itself should not have to be at the mercy of capitalistic monetization – hasn’t Western-styled capitalization done enough harm to the world with its rotten greed and collection of fortunes by hook or by crook? Look at what’s happening in India by a government which has thrown governance to the winds of power, profit and control….once upon a time we had truth, freedom, health at least at a bottom-up level but it’s a story of less and less now. The one straw revolution guru Masanobu Fukuoka once observed “When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings…” I guess we’re working hard on being corrupt, cheating, thieving, heartless and soulless humanity nowadays!
TALKING of good food I’m very happy to hear the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Joseph Vijay with his understanding and compassion for the working classes has revived the Amma Canteens of old which the late chief minister Jayalalitha had sanctioned and here those for whom food is expensive, could help themselves to freshly cooked wholesome food like idli-dosa-medhuvada with chutney and sambar, the southern tiffin cuisines are mostly health-conscious given some genuine love and affection, organization and nil corruption!
I wish someone would start similar Aai Canteens in Goa where one could go get desirable food for life such as ragi/jowari chappaties, sattvic-style veggies, dal, greens and so on. A very minimal menu can change daily and bring relief to many homes, especially of seniors. I know I could be perfectly happy lunching on a millet roti-cum-greens bhaji everyday like tamdi bhaji or mooli bhaji! It would mean less eating out of the fridge on bread and rice dishes or Swiggy ordered dishes or supermarket food packets of the gigantic food industry.
HEY, recently I noticed at the Manipal Hospital cafeteria that they’ve actually introduced bowls of black chana chaat (Rs40), yummylicious! I’ve realized that if one is trying to do what is called a Flexitarian diet a la Maye Musk of the runaway successful book “A Woman Makes A Plan”(translated in many languages now), then she wrote somewhere that while she does do treats occasionally, amongst regular food she likes to do is include a bowl of beans/peas in her daily eating. This can just about replace bread, rice, potatoes. Well, no wonder she is much invited model even in her 70’s! Her second book “Timeless” should be out in a month or two, be sure to read it.
Well, now I’m trying to make own cooked chickpeas chaat, tossed in finely cut onion-tomato-mango-etcetera, seasoned with salt, black pepper or chaat masala …lots of lemon squeezes and of course garnished with green coriander/mint/celery. It’s very filling and offers great protein values. Do black chana chaat, green peas chaat, rajma chaat, kidney beans chaat, etc. Experiment with personal seasonings, sesame seed seasonings are very good and especially the Middle Eastern herbal blends of za’atar and sumac. Curd or yogurt is preferable to expensive mayos, can do own mayo with paneer or tofu at home and be sure to add sprouts/microgreens to jazz up your chaat numbers.

In India a chana chaat can well be part of a preventive healthcare flexitarian diet! It’s a perfect protein-fiber nutritious recipe and yummilicous too!

A MONTH ago out at the new Swaad Gully at Dona Paula uptown Panjim and discovered they do the most refreshing tangy mint lemonade or “Shikanji.” Also savoury makki-di-roti (missi roti)…menu lists an interesting Nepali thali meal deal. Needless to say our flatbreads go well with bhaji greens of any kind, a friend of mine even uses the heart-shaped leaves of the taro plant to make a chopped up sabzi, delicately spiced. This is to say green bhaji-beans/peas/lentils make for superlative protein-fiber combos.
AFTER a road accident on my 2wheeler I’m currently home-bound with right leg in cast and once again it comes home to me how much life revolves around food. Food is at the heart of all life on earth. In India, marriages survive or break up on the mundane matter of whether wife can cook or not, put decently cooked food on the table before lord and master and children. Daughters grow up listening to mothers drilling into their heads that if they don’t learn to cook nobody will marry them, not funny.
Sigh. Unfortunately, we have strayed a long, long away from how we should be eating and it’s been a century of the industrial revolution slowly tucking us away in feasts out of packets and cans of industrial foods, mostly refined junk or dead foods. Many of us now do not know what it is to cook a simple wholesome meal at home from scratch and are dependent on all manner of shortcuts and oftentimes ordering meals from commercial establishments — who do not have our health at heart, only our wallet. I see so many folk surviving on fryums.

The flexitarian diet is listed on U.S. News Best Diet Rankings as the #2 Best Diet Overall (falling just behind the Mediterranean diet). It’s ranked high because it’s a simple, healthy, straight forward way of eating. This diet is followed by Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk’s mother Maye Musk who is a much respected model even in her 70s. Her new book to be out soon is titled ‘Timeless: The Art of Reinvention and Resilience at Any Age.’

I dream of a home service of food – where just like the poder’s boy arrives on bicyle or scooter with freshly baked bread loaves in Goa, one could also get our flatbreads of ragi/jowari/ukde chaval chappaties and a limited choice of freshly prepared food to buy in portions. In Mumbai-that-was-Bombay once upon a time, it is still possible to do this — but in Goa we may be living to eat or eating to live mostly in all the wrong ways!
Eat fresh, eat simple, be happy. I’m happy to see how many wonderful recipes appear on social media which are actually teaching us to do it right to eat right all over again. Think about all this and don’t just think – if you don’t want to end up in one of our public or private hospitals once your cross the Rubicon age of 50 plus, plus!