Tuesday, June 26, 2012

This is how we cook!

Here we are working with local women’s groups to prepare food for the children. It took some time for us to get used to sitting on the floor to cook and working with traditional utensils and materials. The women are introducing us to some beautiful, exotic Indian culinary methods, using a wide range of spices such as mustard seed, coriander, turmeric, curry, cardamom, masala fresh chili, and more. When the chili cooks in the pot we all start to cough as the air is full of the spicy steam.

The most labor intensive work was when we made chapati, a bread that looks and feels like a 'lafa' large pita like) bread you get in Israel. We cooked 150 chapati's from scratch, preparing the dough, making balls that need to be rolled and then placing the flattened dough on a lightly oiled pan for a few minutes. The women were real experts making perfectly round chapatis; ours didn't come out as uniform but we gave it our best shot! 

The women put a lot of love and care into the cooking, using flavors and ingredients that they know the children will enjoy. Even though none of the women in our group have kids young enough to go to our classrooms, they put extra care to add more vegetables, more spices, more love for the children living in their neighborhood.




 

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