Wednesday, September 15
Pickle-sick
I’m almost a perpetual soppy cornball these days. Well, not so much ‘these days’ as ‘eternally since I can recollect.’ And I reckon not that it’s simply me, or something exclusively to do with my mawkish genes. It’s just this endemic that is so broadly rampant among Indians in these shores that are inherently and effusively so lachrymose. And all it takes is a jar of home-manufactured pickle to rev the melancholy up to its paramount state. Yes, this is also the exact cause of my misery.
It’s not like we don’t get pickles here in all sorts, styles and sizes for a meager few bucks. It’s not even like we have to drive miles away for those, although, if we did, there’s a fair chance we’d come upon a wider array of assortments of not just pickles, but all condiments of the like with a potential to bring home closer to us. It’s just a daffy little obsession we seem to have about home made food. The thought of our moms toiling in the kitchen for hours on end just so we could get a slice of their connoisseur cooking drives us wild with nostalgia. And the first bite out of a pack of homemade pickle can well satiate us to the extent of having had a heavy home meal, eaten right out of our own hands, lip-smacked and relished to the last bite.
Just the other day I received a parcel of homemade pickle, and pizzazz, if you will, from an aunt that flew in. And I am torn between savoring them to my heart’s content, and scooping just a little out everyday so I won’t have to be faced with empty jars one day, of a sudden. I am content on some days just stealing a look at them; arranged in fine order in the refrigerator. On others, I make do with a whiff or two. And even with strength of will so strong, some days turn out to be dreadful, and I feel like I’d die if I didn’t devour a bite or two. So I indulge and repent, and so forth. What I’m now left with is a teensy residue at the bottom of one jar. I look at it and mope desolately. And I gaze skyward, hoping to see an airplane that’s, perhaps, strictly carting pickles from home about…
It’s not like we don’t get pickles here in all sorts, styles and sizes for a meager few bucks. It’s not even like we have to drive miles away for those, although, if we did, there’s a fair chance we’d come upon a wider array of assortments of not just pickles, but all condiments of the like with a potential to bring home closer to us. It’s just a daffy little obsession we seem to have about home made food. The thought of our moms toiling in the kitchen for hours on end just so we could get a slice of their connoisseur cooking drives us wild with nostalgia. And the first bite out of a pack of homemade pickle can well satiate us to the extent of having had a heavy home meal, eaten right out of our own hands, lip-smacked and relished to the last bite.
Just the other day I received a parcel of homemade pickle, and pizzazz, if you will, from an aunt that flew in. And I am torn between savoring them to my heart’s content, and scooping just a little out everyday so I won’t have to be faced with empty jars one day, of a sudden. I am content on some days just stealing a look at them; arranged in fine order in the refrigerator. On others, I make do with a whiff or two. And even with strength of will so strong, some days turn out to be dreadful, and I feel like I’d die if I didn’t devour a bite or two. So I indulge and repent, and so forth. What I’m now left with is a teensy residue at the bottom of one jar. I look at it and mope desolately. And I gaze skyward, hoping to see an airplane that’s, perhaps, strictly carting pickles from home about…
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