Happy Pongal everybody! I had a fairly satisfying Pongal this year. For one, I steered clear of making any kind of Pongal for almost 2 weeks before the festival, just so I would not get lazy and bored of eating Pongal. My husband is still in India, so this year it was just my daughter and me.
Bhogi was a working day, yet in the evening, I decided to treat my daughter (and myself) to some Poli. I made about 6 or 7 polis in all, and we ate most of it without too much trouble.
On Pongal day, it was snowing outside so much that I decided to work from home. I put on her new cotton embroidered pavadai and boy! was she excited! Managed to find at least one “Ponga paanai” shaped vessel in which I boiled milk while my daughter made the ceremonial Pongal “a” Pongal (she somehow couldn’t get pongal o pongal) noises. Soon after, we had some delicious Ven Pongal and Chakkarai pongal ready to be offered to God and then eaten.
Yesterday morning, was the coldest day I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Yet, I decided we would do a quick Kanu tradition in the garage (like last year). So, it was Kanu on aluminium foil. We were both fully dressed in boots, sweater, jacket, hat and gloves. Quickly tossed all the colored rice balls I had made yesterday night, and we were good to go. My daughter asked me, if these were for the crows, where the rice for the pigeons were, to which I replied, the crows would take the food to the pigeons.
So Happy Pongal to all of you. Hope all of you got your share of Chakkarai pongal!
NRI Maami 
LOL This seems like a quick fix Pongal! 🙂 The narrative reads so fast too 😀
I did Kanu too in the patio and then threw everything in the trash 😦
Rekha: Haha.. you’re so right.. I read it again now, and it almost seems like a letter on a postcard. I haven’t thrown mine yet.. I’ve been in a hurry to get in to the house.. what with it being so cold outside.
huh! we had a semi traditional pongal with chakkara pongal and that is it… my inlaws were way too happy i’d made it for their son and that their son was not alone for festivals any more.. 🙂
Rekha: Oh thalai pongal?? Chakkarai pongal is pretty good for the first time.. Keep going!
oh cool mami…. crows will take the rice from the pigeons… i wish i was home for pongal…. sis would ve been a lot happy ;(
Rekha: Aaaw.. I am sure everyone at home must’ve missed you just as much..
happy pongal to you!
boy…i guess this by far should be the coldest pongal of your life..unless you get transfered to siberia or someplace…heard they are looking for programmers there…interested?
been a while since i saw your blogs..lets look forward for more this year. none about the cold and the snow yet?
Rekha: Hello.. I am not a “programmer”.. yes it was one of the coldest days of my life.. coldest Pongal vidunga.. No posts about the cold and snow.. I wrote one last year already.. Nothing’s different this year.. just much worse.. that’s all.
DTW is not pleasant either and the pongal week was the worst, I’ll agree!
Rekha: We are both victims of Lake Michigan 😦 Hm.. Eppo thaan mudiyumo winter!
pongol-o pongal maami!
Rekha: Pongol-o pongal to you too!
hulloooooooo
wheres the next blog? all of us are waiting to check out the latest exploits of nrimaami the explorer…
wake up wake up!
Well,
I realize gone are the days when kaka and kuruvis ate the kanu pongal served for them…..even in bangalore this year we had tough time the kaka did come to see whatever was there on the ginger/tumeric leaves….and uninterestedly made a mess on the terrace and flew away.
Amma pannina chakkarai pongal was still smelling with ghee and cashews dumb crows I thought and cleaned the terrace before our flat watchman came in to check we had not messed up the terrace….
slowly i think we would move over to keeping kanu in our balconies for sake of tradition and throw in the bin….however patti and amma so far have been making me to get all those offered in kanu to feed a cow….
Rekha: Apparently kakas are now used to tastier food than kalandha saadhams of various colors. We should probably spice up kanus a bit more to make it more interesting for them.. Inga cow um illai kakavum illai.. straight to trash thaan!