Having said goodbye to sister last week my focus immediately
turned to the next week’s adventure. If
this was going to work it needed a plan so meticulous it would make the D day landings
look like a last minute rush job. I had agreed,
volunteered, said yes before thinking, had one prosecco too many (will circle
the applicable when I have decided which one it is) to cater for an evening of
Indian food at a bar in Venice. I’ve
known F and H since my Venetian stint of 09 and their bar is a regular haunt whenever
I visit the lagoon. Not only do they
have a good stock of tea but have a talent for making rather wonderful
cocktails at quite unvenetian prices.
When the idea for a evening of Indian food came up the whole endeavour
seemed a doddle – cook a whole lot of food, serve it to eager faces and have a
couple of drinks, the fact that the chosen evening fell on the one year
anniversary of the beginning of my Italian adventure made the whole thing seem
perfect.
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| Cumin, fennel, fenugreek, mustard and nigella seeds ready for the dal |
Interest was almost instant both among my friends and
regulars at the bar. As good as it was
to know that I wouldn’t be cooking for nothing I do prefer to operate without
expectation – I figure it’s easy not to disappoint when there’s no expectation. Deciding what to cook was no problem – no
need to reinvent the wheel on this one only tried and trusted dishes made the
cut. What I didn’t really think about
was the logistical details. Cooking for
30+ is a little different to cooking for the two or three I’m used to and having
to balance all with long working hours meant that if I was going to pull this
off I would have to forget all else for the duration. The
week became a blur shopping, chopping and cooking with every spare moment
between lessons taken with some kind of food related task. My kitchen was rearranged with all non Indian
foodstuffs put away and the workspaces neatly divided by task –
Ingredients-prep-cook and pack. Thursday
was the big day with an unbroken 6 hours of cooking which resulted four
completed curries (Keralan beef curry, Burmese chicken curry, lentil dal with
five spices and chickpeas done according to my mother’s recipe) and a small
mountain of washing up to do before heading off to work. That night after prepping the last dish and
cracking my job done beer I felt quite proud not just for the amount of cooking
I’d got through together with a day’s work but for the fact I’d managed to get
it all in my tiny fridge – yes I am now a zen master in the art of fridge
tectonics. All that was left to do was Friday’s
task of making a small mountain of rice.
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| Flavourings of the feast |
Friday was the big day, my one year in Italy birthday,
Indian night and of course the day of J and I’s weekly trip to the mineral
powder company. As soon as I’d made it
home from what I’ve affectionately termed the armpit of the Veneto it was
straight into the rice making. Two hours
later and finally all was done and with the help of P and F we carted the
mountain of food to Venice. At the bar
deep in preparation for the night I didn’t notice the arrivals. I looked up to suddenly find the bar full of expectant
faces. And not just full of friends and
acquaintances but real people as well!
Blimey – Indian food a popular draw it seems. The next hour was a frenzy of heating and
serving all fuelled by margarita. The
food went down spectacularly well, my ego was suitably boosted, the bar had a
great night and most importantly of all people enjoyed themselves. By the end of the night I was utterly spent
but proud that all had gone well. While
the cooking hadn’t been a stress balancing it with working was a small handful and
now that that stress was over the margaritas tasted good – way too good for
someone who had six hours of teaching the next day.
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| Curry and cocktails |
It’s so hard to believe that a year has gone by since I said
goodbye to Melbourne and made my way across the world to a small place in Italy. In all the rush and activity I haven't had a chance to look back and
contemplate my Italian year. Perhaps it’s best to simply enjoy the moment and
leave contemplation for another day.
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