The Healthy Daal

As children, we used to dread the days when ma made poushtik daal (a term she had coined, poushtik meaning healthy, and daal being lentils). We knew that excess vegetables were getting old in the fridge, especially spinach, and she was using fancy names to make us eat what she cooked. She would even throw in added incentives of a glowing skin, and sharper brain, if one regularly ate that. Not that the daal tasted bad or anything. In fact, true to its name, it was healthy, and had lots of vegetables. However, we had higher expectations from mommy's kitchen. We expected meat, and eggs, and fried stuff everyday.

I am stirring the pot as I write this, cooking the same poushtik daal for dinner. The spinach and the tomatoes have been in the fridge for a while now, and I am too tired to come up with fancy ideas of using it. I am tired at the end of the day, and want a shortcut menu for dinner. I want to throw everything in one pot, stir it a bit, eat it, and go to bed as soon as I can.

The older I get, the more I become like my mother.

sunshine