My wife bought an Iron Kadai
Today my beloved wife received the much awaited package which she ordered online couple of days ago. It was an iron wok (kadai)! She got it from a sophisticate online shop where they sell authentic, unusual and interesting kitchenware.
It was heavy, black and well seasoned kadai. It seems that the looks and feel of her new kadai inspired her to cook a native Black Chickpeas Curry. The excitement was so elevated that she chose to ignore the instruction note. Who reads those small piece of instruction notes anyways?
The kadai went straight to the stove, ready to be serve its purpose. Oh Nalla, the God, let this kadai cook me some iron rich tasty curry. Then went in all the fresh ingredients, roasted and finely grounded indian masalas, the black chickpeas..and voila the curry is ready.
The aroma of freshly made curry dragged my attention. I left my household chores and went straight to kitchen. What is that aroma? My wife pointed to the curry. Wow, it smell delicious but dont you think it look blackier than it used to be. Is the black chana this dark? Does it give off color like this similar to a cheap buy gives off color when washed?
We got suspicious. I was in my own train of thoughts — Is the black chickpeas adulterated with black colored substance Or is the iron molecules of the kadai giving the curry a distinct color? Should I run magnets on the curry just to check how much iron it has taken from kadai? — all sorts of weird thoughts — until my wife said to herself “yeah, the kadai may be doing something to the curry? let’s read the instruction note”. The note was small and precise. It was written before first use, to remove the black coating, scrub the wok thoroughly and season with oil. If the wok doesn’t loose its black color then soak in starch water and clean.
We poured the curry out into another vessel and started scrubbing the kadai. While scrubbing it started to reveal a shiny silver surface underneath the black oily seasoning. We looked at each other and burst out with laughter. The curry went down under the drain and we had our lesson — read the instructions first!
Life is like a book of lessons and each day is like turning page of this book. We have all sorts of lessons in our life but the important thing is to understand and to be with each together and never forgetting to have fun.