Grace
Nowadays i am on a weight loss diet - yet again that is!.( I am sure most women will sympathize with me, where as most men are going scoff. )
For a person who has been frequenting professional dietitians for more than fifteen years straight,to remain under a particular weight, this new diet promises to be not just another diet. Cause this time the dietitian has also assured 'behavioral modification'. that is, it promises to inculcate in me, a certain discipline, (in food habits at least), that 47 years of life, filled with parents, teachers and authority figures, could not manage.
Further, the diet is also unique in the sense that unlike other diets, it allows me biscuits/ tea/fruits, every one hour and best of all,does not disallow rice or potatoes..so where's the catch? as women might immediately want to know..the catch I realize is in the measurements.
Every thing that needs to be put into the orally fixated mouth, has to be religiously measured..like for example, not a milliliter more or less than 3 teaspoons of oil per day, not more or less than one bowl vegetable a meal, or one bowl rice a day, etc etc and to add to it all, proper fixed hours of eating, which also means real military precision planning in advance.
Something this 'kitchen manager' has always managed to successfully to avoid till date. My life has always been about cooking with whatever available resources..no groundnut oil, use coconut oil; no coconut oil, use ghee; no ghee, then use butter. Nothing than the oil used for the diya.....and so on and so forth. In fact i must one of the only cooks in the entire world, who would have run out of even salt, on more than one occasion. And for a person who could have easily copyrighted 'saji rolled in wheat chapati' way before the Lebanese made it world famous, as ive lived most of my married life chomping the roll, on the run to the bus stop, this diet does indeed reek of behavioural modification. And this time, im determined to allow me learn some discipline, at least in this area of my life.
I religiously measure one teaspoon oil each for one bowl sabji, and one bowl dal..the real effort though, is to manage to use ingenious creativity to make the food, edible enough with such scare resources, if not blatantly tasty to the palate.
After i finish preparing my elaborate 'diet' breakfast I feel a sense of achievement, as I lovingly place the phulkas on one side, the sabji in a bowl, the dal in another and the salad in another heap on the plate, and marvel at the meticulously planned breakfast. and in the midst of it all, I hear a voice in my head say 'grace'.
Grace for me has always till now, meant another example of unnecessary dictatorial parental authority, a way of cruel control over a child, who is dying to eat(or not eat) his food. Praying before eating made little sense to me as a child, and i never ever gave it a thought as an adult either. Anybody who prayed before a meal was a sissy in my mind's eye, a drama queen, a creature of habit, or somebody who had nothing much to do in life.
But now, this minute, as i stare into my filled plate, I feel a deep sense of gratitude, at the food, so painstakingly prepared by me. and then, I magically see, numerous people and numerous efforts that has gone into granting me this meal. right from the hands that must have sowed some seeds, to the person who watered the crops, eyes that must watched over them from prying birds and insects, fingers which must have plucked the grains, threshed it, or the heads that loaded it from baskets, onto trucks, which in turn would have been driven to huge big warehouses, for further travel to cities like mine, and to my humble kiranawalla's small shop, from where it has come into my kitchen, and finally settled in front of me in the form of my serene looking plate.
Grace has a new meaning now. Grace means being simply thankful, to the universe, that works through numerous heads, hands, eyes, fingers..... other people, your own, which helps each man get his share of nourishment for the physical body every day. I mummer a bashful thankyou to the Universe, before i tear the phulkas and start on my 'diet' breakfast.
Nowadays i am on a weight loss diet - yet again that is!.( I am sure most women will sympathize with me, where as most men are going scoff. )
For a person who has been frequenting professional dietitians for more than fifteen years straight,to remain under a particular weight, this new diet promises to be not just another diet. Cause this time the dietitian has also assured 'behavioral modification'. that is, it promises to inculcate in me, a certain discipline, (in food habits at least), that 47 years of life, filled with parents, teachers and authority figures, could not manage.
Further, the diet is also unique in the sense that unlike other diets, it allows me biscuits/ tea/fruits, every one hour and best of all,does not disallow rice or potatoes..so where's the catch? as women might immediately want to know..the catch I realize is in the measurements.
Every thing that needs to be put into the orally fixated mouth, has to be religiously measured..like for example, not a milliliter more or less than 3 teaspoons of oil per day, not more or less than one bowl vegetable a meal, or one bowl rice a day, etc etc and to add to it all, proper fixed hours of eating, which also means real military precision planning in advance.
Something this 'kitchen manager' has always managed to successfully to avoid till date. My life has always been about cooking with whatever available resources..no groundnut oil, use coconut oil; no coconut oil, use ghee; no ghee, then use butter. Nothing than the oil used for the diya.....and so on and so forth. In fact i must one of the only cooks in the entire world, who would have run out of even salt, on more than one occasion. And for a person who could have easily copyrighted 'saji rolled in wheat chapati' way before the Lebanese made it world famous, as ive lived most of my married life chomping the roll, on the run to the bus stop, this diet does indeed reek of behavioural modification. And this time, im determined to allow me learn some discipline, at least in this area of my life.
I religiously measure one teaspoon oil each for one bowl sabji, and one bowl dal..the real effort though, is to manage to use ingenious creativity to make the food, edible enough with such scare resources, if not blatantly tasty to the palate.
After i finish preparing my elaborate 'diet' breakfast I feel a sense of achievement, as I lovingly place the phulkas on one side, the sabji in a bowl, the dal in another and the salad in another heap on the plate, and marvel at the meticulously planned breakfast. and in the midst of it all, I hear a voice in my head say 'grace'.
Grace for me has always till now, meant another example of unnecessary dictatorial parental authority, a way of cruel control over a child, who is dying to eat(or not eat) his food. Praying before eating made little sense to me as a child, and i never ever gave it a thought as an adult either. Anybody who prayed before a meal was a sissy in my mind's eye, a drama queen, a creature of habit, or somebody who had nothing much to do in life.
But now, this minute, as i stare into my filled plate, I feel a deep sense of gratitude, at the food, so painstakingly prepared by me. and then, I magically see, numerous people and numerous efforts that has gone into granting me this meal. right from the hands that must have sowed some seeds, to the person who watered the crops, eyes that must watched over them from prying birds and insects, fingers which must have plucked the grains, threshed it, or the heads that loaded it from baskets, onto trucks, which in turn would have been driven to huge big warehouses, for further travel to cities like mine, and to my humble kiranawalla's small shop, from where it has come into my kitchen, and finally settled in front of me in the form of my serene looking plate.
Grace has a new meaning now. Grace means being simply thankful, to the universe, that works through numerous heads, hands, eyes, fingers..... other people, your own, which helps each man get his share of nourishment for the physical body every day. I mummer a bashful thankyou to the Universe, before i tear the phulkas and start on my 'diet' breakfast.
