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family.

    VATRAL KUZHAMBU
    There is a story of a newlywed village woman who seduced her husband with
vatral kuzhambu.
The man, shy and awkward, had made no moves on his wife after their wedding. A month later the woman decided to take matters into her own hands. After sending her husband to the river for his bath, she resolved to concoct an aphrodisiac based on an ancient recipe with ingredients like
yakshi madhu
(angels’ honey), saffron, cream of coconut, drumsticks (murunga fruit), and lotus hearts. The only problem was that there was nothing in the house save a few sun-dried
vatrals.
The woman panicked. She scrounged around for a ball of tamarind pulp, fried the
vatrals
with some spices and oil, and made
vatral
kuzhambu.
The husband returned from the river, ravenously hungry. The woman mashed the rice with
vatral kuzhambu
and ghee and offered it to her mate. “Feed me,” he said. With the first bite, he licked her finger; with the second, he took her hand. With the third, he lifted her onto his lap. The rest, as they say, is best left to the imagination.
    South Indians are suckers for a good
vatral kuzhambu.
Kuzhambu
means spicy gravy, and it can be made with any vegetable. Nonvegetarians, as they are called in India, make it with chicken, fish, or lamb as well.
Vatral kuzhambu
is usually made in the winter months when vegetables are scarce and therefore expensive. This version is fairly spicy and is best eaten with rice and ghee.
    SERVES 4
    1 lemon-sized tamarind ball
or
1 teaspoon Tamcon (both available in Indian grocery stores); see Note

2 tablespoons clear sesame oil (available in Asian markets or Indian stores)

1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds

1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds

1/2 teaspoon
channa
dal

1 to 2 red chiles

1 cup of any type of
vatral:
sun-dried lotus root, okra, and orange peel (available in Indian grocery stores)

2 teaspoons
sambar
powder (available in Indian grocery stores)

1 to 2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon rice flour

10 curry leaves

Pinch of asafetida
    If using the tamarind ball, soak it in 3 cups boiling water. Once it is soft and the water has cooled enough to touch, mash it with your hands to extract the juices completely. Pour through a fine sieve to separate the tamarind juice from the pulp. If using Tamcon, simply mix it in 3 cups water.
     
    Heat the oil in a heavy skillet over high heat until it smokes. Then add the mustard seeds. When they sputter, add the fenugreek seeds,
channa
dal, and chiles and sauté, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the
vatral
and fry until it becomes the color of dark chocolate, about 2 minutes. Add the
sambar
powder and stir until combined well.
     
    Stir in the tamarind extract and salt. Boil uncovered over a medium flame for 10 minutes, until the tamarind water is reduced by half.
     
    Mix the rice flour in 1/2 cup of cold water and pour into the pot in a slow stream, stirring all the while. Bring to a boil. The mixture should be the consistency and light-brown color of gravy.
     
    Garnish with curry leaves, and serve with ghee and cooked white rice.
     
    NOTE: Using Tamcon (tamarind concentrate) will save you the bother off
extracting tamarind juices; purists preffer the taste off raw tamarind to Tamcon.

FOUR
    Of Monkeys and Maids

    MY PARENTS LURED ME back home with promises of a puppy. Even though I saw them frequently—on every holiday when I lived with my grandparents—after my fifth birthday they could bear my absence no longer. They wanted to enroll me in a nursery school, they wanted me to get to know my little brother; mostly they just wanted me back. So they wrote to my grandparents, who reluctantly brought me to Madras and stayed on for a couple of weeks to ease my transition.
    To help me adjust to my new home, my parents acquired a puppy. We named her Julie, and she was a welcome distraction. Every morning my father and I took her for walks around the neighborhood so that she could keep her appointment with a lamppost. We bought the choicest meats