Planning for Sadhya

One of the sites which i browse frequently is the www.vietnamesegod.blogspot.com and the blogs regarding the delicious Vietnam dishes attracts me the most. Those writing inspired me to write about Kerala foods. The usual Kerala lunch consist of rice, a gravy curry, a vegetable dish(usually called thoran) and a spicy fish curry. The abandance of coconut trees in Kerala makes us use a lot of coconut flavour in the food items. We are specialized in making diverse and delicious vegetarian food and we prefer the non-veg dishes to be spicy and red hot. Beleive me, these hot dishes are really delicious. On festivals and special occasions, we prepare a vegetarian feast named 'Sadhya' for lunch. This usually consists of almost ten different curries and atleast one sweet dish named as 'payasam'.

I remember the last Onam (the festival of Kerala), when we prepared the sadhya at home. Me and my mother woke up very early to make all dishes without any flaw. We prepared aviyal(yellow coloured vegetable dish with gravy), sambar(spicy lentil mixture),parippu curry(peas dish),pappadam, kuttu curry(spicy mixed vegetable dish), cabbage thoran, moru curry(curd dish), inji curry(ginger dish), pineapple curry, kichadi(curd dish with cuccumber) and theeyal(fried coconut gravy dish with vegetables). Payasam is always the domain of my father and nobody else is allowed to involve in that. The whole cooking finished just before the lunch time and I was exhausted by that time.We had a great time while having lunch - serving food and sharing moments. As i expected, my family appreciated me for the great effort i put for it. I wonder why ladies take a lot of effort for preparing these many dishes. Is it for the happiness we feel while serving the family a great lunch? Is it for the joyful moments which we share in a family? Or is it the inner craving to get appreciated from the family? Whatever be the reason, as the days for the next festival getting closer, i have in my mind the list of variety dishes for making the Sadhya, the most special and memorable one.