outdoor cooking

11.26.2012

Twenty six days to go on this Monday the 26^th, Laxman makes a pretty good banana pancake, using all the ingredients except butter.  With butter and syrup I'd be back on Red Leaf eating mom’s cakes in the darkness minutes away from the bus pulling up and taking me to St. Bedes. 

A cold clear morning, the sun rose a few minutes later thanks to thick haze.  It must be a tradition not to forget where one has come from but the fire outside burns, heating the kettle.  Suraksha must have risen earlier than the sun, Laxman calls for her below.  Yesterday the eye doctor said the polyps or whatever they are Laxman didn’t ask, are returning and she’ll have to press cotton swabs in hot water on them for the next three months.  What the heck is this but someone who hasn’t correctly diagnosed the problem.  Shit, he cut them out and they’re coming back?  Isn’t that evidence of incompetence?

Well, what are the options.  Finding someone else who is more competent or more specialized.  I should take a photo of them and send them to Nancy.  Wait I know what it is.  Cholesterol.  Maybe no more chocolate for a while there kiddo?  Noooo, she cries in fear.  Maybe it’s the eggs.  This morning, though they look fine.

 

Maya cooks onions and beans in a heavy wok on the fire outside.  She tosses in tomatoes and gundruk, a dry spinach like vegetable into the hot oil.  I think cooking outside is to be enjoyed.  Suraksha stirs, covering her mouth and eyes from drifting smoke.  The boy workers continue dismantling the tower.  By noon if no one is pelted by falling bolts, it will be down and clear skies will prevail again for the first time in five years.  Now Maya stirs in potatoes and the six spices, it looks very dry where is the water, ah, the steam rises as she pours and stirs and now covers.  It’s getting warm.

Laxman’s sister will be in Sarangkot next week.  She works and lives in Israel.  Today I met her husband who works and lives in Bahrain.  Laxman says they will both be here for December 21.  There is no coincidence here.  It’s something he may have thought was one but it isn’t.  Nevertheless, many questions came to me when I met the man whose name was not given;  prior to 1959 were there any Tibetans or Chinese in this area?  My guess is no though nearly half have an asian countenance as opposed to the dark skin people of the mountains.   The Gurung come originally from Mongolia, and have been here as long as the mountain Aryans.  Interesting…

The tall sinewy German from Dusseldorf laughed when I told him I’d been here since August and continued to laugh when he repeated ‘so really you’ve been here since August, aaahhaaa’, his female companion, his wife most likely, said why not, it’s beautiful.  Darn right lady.  With his chiseled head and arms, piercing blue eyes and short blond  hair the Aryan doesn’t know how to relax without having accomplished something first.  Shanti shanti I’ll ring in your ears, life is not a straight line and there is nothing precise about a circle.

Well to end the day, Laxman’s brother in law brought a big bottle of Johnnie Walker and a few hot toddies have done me in.  I held cotton swabs to the princesse’s eyes, poor kid, well there are worse off.  The moon is almost full, trying to take photos with a shaky zoom was comical.  Eleven datura seeds this morning did nothing.  I have to grind.