Clicking for BloggerAid!

We celebrated Kaaradiya Nombu with great aplomb. Suganya's spoken about the festival here beautifully. This was a very important festival for my mom and she did keep a 'vrath' and all that for my dad. Very obviously, I did not do all that, and made sure A helped me with this. I also tied the sacred strand/thread. See? I like the pic, so putting it up ;)

I was waiting for this festival to eat the Nombu Adais slathered with butter and, A and I were waiting for the festival to use our new bamboo steamer. Ya, this time around (our first, actually) we used bamboo steamers to steam our Nombu Adais. Traditionally, an Idli cooker/utensil is used. However, with great forethought (the Idli gadget is way too much stuff to clean up :D) ,we decided to use our newly acquired bamboo steamer.

We are not posting the recipe right now since we are sending this to BloggerAid for the BloggerAid cookbook aimed at creating great school meals as part of the World Food Program, a UN agency. This event requires us to send in our recipe through email to them, while not posting it on the blog. We hope that we've done our small bit towards alleviating hunger in the world.

Since this is a bamboo steamer and its wood and all that, this pic also goes to Jugalbandi's CLICK- Wood event! Yay! :D

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Bloggers aid!

Today, it is not a recipe post, but a post about Blogger Aid - an initiative taken by food bloggers across the world to create healthy recipes for the cookbook by Blogger Aid.

For us, it all started with me browsing through blogs and finding out about this courageous initiative by Val and Giz. To be frank, I don't know either of them or their blogs. However, this cause is truly important and both A and I do believe in it. In addition, we feel that since food bloggers are in charge of this initiative, the food will be healthy and real, unlike a lot of meals served in schools nowadays. One of our recipes - Nombu Adai (Steamed Rice-Lentil 'cakes') is also in there.

I realize now after so many years that I'm this strong and immune, all thanks to the healthy food that my parents force-fed me (ya, that pumpkin sambar made the difference, I think) In a time where childhood obesity has raised its ugly head everywhere thanks to the omnipresent junk food, food that is cheap, such an initiative screams for attention. I really didn't think this much about food until I started cooking food myself 2 years ago. Food politics and food in schools is not as much an issue in India (our home country) as it is in the USA (where we live, currently) But what both the countries share is probably young hungry children. While it is difficult to believe that a country like the USA can have children who go to bed hungry, it is unimaginable to think of the rest of the countries which are not as privileged as the US in a lot of other aspects.

So, why is this initiative important, you may ask. The point here is that every time someone writes a post cribbing about hungry children, food issues, famine, diseases, we always, always blame the Government and the official bodies. What I feel, a lot of us don't realize is how we can change the world we live in. In little ways. I know a lot of you do small things that change the way you live, that is making this world probably a little better for your kids, here is one more thing. All of the proceeds go towards WFP's School Meals Programme. The site should give you more information about the exact numbers of the children benefitting from this initiative.

All of us have come a long way from the old times when cooks wouldn't share their recipes. Now, you can go an extra step forward and buy this book, promote this book among family and friends. Remember what Margaret Mead said?

"A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." And we are that small group.