Babs & Elephant, Jalebi & Kappayum Meenum

Babs and Hubby Raj in front of the Elephant

My Babs is a true Mallu. Yesterday he had his first encounter with the Elephant. He was so excited to see the Elephant, he was shouting , clapping, touching it , pulling it's nettipattam  , pulling and tapping on it's trunk and was hanging on it's tusk. Fortunately (for the Elephant of course!), it was not  a real Elephant J

This happened when we went to DALA’s  (Dubai Art Lovers Association) Keralotsavam 2012, which was taking place just opposite to our villa. They had put up a life size Elephant statue, and our son’s reaction to it was really amazing.

Carricature of my 11 months old son  ' Babs'  by Artist Sadanandan

We also got his caricature done.

And we registered ourselves for blood and organ donation. And also for lucky draw contest which am sure we would never win. Am so unlucky in lucky draws that I would not win even if I am the only person participating.

And also one of my long time wishes was granted. I ate garam-garam jalebiyam for the first time ever. I ate Jalebiyam many times but somehow never got the opportunity to have ‘garamagaram jalebi’ right out of the kadai. 

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No, these are not the Jalebis I ate ( though looks exactly the same), I was too busy eating to think about clicking.  

They had put many stalls, including this Jalebi stall and tattukada  (street food stall ).
Raj ate some Kappayum Meenum (tapioca & fish curry – typical Kerala / Kannur food) from the Tattukada

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No, this is not the Kappayum Meenum he ate. I was too busy playing with a balloon, and keeping Babs attention on it, in an effort to keep him from pulling the plate off his dads hand, to click.

I too wanted to have kappayum meenum, but decided not to, after hearing Raj’s comment  “ udayathe kappayum, meeninte thalayum, mullum mathrame enik kiyttiyullu, allengillum Bharya villambi tharunna pole aavullallo  ” ( All I got is half cooked tapioca and skull & bones of fish, afterall I cant expect them to serve like my wife ) He likes only the tail part of the fish and whenever I cook fish, I select and serve him only the tail part, not that I like the head part but as they say if your loved one loves tail, you would have to start liking the head J.

I like my kappa mashed, as in the picture above. It was one of the things I craved during pregnancy. But I was advised by everyone around to avoid it since it is believed to cause gastritis. But my sweet sister finally made some for me to satisfy my craving. I devoured it and also proved that it did not cause gastritis ( at least not to me ). And then I made some myself, and once back at home for delivery, I convinced my mother to make some more.

You would be wondering, we went to DALA’s Keralotsavam and all I wrote was of food and the Elephant. Well, there were many programmes going on the stage, but Babs made sure we do not watch them, he loves moving around than sitting/standing at one place for long. And afterall the main reason we went there was to entertain him and not us, although we ended up entertaining our stomachs as well.