Willy-nilly

Willy-nilly I have to do the cooking on a daily base.  I like to eat fresh food, but everyday I have to rattle around in my brain, and think what to cook? Sometimes meat has finished. At other times vegetables have done the disappearing act from our home meaning I have to go, and buy them. I love vegetables, but without meat the flavor never seems right to me.

Thinking of meals, one of my favorite recipe in the past was making a short crust pastry roll. I tried to remember the ratio of flour and butter. As I didn’t have the recipe I used back in home country, I relied on Google to find out. The short crust pastry was a disaster. I am again going to try it today with less butter than the recipe on Internet says. Let’s hope it turns out okay, and I also hope I remember to take a photo of it.

My Avocado plant, and mint leaves have been eaten by some bug. Last time it happened with the mint leaves, but now the thing after finishing of the leaves, is eating the thin stalk of the Avocado plant. Here are the two photos:

Before:

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Now:

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DAILY PROMPT

Willy-nilly

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Dormant

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From M1 (granddaughter) I got the recipe for Guacamole.  I couldn’t get enough of it, once I knew how to make it. It became my staple diet, although Son doesn’t share the same feelings. Son’s favorite thing is meat. If there is no meat, vegetables are considered eating grass. 

I wanted to grow an Avocado. I live in an apartment. The only place to grow it was my small balcony. I put one stone in a cup, covered it with water, and faithfully watched it for months thinking eventually roots would occur. It was dormant, no roots came out despite my hoping. The darn things weren’t willing to appear. After a long wait — I had almost given up, a speck of something showed –aha finally a root. It grew at a snail’s pace testing my limits for patience.

The date for my yearly tramp to home country was fast approaching. As the flight date loomed ahead, I instructed Son to look after my baby in a cup. I conveniently forgot that Son was joining me after a month’s delay.

When we came back the first thing I looked for was my experiment. Alas the water, and the stone, both looked mouldy. I threw away the lot in a dumpster.

2nd beginning:

After a while, I again yearned to grow the beastly thing. I stuck a stone in the pot growing mint leaves. I was leaving for Hartford. I asked Son to water the two pots outside regularly. Son is a stickler for forgetfulness. The occasional rain sustained the mint, and jasmine. 

Lo and behold when I stepped out on the balcony the first morning I was back,  a welcome sign was the growing Avocado plant amidst the mint leaves.

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DAILY PROMPT

Dormant

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Soil

Son prior to his divorce when he owned his home, went to great lengths planting his vegetable patch. He would test the soil for what it needed to grow the plants. He would buy the top soil, tomato, jalapeño, pepper, squashes, okra, aubergine plants and fertilizer. He would make the proper beds for them, and took great care in planting them. He would faithfully water them.

The end result was failure.

Nothing survived, except for mint and weeds. 

The weeds thrived, and in no time took over the whole patch.

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DAILY PROMPT

Soil

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Time 2013, and Now

Time, and 2013 came up when I looked up one of my favorite blogs. Since today I am short of time I will write about today. I invited a few ladies for lunch for tomorrow. I have to do all the preparations. 

On 2nd August is my husband’s third death anniversary. I have invited the ladies for reading of the Quran. This occasion is for praying for him. I will be traveling that day, so I am having the rememberance earlier.

First, and foremost was getting mint leaves from the outside vegetable patch. It’s over run with weeds. The weeds flourished with abandon over mint, tomato, and strawberry plants. To get at the mint leaves I pulled out handfuls of weeds. Underneath I unearthed Bannana peppers. 

  
They are lovely. Aren’t they? And the smallest was cute.

In the morning I had given a list of things, and money to my son for my culinary efforts for tomorrow. So before he left for office, he brought home what I wanted.

I have to do the cooking, and cleaning. Hope I survive!

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DAILY PROMPT

______ is the new ______

Click over to your favorite blog, and pick out the 4th and 14th words (that aren’t “the” or “an”). Drop them into this phrase:

“_____ is the new _____.”

There’s your post title. Now write!

The Cult Of The Tomb

In our society some people tend to go the mazars. Mazars are tombs of holy or pious men. They go there to pray to God to help them. In realty most of them, the ignorant ones pray directly to the dead person buried there to help them and take away their woes. They think it is a panache for all ills. They will be sick. Instead of going to the doctor they find it easy to go visit the the last abiding place of some holy person.

Once a road was being widened near Lady Reading Hospital Peshawar. Along the side of the road a person was buried a long time ago. The tomb was festooned with a lot of little colorful flags as is usual here. The person in charge ordered that the tomb should be erased and the remains buried in a cemetery. A lot of hue and cry was raised. The grave was opened despite that. A long stick was found instead of the skeleton. Somebody wanting to mint money had built that fake mazar. People visiting give gifts of money and food.

There is a mazar in Lahore which is very famous, the mazar of Hazrat Data Gunj Bahksh. Many people go there for their prayers to be answered. I pity the poor chap. Imagine day and night the ding dong (music) going on. I think if he could, he would have run away from that place.

One of my husband’s relative was suffering from breast cancer. Instead of going to the doctor, she kept visiting a mazar in Swat in the hope of getting well. After she became more ill she went to a cancer specialist. It was too late. How can a dead person grant you a wish? His own account closed at the time of his death. May be he was a good person, but who answers prayers from the grave?

I see so many of our ‘Great Leaders’ going to such places. They are the death knell of our country. They have only brought chaos to our homeland. Why don’t they directly pray to God ? There was a photo of President Zardari in the newspaper visiting the mazar of Lal Shebaz Qulander. Probably he was praying for a second term. I hope and pray to God his wish is not answered. He and his cronies are done with.

It’s really ironic that in this age educated people are so naive as to believe in the power of dead people of long ago.