I prefer not to blog while watching TV – all the more during
Game of Thrones. But I am doing it now, hence the title..
But really, the summer is here and so are the shades of
summer – bright, bold and a-lot-of-fun. The face will be more-a-covered, the
legs that much lesser; the feet-on-street will be replaced by the splashes of
pool-water.
I had read on the Digital Door Surat blog about the best
summer drinks of Surat, and that brought back memories of some home-made summer
coolers that I used to have as a child -
1. Variyali
nu sharbat – I remember having mixed feelings about this one here. I never
liked the green algae-ish look of it but so much savourd its taste! Ma never
made it coz it wasn’t quite popular in Southern Saurashtra, more so in
mainland. But I remember Motumal Tanumal makes a really tasty blend. A
mast-mast must try
2. Ganna
juice – The wife still scolds me coz I pronounce it j-yu-se and not joo-se; but
well nothing beats the vernacular sweet taste of sugarcane juice. My foren-return
relatives always shied away from it as it might cause jaundice and I always
thought they were too much of a snob. Just recently I believed the fact after
my embry-oo-la-la doctor friend decoded it for me.
3. Golo –
While I key in the sentence-starting word, I vow to myself to go have one
tomorrow. But the lust that I have for whiskey now is what compares to the one
for gola in childhood coz the elders
always warned to not have it for the fear of getting a sore throat. The ubiquitous summer ice-dish of Surat, which is golo
in Kathiyawad, is THE summer dessert I think.
4. Rasna – If you’re someone over 30 years and
never had Rasna while growing up, boy o boy you were never a child –
never-ever. I remember the affection I had with the preparation of orange Rasna
– wee bit more than actually drinking it. Mixing the water and the sugar and
the liquid and the powder was probably my first cooking lesson – and the last
one at it.
RIP Rasna, farewell young-hood.
