More than a week , A straight cocktail dinner on Saturday night marked the success of “Curry Masala” An Annual Food festival, organized by the PSG Alumni Association, Coimbatore. Unlike the last year, the second food festival had a spread of three cuisines, Andhra, Rajasthan and Kerala, the varieties exceeded fifty with salad bar, a Barbeque of seventy five whole chickens and various street foods.
The work involved is all the same, for all the food fest which we have worked earlier. The fest scheduled on last Sunday of January expected a good crowd and the crowd literally exceeded our expectations. The Dishes what we prepared was full of bliss and it’s really worth the sleepless Saturday night.
We involved students from the first and final year which made a total of sixty, the number sixty sounded more of strength, but when the work started we stammered with the word ‘Strength’. There is more difference between ‘you work’ and ‘making others work’. Tough this is the first time, both the batch of students were exposed to bulk cooking, (for around fifteen hundred pax), many students enjoyed what the did, either peeling an onion, or grating hundreds of coconuts or chatting with girls all times, they loved what they did.
The laal Maas (mutton preparation) from Rajastani cuisine was excellent as were the Varuthracha curry (Kerala preparation) and Bhuna Kukda(Chicken Preparation). The salad was five multiplied by four platters made a good twenty and the welcome drink made from tender coconut, honey and so and so … was awesome, it kept moving on and on , only to check the servers patience and the strength of the person who cuts the tender coconut.
Around the corner .Mr. Student, complained about the BBQ marinate I did, and the complaint turned in to a blasting when he roasted (pre cooked ) the chicken in the oven. The marinade was watery, it’s not coating to the chicken, no flavor, no color, chicken is soggy and the worst of all power going off in between the roasting. With just half cooked twenty five chicken the bla.. bla.. blasting of Mr. Student kept ringing in my head.
This time, I took the chicken to the oven, to pre cook and the result was wonderful, only then I, found out the temperature which Mr. Student cooked the first twenty five was two third of the temperature (too low) which I set in the oven.
All went well with happy faces and full stomach, we parted after midnight, carrying the word Proud in our heart, This Annual food fest is a fund raising event and the fund goes into the free education of the poor and needy students. (It’s worth working for an event like this) And in my sleep these letters kept wandering around “R” “D” “O” “P” “U”. Looking forward with patience for “CURRY MASALA 2012”
