I went down town to the area where it feels most like home here in Oslo - Grønland. It's where one of my favourite stores is - one which is full of undiscovered treasures of different textures, smells, familiar banter & then mixed in are treasures that make you feel close to home, & then the few that stir a childhood memory - yup its the Indian - Pakistani grocery store. From dals, to all the masalas to make a perfect curry to ready-made rotis, paneer, Indian green chillies, coriander in bunches, bindi, haldirams, frooti and maggi this IS my treasure trove of all things home !
Today I went there on the 'we need more rice' trip. After trying a variety of rices available here in Norway nothing came close to our good old sona masoori, we (well more me) decided to stick with the Basmati from the Indian store. Cost wise it is identical to other rices here,so no we are not being posh unlike in India where Basmati rice means your having guests to dinner.
As I was saying - walking home I couldn't help laughing at myself lugging back this 5kg bag of Basmati India Gate Rice - nothing screamed 'I'm Indian' more than that and to make the picture more realistic I had 3 other shopping bags strapped across me and one very aromatic bag of briyani take away.
Sitting on the couch at home still laughing about it I remembered the Chumbak poster we have up in our loo - ' You know your Indian Because.. ' and so many times when friends have come out of the loo here they've laughed and remarked about one thing up on the poster than resembles what we have ..
1. Yes we own a pressure cooker (2 infact)
2. Yup a rice cooker too
3. The toilet mug is tucked away in the corner (transported all the way from India)
4. The house doesn't smell of tomato, onions and garlic but they are 3 ingredients that can be produced on demand (curry patta &chillies included)
5. A whole shelf dedicated to tupperware a.k.a the collection of plastic haldi stained dabbas by the dozen (this one is infectious a lot of our friends here now have their own personal dabba collections minus the haldi stains)
6. Correct the fridge is jam-packed with leftovers in the above mentioned dabbas
And
I definitely have my 5kg bag of rice !!
Leaving me with the conclusion .. that you can take the Indian out of India but never India out of the Indian ....
Today I went there on the 'we need more rice' trip. After trying a variety of rices available here in Norway nothing came close to our good old sona masoori, we (well more me) decided to stick with the Basmati from the Indian store. Cost wise it is identical to other rices here,so no we are not being posh unlike in India where Basmati rice means your having guests to dinner.
As I was saying - walking home I couldn't help laughing at myself lugging back this 5kg bag of Basmati India Gate Rice - nothing screamed 'I'm Indian' more than that and to make the picture more realistic I had 3 other shopping bags strapped across me and one very aromatic bag of briyani take away.
Sitting on the couch at home still laughing about it I remembered the Chumbak poster we have up in our loo - ' You know your Indian Because.. ' and so many times when friends have come out of the loo here they've laughed and remarked about one thing up on the poster than resembles what we have ..
1. Yes we own a pressure cooker (2 infact) 2. Yup a rice cooker too
3. The toilet mug is tucked away in the corner (transported all the way from India)
4. The house doesn't smell of tomato, onions and garlic but they are 3 ingredients that can be produced on demand (curry patta &chillies included)
5. A whole shelf dedicated to tupperware a.k.a the collection of plastic haldi stained dabbas by the dozen (this one is infectious a lot of our friends here now have their own personal dabba collections minus the haldi stains)
6. Correct the fridge is jam-packed with leftovers in the above mentioned dabbas
And
I definitely have my 5kg bag of rice !!
Leaving me with the conclusion .. that you can take the Indian out of India but never India out of the Indian ....
