A special fruit salad!!!

I can never forget our first wedding anniversary.Those were the Ghatkopar days still.I used to do the cooking in a dabba stove(or thiri stove)and a pressure stove silencer(aavi vanda stove!!!), my mother's precious stove it was.No gas in those days.

So coming back to our wedding anniversary now,we both decided we would celebrate at home by inviting a few friends over for dinner. So it was all set, menu decided.My younger sis- in- law was there with me.

We(sil&me) together worked out how to go about the job.So first thing in the morning off we went to chembur market, bought all the fruits and vegetables we had listed and started with the cooking right away.

We had invited about 20 friends and two stoves with us to do all of it.The menu was rather simple (atleast we thought so!!)Pulav ,vegetable kurma, raitha&fruit salad for dessert.

My sil did all the vegetable&fruit chopping and I took charge of cooking.

By 7 pm we were done with the cooking,we set everything as best as we could and waited for our friends.My husband had office too, so he too had to get back.

By 8 pm all our friends had come.All of my husbands friends were bachelors,so no female company for me though I knew all of them We served all of them fanta& coke and spent a nice time.Now the interesting part.Dinner time.I am sure they were all really hungry and waiting for asumptuous dinner.Dinner was served and all was quiet for a while and I was praying everything turned out ok when one of our friends came up to me and slowly said manni, kurma la uppu illaye?? marandu poyittel pola irukku uppu poda.!!!Oh!Oh! I said and ran with salt to each one's plate. (I never had the habit of tasting food before serving)FIRST LESSON LEARNT, TASTE THE FOOD BEFORE SERVING IT TO PEOPLE!!!!VERY IMPORTANT I THINK!!!

I imagine the pulav and raitha were ok and passable.Now comes the best part of the evening.It was dessert time.Out came the fruit salad.It was served and suddenly I found everyone unusually quiet and having adifficult time with the fruit salad.Went around asking everyone if everything is fine,all of them smilingly nod their heads and say nothing.

Pretty puzzled and anxious at the looks on people's face I tasted the fuit salad.The first spoon that I had I realised my mistake,GUAVA!!!

Those days my favourite fruit was guava and that too the really tough ones which taste sweet but are not soft.I had no clue what fruits are to be added(neither knew of referring to cookboooks!!) in a fruit salad and since my favourite was guava added plenty of that in the fruit salad and gave people a tough time.My elder brother had also joined us and he later told me that guava is not to be added in fruit salad.I remember I had to give all of the fruit salad the next day to the jamadar.LESSON NO 2:JUST BECAUSE YOU LIKE A FRUIT OR VEGETABLE DO NOT USE IT IN ANY DISH!! I realised how tough it is to eat a fruit salad filled with guava only when I ate it.This first anniversary celebration is still fresh in my memory after thirty years.Ofcourse I must say it was an enjoyable one too (inspite of my culinary expertise )!!.Today when I look back I think of how very innocent and simple I used to be.Experience sure is a great teacher I have to say.