Ponggal Celebration

On January 27, 2012,  the Tamil Ladies (we call ourselves Muthu Tamarai Tamilarkal literally Muthu means pearl (after Qatar Shell GTL Pearl, Tamarai - Lotus - the name of the compound that we live and Tamilarkal means people of Tamil origin) of the compound that I live currently, celebrated ponggal instead of the usual birthday celebration for the month of January.

It was surely a long list of menus decided after careful planning by the group members - the 10 grand ladies and not to forget the beautiful colourful kolams prepared by Gayathiri, Haleema and Alagu.

It was definitely a day with full festivities with kolams, banana leave lunch, kids running around in their best dresses, ladies in sarees and jasmines adorning their hair....

Far away from homeland and yet close to all festivities..I just have to let you know the menus of the day a total of 16 dishes not including tea.

1.  Rice (5 kgs of indian rice)
2.  Ven Ponggal - spicy rice
3.  Sakkarai Ponggal - sweet rice
4.  Sambar
5.  Kara Kulambu/Puzhli Kulambu -spciy yet sourish thick curry with a few types of vegetable
6.  Vengdagai Moor Kulambu - Yogurt based gravy with ladies finger 
7.  Rasam
8.  Valagai Podimas- this is what I cook - mashed raw bananas with coconut 
9.  Potatoes with butter beans and fresh peas.
10.  Toor Dhall with Ghee - boiled dhall and mashed eaten with ghee - emmm...
11.  Beans carrot poriyal beans carrot fry
12.  Vengayam Pachadi - this is a different kind of salad kind of curry/
13.  Yogurt
14. Appalam
15.  Medu Vadai
16.  Payasam

and last not least tea to complete the menu list.  and we sure had a good time indulging these dishes on banana leaves.....

Varsha was salivating when she saw the photos of the food displayed and the banana leaf...poor girl she had to miss this as she was away on her charity run for her Nepal trip 1st week of February.

Now enjoy the pictures and click here for Valakai Masiyal

<table style="width:194px;"><tr><td align="center" style="height:194px;background:url(https://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/transparent_album_background.gif) no-repeat left"><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/116050897537853121554/2012PonggalCelebrationAK55?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNzdy6WEra_W7wE&feat=embedwebsite"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-CJ3PxOr56ro/TyVFRslxkrE/AAAAAAAAAeA/akKQ3HFprfw/s160-c/2012PonggalCelebrationAK55.jpg" width="160" height="160" style="margin:1px 0 0 4px;"></a></td></tr><tr><td style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:11px"><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/116050897537853121554/2012PonggalCelebrationAK55?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNzdy6WEra_W7wE&feat=embedwebsite" style="color:#4D4D4D;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:none;">2012 Ponggal Celebration AK 55</a></td></tr></table>