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We hope you folks had a fantastic Onam - we certainly did, and wrote about it as well! The last few weeks certainly flew by fairly quickly - and we didn't want any more to fly by before we sent you the next issue of Happy Stuff :)
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A reminder: To ensure you don't miss any of our newsletters, move this email to your inbox. We always send all our newsletters from happystuff@sigamany.in – add it to your contacts so that you always get it in your inbox.
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The Search for the Elusive Onasadhya
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We are both immensely fond of the Onasadhya, or the traditional Onam meal. This once-a-year culinary bonanza has been a significant part of our lives for a really long time, and we naturally try to seek it out whenever we can. Of course, the best onasadhya is the one made at home, and we have been fortunate over the years to have partaken of some truly spectacular feasts. In Hyderabad, however, we are far from home and the only source of the feast are the various Kerala restaurants - there are enough of them around.
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Now the onasadhya itself is a bit of a challenge to replicate outside of Kerala. A lot of the ingredients are hard to come by, a well-versed Kerala cook is harder to come by, and even if you assemble everything, the water is different, the air is different and it is just not the same. However, this does not stop us from trying to source one every Onam. We have had varying degrees of success with them - from utterly irredeemable meals to partly okay to even somewhat like the real thing.
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Early in our time in Hyderabad, we endured an hours-long wait at a restaurant called Utupura, only to have a cold, untasty meal at 4 pm. Then we learnt our lesson never to plan to eat an onasadhya at a restaurant - takeaway was the way to go.
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In subsequent years, we endured more than our share of onasadhya disappointments. One year we ordered very enthusiastically from a home chef who was promoting their offering on instagram. We got the lunch delivered only in the evening - cold, inedible, and with many items missing. Another year, we got it from another home chef who lived much nearer and was doing a limited number of orders. The items were okay - some of them really good, but most of them were almost but not quite like Kerala food.
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The best year in Hyderabad was when we went to a friend’s home for an onasadhya. It was strictly family-only, and we were very honoured to be the only friends to be invited. After a flurry of activity, we sat down to one of the best meals we have ever had.
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This year, we saw a lot of buzz about Kayal, a Kerala restaurant that was offering the sadhya both for eating in and takeaway, and since we had learnt that eating in usually means waiting and waiting in the hot sun before eating cold food, we decided on the takeaway.
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On the appointed day, at the appointed time, we managed to get ahead of the crowds and obtain the parcel well in time for lunch. At home, we did the obligatory picture taking with all the food on the banana leaf before we set to.
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It was hands down the best restaurant onasadhya we have managed to get in Hyderabad in the past 16 years. The meal got the taste of all the dishes right, and was filling and satisfying. Kayal restaurant is now on our list to check out for non-Onam food as well.
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Interesting Stuff
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Fun things we'd turn around and share with you if we were in the same room as you
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Remember when we were kids and we used to chew Chiclets or Big Fun and they used to lose all their flavour at one point but we would not give up and keep chewing it till we were yelled at by an elder (maybe we should just call them yell-ders!) to spit out and come for dinner? That taste apparently has a lot of takers in (where else?) Japan. The origin story itself is fascinating - to have something to chew behind a mask to prevent your mouth from drying out (whaaa…?), but not have sugar in it. Well - read all about it here: This Candy Tasted Like Nothing. Why Do People Miss It?
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When we’re doing a newsletter, a cat update is never far away!
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Hamlet the Algonquin Cat! The 12th generation to grace the historic Algonquin Hotel in NYC with their presence, Hamlet is an orange cat with an important duty - be the feline face of an important historical landmark. Whether it is greeting guests, enduring their pets or chilling out just out of reach - Hamlet looks awesome doing it! Check out his instagram.
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Vintage packaging has a certain allure. It has a nostalgic pull that takes us back to our childhoods. To memories of our grandparents being young. To old tins with chubby baby faces reused to store rice or dal or some such. So naturally when someone starts putting up images of vintage packaging design, we are fascinated, even if a lot of it comes from a time and place we were not witness to. Check out Purveyors of packaging, a husband and wife team salvaging and documenting vintage package design.
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What We're Watching
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Because there’s no such thing as too much TV!
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We finished watching Veronica Mars - the original show, the movie as well as the new season. Oh what a roller coaster it was!
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Currently watching: “Listen very carefully - I shall say this only once!” We watched a bit of ‘Allo ‘Allo again on a new channel called BBC Player on Prime. The show is quite laugh-out-loud funny. The brilliant use of language with the different accents standing for different languages and the puns and wordplay leave us rolling in the aisles. Of course, the obviously misogynistic, homophobic and xenophobic humour at times is off-putting.
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We enjoyed the first two seasons of Ragnarok and were looking forward to the third season. But a little past the first episode, it has failed to hold our attention - so much human drama in a show featuring gods and giants, between the gods and giants! It suddenly felt like we were watching Riverdale.
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We tried out a Tamil true-crime podcast - Section 302. The first episode trailer sounded promising - it was about the famous Aalavandar murder case in 1950s Madras. Surprisingly, the sound was quite disappointing - it was too boomy and we were unable to catch half the words and had to give up. Which was a pity as the script seemed to work quite well.
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That's it for this issue, folks! Feel free to write to us at happystuff@sigamany.in or just fill out the form here with your thoughts, ideas and good wishes :)
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See you in the next issue!
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Disclaimer: We have no affiliation, commercial or otherwise, with any products and services we mention in the newsletter.
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