Dosa delights

 One of my fondest memories of childhood is the dosa. I am a big fan of a crispy thin round dosa. And the only one to blame for this is my mom.

When my sister and me used to come back from school, there would be hot tiffin  waiting for us daily. It would be upma, poha, bread toast, idli or dosa.

I eagerly waited for the dosa. All other items would usually be ready by the time we reached home. But not the dosa. 

The dosakallu would go on the stove just when we opened the gate. Even as we cleaned up and got ready to tackle the evening, the first two dosas would be made for my sister. She was a regular dosa eater and didnt trouble amma with too many rules about the dosa. As she settled into her dosas , mine would arrive royally!  

Mine had to be  hot , crisp, round and slightly brown. No cold ones for me. No white ones for me. No thick ones for me. And definitely no torn ones for me. I remember amma narrating how as a toddler I had asked her to stitch up a torn dosa! She used to make  dosa after dosa and I would gobble them up even as the next one got ready. There would be days when I would ask her, how many did I finish? Eat as many as you want, she would reply, why count? 

When I got married, my mother in law obviously never expected a dosanazi as a daughter in law. She usually prepared dosas and kept them aside, as one by one people kept walking into the kitchen picking them up. She informed me that one of the major life hacks she had learned with four hungry teenagers, a ravenous husband and a band of motley relatives who perenially occupied her home was to make fat thick dosas so that no one demanded a third one! While the hack worked for her, my dosa sensibilty refused to toe the line. I offered right away to make my dosas myself,  so that I could make them crisp and brown and thin and hot and eat them even as I was making them! 

Sonny boy and me love it hot crisp brown and thin while my husband and daughter need the dosa slightly thick, white and warm. It may be served with molgapodi or chutney or sambar or even jaggery or jam. That is immaterial.

What is supremely important is it adheres to my standards of being dosa!