Monday, June 12, 2006

Is That Yogurt Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

Knowledge is the death of innocence.

An uncle and aunt are visiting us for a few days. Don't get the wrong idea, it's all good. Any opportunity to talk about family and roots and forgotten relatives is good. Plus, there's good classical music playing around the house all the time - instead of the television - and then there's the food. Oh, the food.

As we all know, a South Indian aunt likes her yogurt and homemade yogurt it has to be. They don't go for that sodium-laced supermarket stuff. So my aunt brings some yogurt seed ("culture") with her. I wish I hadn't said "seed". You will repeatedly hear that regret in the rest of this post.

If my resume were to mention just one skill, it would be "I boil milk perfectly without spillage and burnage". So my services were called for and I boiled the milk. The boiled milk was then carefully placed on the kitchen counter for it to cool down before The Adding Of The Seed. No! YOGURT CULTURE!.

I had been instructed: the seed - NO! YOGURT CULTURE! - was in a plastic jar in the refrigerator. I was to add the seed - NO! YOGURT CULTURE! - only when the milk had cooled down sufficiently. So I open the fridge door and take a look at this plastic jar.

Deep breath, all of you.

The plastic jar had a label around it. Alarm bells break out into a tinny cacophony inside my head.

The label had my uncle's name on it. How quaint - aunty had used a medicine bottle to bring us the seed - NO! YOGURT CULTURE! - from her kitchen.

Feel a barf coming? Hang on.

Curious, I turned the bottle around to read the label. I wish I had not. Remember what I said earlier about knowledge and innocence?

Now would be a good time to open up that barf-hose. Let it flow, let it flow.

It was a prescription pill bottle. Ergo, it once contained prescription pills. The words on the label, printed in a bold typeface, floated in and out of my vision. I experienced dizzyness, nausea, bloating and shortness of breath.

It was not just any old prescription. It was a prescription for a very popular erectile dysfunction pill. And it now contained seed - NO! YOGURT CULTURE!

A bottle containing erectile dysfunction pills now contained yogurt culture. A bottle, whose contents ("take 1 hour before, ahem, certain activity") are used exclusively for "recreational" purposes, was now to be used for feeding the family?

Miss Muffet can go to hell, but tonight I am staying away from curds and whey.

20 comments:

neha vish said...

a. Your uncle and aunt are very intereshting. Is your mind full of images you'd rather not have now?

b. Did aunt relish the yogurt?

c. I just died laughing. ROTFL

km said...

Neha,

a. Yes they are. Must. Think. Happy Thoughts.
b. I dare not ask.
c. Have a heart, woman, have a heart.

Tabula Rasa said...

full cream, was it?

km said...

Die, TR, die.

(Just remembered the hysterical giggling over "Cream of Eric Clapton" one rainy afternoon many centuries ago....timeless humor:))

A.S. said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[falls out of chair]

Sorry, got a bit hysterical.

You never know, it might have come handy, *after* the departure of your clearly adventurous relatives.... it is a pity that the remains of the pills won't act as culture... sorry SEED too, yoghurt after yoghurt.

[prevents another bout of hysteria with great decisiveness]

Falstaff said...

So, do you just drop the seed..errr..culture in the milk or do you have to beat it in by hand? I've never managed to get these finer details of forep...errr...curd-making straight.

GhostOfTomJoad said...

Ah, so that's why your comments have had that extra zing lately!! :-)

This is really funny. Therefore, I'm going to send details of the kind of curd you've been having to every living soul I know...and, I know you won't mind :-)

Incidentally, where in hell do "seed" and "YOGURT CUTURE" come from? All along I thought one needed a starter to make curd. But, hey, what do I know... if you can make curd in a "prescription bottle",I have a lot to learn :-)

Alok said...

You are very funny... and it seems it is in your genes too. hahaha :)

Anonymous said...

An uncle (and aunty) have needs too, you know.

Tabula Rasa said...

:-D km, i know you'll forgive me for this --

falstaff:
do you make yogurt alone while others make yogurt in pairs?

neha vish said...

Tabula Rasa: You mean Seed The Au Pair? I mean Yogurt in Pairs?

km: How quickly this blog makes it to the A-list. Cough

km said...

OMFG, I feel like I am in a Twilight Zone episode....everyone I knew and respected as fine - and pardon the usage - *upright* bloggers seem to have gone straight down the toilet.

Tabula Rasa said...

km:
your yogurt's in the gutter, your curd's in the si-hi-ink?

neha:
that too, although what i'd meant was if it's single, it's desultory :-D

Swapna said...

:D .. That was hilarious... :) ... And ??? What happened after that? :)

neha vish said...

Swapna: I am guessing that's largely dependent on which of the characters we ask. km might have gone to get his own prescription bottle, and I am not sure we want to know about Uncle and Aunty.

ROTFL!

km said...

Swapna: the first rule of the blogosphere is *always ignore Neha's comments* :D. The second rule is, what happens after yogurt stays outside the blog :)

Neha: shoo shoo....don't you have angsty poetry to record?

Supremus: Happy ROFLing, man.

Tabula Rasa said...

i think after you get yogurt, with appropriate motions you can get a lassi.

Falstaff said...

TR: What can I say. A man's (yo)gurt to do what a man's (yo)gurt to do. Let's just say I'm a lot less optimistic about getting lassi(e)s then you are.

km: How naive can you be? Even with the evidence of the prescription bottle, you still thought you were surrounded by fine upstanding folk?

km said...

TR: Try emotions for better lassi.

Falstaff: the scales of illusion have indeed dropped from my eyes. I can see clearly now (and there's no bluish tinge at the periphery either.)

Anonymous said...

That's a great story. Waiting for more. Web server performance testing financial planning towards retirement Burkhard manfred navigation auto u. home-hifi How much cost tenuate Weight loss low glycemic lose weight diet pills Purchase ativan with no prior prescription Viagra rom10 11 401k loan amoritzation schedule california divorce public records 401k information plan Nhs dentists wales Rush seat chair