Chocolate Fudge

When I was a child, my amma had all the time in the world (or so I thought) and in her need to make her first born happy, she constantly would bake and cook and re-bake and re-make until there was something, anything that I liked and ate with a happy face. Of course, I was a rich, spoilt brat that thought mothers (as much as they were loved) were put on the planet to serve their young (or, at the very least, me) and that criticism was the only form of honesty that they expected.

As a result, the strawberry milk shake always went down the drain, the train shaped cake she made for my birthday, appropriately wasted, the bread she tried baking, ceremonially rejected. The examples are endless. The point is, there were a few things that she could make - and even those I would eat if they were made just so. One of those things that I Loved was this chocolate fudge. It was a basic MilkMaid recipe - surely, it was not my mother's cooking genius that made it so right (besides, all her skill I had rejected on callous grounds of dismissive youth) but there was something about it that I was convinced was because amma made it. Other mothers just did not know how to do exactly the same thing (I would later learn that this was true about my mother's parupu sadam as well: but thats another story).

So this chocolate fudge was not any chocolate fudge. It had to be stirred just the right amount of times : it could not be too burnt (it would then taste life toffee - yuck) and it could not be too watery (then how was it fudge?),it could not have too many nuts (then its like kadala urundai!) but it could not have too few either (then it was like plain chocolate). The milkmaid dabba had to be completely clean, and the Cadbury's cocoa tin had to be just the right size : so many conditions to make the perfect fudge.

And amma would sweetly stir, and stir - as I sat with my teacher saree (usually, her dupatta made into a saree to teach my class of stuffed animals) on the kitchen medai (platform) - allowing me to tell her exactly how much she could allow it to "set" before it became my perfect fudge. To date, condensed milk and cocoa on a stove reminds me of those times in Sudarshan. Is that what being a parent is all about? Having your child playfully dictate to you and actually listening to it? Stirring incessently without skipping a beat to make it just the way they want it - even if they would not have known any different if it was made another way?

Whatever it is, it made me walk down an extra aisle in Safeway today and buy a can of (non fat) condensed milk and (fresh ground) cocoa to make my "Amma's chocolate fudge". And come back and instantly make it, stirring exactly as I had forced her to (while she was my exact age, come to think of it - she was 27 when I was 7!) and thinking to myself that no matter how much I say it, This is why I want to have children soon. So I can stir for them. So when they go away and live their own lives, they Know how I love them.

Isnt that a happy thought? A big kitchen, children at the counter (loud, happy), warm smells of home. Yellow light?

I cannot wait.