My Last Days In Kerala

I had a seriously enjoyable and relaxing couple of days in Cochin with excellent food and some good laughs. I really appreciated the way the hotel staff and security treated guests; friendly without being in your face and on hand if you needed any help. I have this feeling they quite liked me too with a permanent smile on my face, talking cricket and taking out a few minutes of my day to chat to them. It's not difficult to behave amicably with respect.
The one thing I had to do before I left was go into Ernakulum, to Travelogics to collect my refund a I had overpaid them. It was slightly irritating that I couldn't just get my credit card creditted so one morning, I got the ferry over and walked the 15 minutes or so to their office which I found quite easily which is a bit of a surprise as street names are not exactly prevalent. Sanoj and Leila were very happy to see me and Leila insisted on a photo session, maybe my photo is on their wall now in pride of place or maybe it's lurking in an email junk folder somewhere.

With cash in hand, well in my bag actually, I decided to try and find a CD which I had heard back in Kumarakom, "In the Lounge with Yani". I went into a few CD shops and realised that this Yani bloke is a huge star in India but this particular album, no one had ever heard of. I gave up then tried to find one of these lethal mosquito bats which would probably kill a small cat with their electric charge, unlike the ones is Holland. I thought Barry might want one so in 36 degrees of humid heat, I trawled through the hardware shops in the market but was disappointed as these little death machines only charged in the smaller sized plugs and didn't use your normal AAA Duracells. Shopping in this kind of heat is not much fun, so I threw in the towel before long, empty handed, went for a delicious milkshake and got the ferry back to Fort Cochin.

Oceano's Resaurant

My back wasn't at it's worst so I decided to give the cooking course a go at Oceanos. My stock of painkillers was getting very low so rationing had come into force about a week ago. I had kept a couple of pills for the flight home but was thankfully left with one last tramadol so I took this the morning of the cooking lesson and walked around the corner to the restaurant.

All drugged up and raring to go, I took my place in the kitchen (like a good girl), armed myself with the sharpest knife I could get my hands on and got to work at preparing endless vegetables. I might not be Gordon Ramsay but cooking is quite high up there in the things I can do and like. If I was able to stand up in a kitchen all day, I might have taken the whole cooking malarkey a bit more seriously and who knows, I could have been on Master “it doesn’t get tougher than this” Chef.

As I was cooking vegetable thali (a selection of different dishes), not surprisingly there was a lot of peeling a chopping to start me off. We used familiar veg like potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, green beans and peas. I got familiar with some lesser known ones like avial, suran, chayote and ash gourd. Chef’s English rated just a little better than my Malayalam so hand signals came in useful as we both waved out knives about in unison.

If you can't stand the heat......

I forget how many different dishes I cooked but more than 15 and less than 25 so let’s plump for a round 20. Some took seconds to concoct, some over half an hour. I started taking notes but it got a bit busy to keep writing. Chef was delighted with me as I knew instinctively how to cut up the veg, how much oil to use, how much of each spice should be added and maybe most importantly, he left all the seasoning up to me – a bit more salt, a bit more sugar or maybe a bit more yoghurt.

I was surprised by the minimal use of onions but not by the liberal use of the ubiquitous jeera (cumin seeds), mustard seeds, coconut (shredded, blitzed in the blender, milk and cream), turmeric and curry leaves. Astonishingly the dishes did all come out very different and the one I loved the most was the instant chutney made from mango, molasses, sugar, vinegar and chillies.

Continually tasting and seasoning

I worked hard and enjoyed myself immensely. The heat didn’t even get to me and it must have been over 40 degrees centigrade in there. I was relieved by the hygiene standards, not brilliant for Western standards but not remotely scary. The only thing that did make me wince was that the meat (which I didn’t touch) was just left on a counter festering before the other chefs cooked it whereas the fridge appeared to be used for coconut products, water and very little else! 

 As usual, I tried to get everyone laughing throughout the morning and succeeded, especially when gesturing at Chef’s somewhat huge belly. The lads in the kitchen were impressed with my Indian cricket knowledge as well as my cooking prowess – I almost asked for my money back, after all I had done all the work!

Just a few of my dishes

The thali is a speciality at Alonso’s and nothing else is served at lunchtime. It costs about €2 and if there are any left-overs, the staff eat them. Slow days in the restaurant must really leave a feast for Fatty and his boys! Everything is freshly prepared that morning and it is super tasty, especially on the day I cooked! I was slightly nervous when the first customers came in and ordered my food but they loved it which was a relief. Work was done for the day so back to the pool to cool down.

Paying customers eating my food

As I walked into the hotel, one of the girls on reception collared me and was obviously very excited about something. She said “Guests staying at the hotel with same name as you!” OK, so someone called Kate had checked in. Whoopdeddy do. “No, no, no....same family name as you”. I grew up in Yorkshire where the surname “Holdsworth” is as common as muck. When I moved “darn saff” to London, it was fairly rare and in Amsterdam, I’m sure I am the only one. So to meet another one in India, in an area not widely visited by the English was indeed a bit of a coincidence. I spotted them fairly easily – white, northern accents, tick! They were a lovely family and we had a grand chat about things that us Yorkshire folk talk about. They got burnt in the sunshine and I tried not to laugh.

I wish I had taken photos backing up my final tale in Kerala. The Haircut. I needed a haircut so why not get it chopped in Cochin? If it went horribly wrong, I could get Toni or Guy to fix it upon my return to Amsterdam. Feeling adventurous, I cycled off to the hairdressers. I think the Indian man entrusted to do the job was more nervous than I was. To cut a long story short, he cut my long hair, errrrrr......short, a bit shorter than I had anticipated. He started butchering on one side cutting about an inch off but by the time he got round to the other side, I was lop-sided by about 4 inches, and then he tried to even it up...........I’m so glad I’m not vain, otherwise I would have clobbered him. Instead I took the blunt scissors from him, tidied it up a bit myself and left. I was shocked that he wanted payment but hey, I was in a good mood so got my rupees out. One disastrous haircut cost the same as 4 nights dinner. You live and learn.