Kurma

Sri Radha is none other than the Divine Consort of Sri Krishna, as described on my previous blog.

And so it came about that I was invited to cook for Radhastami, the grand Birthday Festival of Sri Radha to be celebrated at the Sydney Hare Krishna Temple in North Sydney.

I had not cooked at the Sydney Temple since way back in 1975, the year I left Sydney to live in Melbourne, which was to become my home for the next quarter-century.

So yesterday was a very special day for me, and one of the highlights of my cookery career. I felt a constant surge of a rare but tangible spiritual ecstacy throughout the very long cookery day (7.30am-8.30pm). I attribute that to the special kindness of Sri Radha and Her Consort Gopinatha, for whom I used to cook way back in the early 70's.

Here's a photographic summary of events seen through my camera, and that of Antony Brennan, roving reporter extraordinaire.

We started off quietly with a core team of three stalwarts - Tatiana from Macedonia, Rohini from Ukraine and Jitendriya from Peru.

Things soon became busy, and after a massive communal gulab-jamun marathon, the vegie chopping began.

These sweet doughnut thingies are sort of a home-made recipe based on different tastes, techniques and textures. They are close in texture and taste to the Bengali fried sweet-spiced and glazed wheat pastries Balushai, but the dough is made moist enough to scoop out in doughnut shapes in hot fresh ghee. Scented with lots of Lucknow fennel, it is one of my favourites for big feasts.

This blurry person is Mohit, a strong passionate devotee from Punjab who is a chef by trade. He really knows the big-kitchen scene. He suggested the exact sugar glaze proportions - a 3 to 1 sugar to water syrup - to drench the Balushai in. When the syrup reached the correct thread consistency, we had only a small window of time to dunk the doughnuts, so to speak. And since we had a thousand of them, Rohit and I moved fast.

Here they are, up close and personal. Melt-in-the-mouth, a bit crumbly, a bit crunchy anise-scented wonders. And only 5 ingredients - self-raising flour, sugar, ghee, fennel and water. So much more than the sum of their parts.

Pausing to discuss the state of the union. How much water do we need for our two 10-litre buckets of basmati rice?

Here's our main man Mohit, with the kitchen wonder - the Bratt Pan, a huge stainless-steel electric cooker with a huge hinged lid and internal heating elements that can evenly cook vegetable dishes at lightening speeds and then tilt to slide out it's contents. We cooked the spinach for 300 serves in 5 minutes. By the way, a bratt pan gets its unusual name from the German word brat meaning 'to fry', though they are not called bratt pans in German, but kippentopf, meaning 'tilting'.

I decided to make half-moon shaped samosas to speed up proceedings, since we had to make 500. The filling was a very tasty mix of green beans, potato, carrot with a smidge of roasted peanuts, lemon juice, fresh coriander and a whole swathe of spices. It's been many-a-year since I attempted samosas for a feast.

The samosas were fried slowly in a very large wok throughout the afternoon. Slow cooking means flakey pastry, at least when it comes to samosas.

Jitendriya hails from Lima and is a strong, silent, sober and expert gentleman. He's preparing a very large batch of the famous fresh tomatoes, peas and fried panir dish, Matar Panir.

Yes it makes me hungry too.

Vegetable preparation number two in full swing. Into the spinach goes loads of butter-soft chickpeas and some succulent fried eggplant, seen here in mid-pour thanks to Antony, our quick-fingered Paparazzo.

I pause to think out a few things culinary. It's been a long day.

Night falls. Time to prepare the offering, ie to gather small portions of each item prepared and assemble it on a plate to offer on the altar.

In the other kitchen, many cooks were preparing 108 other dishes to be offered for the pleasure of Sri Radha.

Some of many cakes cooked all day long.

Most of the pujaris, (those who perform the puja or temple worship) at the Sydney temple are ladies. Here's a couple that I persuaded to stand still for a moment as they emptied the altar of a room full of offerings.

More delights prepared with love.

By 8.20 (we were dead on time, no pun intended) all festivities were climaxing, and the crowds rolled past to pick up their groaning plates of feast. Another blessed day in my blessed life. Profuse thanks to those that made it possible.

Yesterday I went to the Sydney Hare Krishna Temple to cook a grand feast. It was the occasion of the birthday of Sri Radha, the tender-hearted female counterpart of Krishna.

Over five millenia ago in a place now called Northern India on a half moon night in the month of Bhadra, King Vrishabhanu came to the Jamuna to bathe and found himself engulfed in a golden aura that was emanating from a lotus, which had a baby girl standing on its whorl. When the king returned to the palace with the baby, Queen Kirtida was delighted. But, she was also shocked to find that the girl was blind.

Lord Krishna's mother Yashoda heard that her best friend Kirtida had a baby, so she came to visit along with her husband and her son. Krishna crawled up to the cradle and pulled Himself up and looked in. At that moment, Srimati Radharani's eyes fluttered and opened wide and blossomed like lotuses. It seems that she did not want to see anything of this world, only the form of Sri Krishna. Everyone was delighted.

Srimati Radharani is the mother of the universe. The spiritual mother of all souls. And the concept of mother is the most sacred symbol - that of purity, selflessness, caring, sharing, nurturing, and love. When the Holy Names are chanted:

Hare means Radharani. It is a plaintive desperate cry for the mother. 'Radharani! Please wake us up from this nightmare of mortal life! Remind us of the father we have forgotten and take us home!'"

In the Krishna consciousness movement, devotees carefully worship Srimati Radharani as the bestower of devotional service to Krishna, by attentively chanting her names in the Maha-mantra, by worshiping her Deity form, and by following her instructions.

More about Radha...