Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Continuously present Absence

Your absence
Is a continuous presence in my life 
Like a deep cut which never heals
Lying by my side silently in the night 
And accompanying me as I go through my day
My silent companion alongside emptiness 
Like dark clouds across the sun 
But beautiful memories break through... 
Shining rays of brightness 
Of times and smiles we shared
I wish fate had not been so cruel 
As to grab and throw away 
the last few minutes we shared
Because there was so much to be said 
Of how much I cared.

The most Amazing Prawn Curry!

I never thought that I would ever sit down and actually write an ENTIRE post about a prawn curry. But I have to. This post has been a couple of years in the making. Better late than never I say. So here goes.
I have been a great fan of traditional rest house meals. Especially the traditional rest house breakfast. The fresh bread and string hoppers; the sambol and fish curry and kirihodi makes me salivate just by writing about it. However very rarely does one order extra items when consuming the traditional breakfast.  Because there is no need for it as the food is plentiful. Unless you are travelling with a bunch of hungry mates, no let me rephrase my word extremely hungry mates to Wilpattu and you need to break journey.
Which is how I came across the Puttlam Rest House sprawled across a huge compound in all its dilapidated glory. It is as good or as bad as rest houses come. You get the same old fashioned sixties style furniture which seems to be too big for the space and the terribly kitsch curtains which haven’t been washed in ages and loud music blaring away from a television or radio. Sometimes if you are unlucky from both.
My mates wanted something special in addition to our breakfast and taking the advice from a waiter we ordered the prawn curry as extra.
Cue Drum Roll  followed by fanfare.
The prawn curry  looked absolutely sensational. Quite a generous portion of medium size prawns lying in a thick red fragrant gravy which looked absolutely delicious. And when the first mouthful entered my lips I wanted to stand up and wave my hands in ecstasy like a spaced out hippie at a rock concert.
The taste was so wonderful. Out of this world! The curry had a tinge of Thai red curry in it maybe because they had used lemon grass as a spice. The prawns were so fresh and tasty they melted in your mouth. A trick to learn oh your prawn aficionados is that the bigger the prawn the lesser the taste.
And since then we were hooked. Every time we go to Wilpattu we make sure we stop here for breakfast and we and enjoy extra portions of prawn curry.

In fact one of these days I am going to drive all the way to Puttlam just so that I can enjoy the prawn curry once more. It is so worth it!