Chok-a-blok with gorgeous things for the house and hearth and a decent food court!

AT THE FOOD COURT, LOKOTSAV…quite a few choices and temptations from Goan dishes to the Rajasthani offerings of popular “kachori” and chaat temptations and the spun flavoured ice-creams which children and adults both relished.

I’M more or less through with buying things, things, things…a thing of beauty is a joy forever and all that. I’ve spent stupid years buying things of beauty and nowadays I’m trying to give them away or sell them for the sell off bug has bitten me real bad. If you don’t have a permanent home the best thing to do is buy bare minimum so that when you move on to a new rental you have little to move, a good bed is all I ask for, with one of our lovely razai or doha of warm cotton to keep warm during the wintry months of Goa!
The Lokotsav fair is usually does itself proud in presenting some of the country’s best art and crafts along with a host of so many other things for personal adornment or by way of household art d’cor. At one time I used to pick up the terracotta magic lamps but the parents generation of crafts folk have gone and their children do not offer the same finesse of finishing some exquisite things of beauty are no longer the same qualitatively speaking. Also, if I may say so, oftentimes the sons and daughters who take over their parents business, don’t have the same personal charm as their parents had!
STILL, there is much to appreciate and be grateful for and before the Lokotsov closes (last day, Sunday, January 26, 2025 you might just want to over for a dekho of the kind of magnificent skills one may still find in the world of art and craft in country India. Of course there’s always lots of traditional and costume jewelry, and attire from sumptuous sarees from Gujarat to Rajasthan to Madhya Pradesh and Assam, not to forget the Kunbi saree of tribal Goa which has now evolved from the exquisitely woven saree to drape body beautiful, to scarves, napkins, blouses and what not. Once Rs400 or so now the Kunbi saree is Rs2,000 plus, plus. And I don’t know why anyone has to put in crass embroidery on the already perfect Kunbi saree!

There are stalls offering some very reasonably priced nightwear as well as kurta and of course India’s host of sarees to drape body beautiful, although many women today have given up the habit of wearing a saree daily. But some of the antiquated sarees convert into remarkable outfits both modern or with a touch of desi look. Then is the usual offerings of the Goan self-help group women’s stalls – with their local fruit, sherbats, pickles, kokum, palm jaggery cones, green and ripe papaya, bananas galore, pineapple, magenta sweet potatoes, tapioca and the gamut of tubers of the Konkan coast; there is the footwear of Rajasthan, carpets, durries, cane ware, black stone kitchen ware, lanterns, bamboo work…
One entrepreneurial woman I noticed had stuffed a luscious date and nut delight between two of these fine wafer crunchy biscuits, Rs20 each but a novelty. A Kashmiri trader offered fresh walnuts oozing with oil with the press of a finger. The groundnuts of Baruch are great and there is the regular Panchamrutha company’s products under their newly coined “Healthy 5” promotion where apart from their range of rice they offer pulses, spices, tea and also millet flours, besan (gram flour) and cold-pressed oils. I’ve always bought their rice.
THERE’S such an evening crush at the Lokotsav that frankly I prefer to do it in the morning hours to shop at leisure as also treat myself to may be one of the Rajasthan stall’s offerings at the food court…perhaps the onion-potato kachori or papri-chaat. Lots of Goan favorites too and some of them had wonderful batatvada and puran poli. I wanted to buy a bag full of the crispy puri at my favorite Rajasthan stall, then learned they were all fried in “ghee” meaning “Vanaspati ghee” which is a hydrogenated fat indicted in heart disease! So it was no thank you, I don’t want your ten little puri (round crunchies) and that too at the miserly rate of Rs50! My friend Nina with me laughed at me when I tried to explain to them here not to fry the puri or anything in vegetable or vanaspati ghee….
Well, all this and much more.

DISCOVER THE CHAYOTE SQUASH!

AT one of the Lokotsav stalls I was delighted to find this lovely chow chow or chayote squash, a much loved veggie in south Indian cuisine and bought a pair of them. Chayote squash, sometimes “Bangalore brinjal” belong to the gourd family of Cucurbitaceae along with melons and cucumbers. You don’t see them very much in the local Goan markets and abroad they’re known variously as “chocho, pipinola, pear squash, vegetable pear or choko.”
This chayote squash (Sechium edule) is native to Central Mexico and Latin America and is supposed to be loaded with antioxidant compounds that do much good to body beautiful, these days I’m slicing this chayote squash and steeping them in water to drink – my infusion beverage of the day! The fruit offers vitamin C, vitamin B9 (folate, 475 of the RDI), vitamin K, vitamin B6, manganese, copper, zinc,potassium and magnesium which is usually the biggest deficiency in most of us affecting bone health…go read up about magnesium. Chayote is particularly high in folate and that is good for promoting cellular function, etc, etc, (the antioxidants are quercetin, myricetin, morin, kaempferol and of course vitamin C).
Amongst all the rice specials down south India one may now find “chow chow baath.” Chow chow is considered to be an A class antioxidant fruit, good for pregnancy, it’s anti-carcinogenic and generally speaking a “fountain of youth” fruit. I love the fresh tender green of chow chow or the chayote pear, it slices smoothly, bruises easily. Look for it and include it in your daily kitchen preparations. I’ve just woken up to the fruit and am utterly charmed by it, grow it in your garden spaces if you have them, lucky you!