The Sankara's hosted the monthly satsang at their residence on the 11th of December. The satsang started with arati to Lord Ganesha and the Gurus.

Kulapati Easan Katir reading from "The Guru Chronicles".

We are learning new songs from Natchintanai. One of the song we sang was Maragatha Mayil Mel.

Poshika Eswaran is helping with the cymbals.

Sivaram Eswaran sang a beautiful song, Sottrunai Vethiyan.

While Aum Namasivaya was being chanted by everyone, the men started the homa.

For cultural event, Devika Eswaran sang a beautiful song called " Nilakantha". After satsang was over everyone had lunch and we celebrated the monthly birthdays of December with a delicious cake.

A special request has come for a few recipes to be added to TAKA, so ammas everywhere can experiment with new veggie dishes mastered by the monks. Today we present poriyal.

Pumpkin Poriyal

Poriyal is a Tamil word indicating a finely chopped vegetable dish which is served dry with a small number of ingredients. All poriyals consist of finely chopped vegetables with fried lentils. Beyond this basic starting point, there are many variations of the several vegetables which can be used to make poriyal. Typically, poriyals will be dressed with shredded coconut and fresh coriander (cilantro/dhaniya). In this recipe, we have used pumpkin. It should be mentioned that the common most poriyals are of fresh beans or potatoes. Aside from these two, in general it's easier to use veggies which are dry to begin with such as sweet potatoes, yams, kumara, arbi (taro), etc. Wet vegetables are generally not used but can be if all the water is cooked out. This is what we have done here with pumpkin - a watery vegetable. This photo was a poriyal from our garden pumpkins. Below is how to make it.

The toor dal and green bean poriyal shown here gives a hint at the variety of color and texture you can achieve.

Preparation time: 15 minutes Cooking time: 15 minutes Serves: 4

Ingredients: 500g (1 lb) pumpkin, peeled and finely chopped Salt to taste 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 2 green chilies, minced 2 tbs fresh grated coconut 2 tsp ghee (or oil of choice) 1 tsp mustard seeds 1 tsp urad dal (split black gram) 1 tsp chana dal (split Bengal gram) 1 red chili, slit lengthwise 1/2 tsp asafoetida (hing) powder 1 small handful curry leaves

Method: Cut off both ends of pumpkin. Cut in half widthwise and remove all the seeds and fibers with a large spoon and discard*. Chop finely the pumpkin, transfer to a colander and wash well. Steam pumpkin for about 10 minutes. When cooked, drain pumpkin in a colander and allow it to drain all the water fully and cool down. As the pumpkin cools, heat the ghee in a heavy sauce pan. As the ghee heats up, add mustard seeds, urad dal, chana dal, split red chili, asafoetida powder, and curry leaves. When the mustard begins to splutter, the curry leaves crackle, and the dals brown, and the green chili and cooked pumpkin, and coconut. Stir throughly yet delicately. Cooked without stirring for about 1 minute and transfer into your serving ware. Eat it hot with rice or chapati and enjoy!

*If desired, the seeds can be saved, picked over, washed, dried, spiced to your liking, and baked for a tasty treat.

Here is the new photo of the swamis. We are running this again to fulfill request by those who wanted a hi-res version. Right click here (chose "save link as") to download a 4.4MB file you can use to get printed locally.

Every day the monks gather at 1pm for lunch with Bodhinatha in the courtyard.

Our Task forcer Woody is working in the media lab in the mornings. Here he is with the whole Ganapati Kulam team. Woody is working on a massive project to get all of our artwork processed for the future new web site image collections.

Dr. Lee Evslin is a prominent physician on Kauai. He served for 30 years as a pediatrician and family doctor and was head of Wilcox hospital. He continued his career in sports medicine at a private clinic and has now opened a new clinic where he wants to develop the integrative medicine, bringing the best of allopathic methods and the best of alternative methods together to serve the Kauai community. He came today for an interview for the health pages of the next issue of Hinduism Today on the "hot" issue of sugar, and whole foods versus processed foods in the diet. He has known the monks for many years and knew Gurudeva long ago.