Restuarant style Tamil Nadu Thali

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply

- Stephen R. Covey

How many of you can relate to this ? I am sure, it stands out for many of us. We all are constantly striving, to impress and compete with everyone that we meet, to climb high on the social ladder. We totally forget to acknowledge the person in front of us and only want to show off ourselves. We keep preparing ourselves on how to answer them properly and by the time they finish their conversation, totally miss the context! This line totally stood out for me as I was reading the book 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey. Empathetic listening, as the writer says, is a much needed characteristic for every human being, in this present social media and networking predominant world. It is a very interesting self-help genre book.

I know that was totally irrelevant to today's post. But I could not let go of it without sharing out into the web world! Thats what I have been doing the whole day! Well, today's post is my most favourite order when dining out, especially at lunch time - The South Indian Thali! Generally a Thali - Platter consists of Rice, 3 Gravies - Kuzhambu ( a spicy tamarind based gravy), Sambhar (lentil based and mildly spiced) and then Rasam (a thin tomato and/or tamarind based). Then it has two different kinds of dry veggie sides : Kara Kari or Roast ( a spicy roasted veggie ) and Poriyal ( coconut flavoured veggie). Finally, we have curd, dessert (paysam or kesari) and accompaniments like pickle, papad, & chips.

My spread consists of the following dishes:

• Rice
• Carrot Poriyal
• Urulai Kizhangu Roast
• Kara Kuzhambu (Recipe below)
• Sambhar
• Rasam
• Aval Payasam
• Curd
• Pickle

Click here to get the recipe of Karakuzhambu

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM# 74here.