A Wow Day in the Sun: experiencing first hand the magic of solor cooking in India

chillibreeze writer — Joanna Budelman

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I'm sure you did this when you were a kid -- held the magnifying glass toward the sun in just the right position so that you could burn the dry leaves... or even better, singe an ant! Remember the elated feeling you had? And your mother worrying that you might turn into a piro!

Well today I cooked a pot of rice on a solar stove. It was too amazing. I had that same child hood feeling... but multiplied by 100! Why? Because for me it was a moment of worshiping God. He is so awesome, giving us his created resources so freely to use and take care of.

The enthusiasm multiplied when the pot of rice cooked in just 20 minutes, and perfectly.

As the rice began to boil, Monthy, my maid and I kept "wowing" each other. I was so excited I ran to get Ramu and Devi, (our watchman neighbors who cook on wood fire) to see it LIVE. I can't communicate well with them, but they too were expressing that it was like magic.

I've read about solar, I've endorsed it, I've even written about it. But I had never experienced it with such intensity.

The rice was delicious. Everone wanted to know if it would taste different. So again at 3:00 pm we had to cook another pot of solar cooked rice for dinner.

Tomorrow we plan to use the pressure cooker and cook sambar and all. And when the kids get home from school... I will give them a great eye opening experience when we pop popcorn with the SUN!

Just wanted to share the beauty and the power of our awesome God who created the SUN!

Update: 4 years later:

When we moved from Bangalore to North East India we gave our solar cooker to Devi and Ramu, our neighbors. Every return trip to Bangalore, over these four years, we found Devi faithfully cooking on her solar stove. See a photo of Devi below.

Read more about solar cooking:

Solar Energy in India
Experiments with Solar in India

Read about expat life in India:

Expat Mom in Bangalore
Buy Chillibreeze's most popular eBook:
Bangalore: An Expat Survival Guide

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—About our writer:

Joanna Budelman is an executive director with Chillibreeze Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

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