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Cassandra flopped down on her favourite sofa satiated with kavun, kokis and athiraha. She missed her treacle filled coils of ulunduvel - which are elegant, smallish and slightly crunchy total delights; a specialty of the Kandy region.

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They are basically pani walalu, but unique in their smaller coils and taste; different from jalabi and those which you can buy at the Avan Hala below the Ambepussa Rest house, named hotel or resort or whatever now.

Cassandra remembers in the dim distant past how she used to sit beside her youngest aunt, a wizard of a cook and sweet maker, to turn out the unduvel, be it for Aluth Avurudhu, a dane or a celebration of some family event. Punchi Punchi Amma would sit on a colomba (as we named the low small benches) by the sizzling oil pan on a hearth on the ground, and squeeze out the mixture from a muslin bag with a hole of the correct dimension at its extremity. She skillfully twirled her hands guiding the emerging undu mixture to coil in the oil. My great task, seated beside her, was to soak the cooked coils which she dropped into the muttiya of kitul treacle. An angry hiss ensued but the contrast of heat between coil and treacle made the latter creep into the spaces of the coils. Thus, the delight when biting into an unduvel

Excuse the diversion of a cooking lesson in this column usually loaded with acidity if not venom. The benign ennui of Avurudu is still with Cass, purring like a cat who got the cream.