My first introduction to Nei Appam didn't happen in my own home.

It happened on the floor of a college dorm room, surrounded by textbooks,

steel plates, late-night conversations,

and a circle of girls slowly learning how to become women.

I was eighteen.

For the first time in my life, I was living away from home

while pursuing my dental education in another state.

Everything familiar had been left behind—my family, my language,

my routines, my mother's cooking.

Like so many students leaving home for the first time, we were all

quietly learning how to build a new kind of family.

Money was precious in those days.

We didn't eat out often.

Every rupee mattered, and most of us would rather save it

for books, exams, and the journey home during holidays.

So whenever one of us returned from a visit home, she never came back alone.

She returned carrying a little piece of home for all of us.

My friends from Kannur, in northern Kerala, always arrived with treasures from their kitchens.

Soft, fragrant Nei Appam.

Crispy Kallumakkaya Fry.

Flavors I had never tasted before.

The first bite was unforgettable.

The Nei Appam was warm with jaggery, fragrant with ghee and cardamom,

crisp around the edges, and impossibly soft inside.

But looking back now, I realize I wasn't falling in love with the appam alone.

I was falling in love with the generosity that came wrapped inside it.

Those evenings became a rhythm all their own.

Eight of us would sit cross-legged on the dorm floor

with plates spread between us.

Someone would open a steel container.

Someone else would make tea.

There was always laughter.

Always stories.

Always someone worrying about an upcoming exam.

Always someone missing home.

We shared everything.

Notes.

Dreams.

Homesickness.

Victories.

Tears.

And, of course, food.

Sometimes I travelled home with those same friends to Kerala.

They welcomed me into their homes, their traditions, and their language

with such warmth that before long, I found myself speaking Malayalam

with surprising confidence.

Looking back, I realize they weren't simply introducing me to the food of Kerala.

They were introducing me to the kindness of Kerala.

Even today, whenever I make Nei Appam, I don't think first about festivals.

I think about those dorm rooms.

The late-night laughter.

The friendships that have lasted a lifetime.

The beautiful years when we were eighteen and believed

the world was waiting for us.

Perhaps it was.

Because in many ways...

those friendships shaped the people we eventually became.

And every time I taste Nei Appam, I'm reminded that

some recipes don't just carry the flavor of home.

They carry the flavor of the people who made a place feel like home.“

Some memories never lose their sweetness.

"The soft Nei Appam found a soft corner in my heart forever with that memory.”