If you have no plans for a Sunday evening...

 I have known Peter Griffin for a while now. During the first pandemic, he started a Facebook group called 'Simple Recipes for Complicated Times'. It was mainly for people who, like me, did not cook regularly or didn't know cooking too well. It was one of the most fantastic, informative forums I was part of. It was completely crowdsourced and as far as community groups go, it was rich and layered and nuanced. I learned so much that I actually wanted to write about how it helped me shape some strategies for collaborative learning, something I can use in my field. (But I didn't get around to it.) I believe that forum is still there on FB.

Anyway, Peter has started a series of discussions called 'Table Talks' where he invites a guest/ friend and chats with them about food and food adjacent topics. There have been some very interesting sessions. I attended a couple - there was one by Vikram Doctor about understanding Gandhi through his dietary choices, another one on understanding the whole gamut of scientific processes only through Indian cooking. (The speaker, Krish Alok, has written a book called 'Masala Lab'.)

There is one session tonight (8 PM IST) with Sonia Jabbar who runs a tea estate, is part of a foundation for elephants, and is up to many magical things. To register, go here - https://lnkd.in/dcb9aa9E.

For more details on this delightful series of conversations, check out - https://lnkd.in/dYsfKdkD

You'll find details about Peter's earlier guests there as well. Do make it if you can. It will be a Sunday well spent.

Day 95 of 14,600

The Burrito Lesson

Nowadays, I order food from outside. Usually I try to eat less but some days, when I am feeling particularly stressed, I tend to order more food. One sub-conscious reason for stress, possibly, is that I come home late from work but there's no kitchen set up yet. So I feel like I am starving. I am not.

Anyway, I ordered a rice with Peri Peri potatoes as well as a crispy mushroom Burrito from Burrito bowl. Either one would be fine. But I got greedy and ordered both.

Then around 3, I had the rice bowl which was good. I wasn't even hungry then but still. That was okay. I also felt that I shouldn't have ordered the other burrito.

Since it's expensive, I thought I would save it for next day. But I don't have a refrigerator yet so it would spoil. And it was getting soggy by the minute.

I tried to sit and finish the other thing as well. It made me unwell just looking at it. So I did what I have actually not done in many many months.

I threw food away.

It made me feel bad but not as much as eating it was making me feel. I think when you get greedy or you choose anything from a place of lack, even a tasty thing, a desirable thing, can make you sick.

It's better to take a little and give hunger a chance.

Empty is good. 

Day 92 of 14,600

Today was a mixed bag.

Last night I stayed over at a friend's place after attending a music fest at IIM Bangalore. Then came back home and went to collect my laptop.

I felt a little sad because I was missing out on all the good movies. At times, I feel a little sad because I wonder why am I staying away from my mum, what am I trying to prove, etc.

Then I remember why I started doing what I am doing. Because I had earlier started feeling the stench of failure on people who traded off the need to have mastery over something for certainty of income, relationship, or the fact that they could stay with their parents. I started living the way I do because I had started sensing the rot in myself.

Some days you have to remember why you started.

Anyway, I later went to a place called Atta Galaata. It's a very charming bookstore with a cafe. They have these events where you can tell a story about something, etc.
I met a friend and then we went to Whitefield.

I went there for the very first time. It was superb! I went to Vega mall and it felt so good, so shiny, so classy! Sometimes I feel that everything in Electronic City feels like a 'mazdoor' (labourer). Which is good because I work like one. And labourers build things. But Whitefield feels like a spa. Luxe, rested, plumped up. That kind of beauty is also important. Removes your weariness, I think.

202

24th December.

Roses and candles on the table along with wine glasses.

Spotted a centipede crossing a dark, dusty path on the way to buy port.

Spicy daal, rice, and koftas made with banana flowers followed by wine.

Friend visits.

Neighbor lends us a tree.

Wore a magenta top and a pair of blue pants. Thought I looked good. Also shampooed hair. Felt very princess-y.

Nice plum cake.

With lots of deep affection to everyone who's reading this - Merry Christmas!

266, 265, 264, 263, 262, 261, 260

What amazes me about hard days is how they always end. Hard times may continue longer. The dark mood may prevail, the legacy of sadness might linger. But the potent hard nugget of pain that you have to go through will begin and end. It always amazes me how that happens. You can be bracing yourself for that shard to pass through and then, slowly, slowly, time will pass and it ends. 

Maybe that is how time heals. By showing you how stuff ends.

Back in Bombay.

404

The last few days I was feeling a little unwell and really weak. I was madly craving fish so I had some. After 7 years of being vegetarian, had fish. It felt really good.

So far, here are the nice fish dishes I've had:

1. The tandoori pomfret from Salt. It is spectacular! It is just so beautifully charred with a kick in the marination - it's superb.

2. The butter-lemon prawns and the red snapper at Malaka Spice. The prawns were lovely. The snapper was a little rubbery.

3. The bhekti fish-fry at my home in Bombay. Superlative, but of course.

4. The roasted surmai from Food Court - very, very tasty.

5. The schezwan-stir fried fish from Kimling - totallly avoidable unless you want lightly fish flavored batter.

473: The pani puri trail (Balewadi Faata to Kalyan Bhel...but only one side.)

Today my friend and I decided to try out every. single. pani-puri. stall on Baner road. Our version of the Baner road extended from Balewadi faata, near Salt restaurant, to the Aundh signal.

Here were the rules:

1.) We would try out every single stall - whether it was a makeshift, tiny thing wth no signboard at the curb or a stall with a board or part of shop or even a restaurant.

2.) We'd share a plate between the two of us.

3.) We'd have the whole pani-puri experience - including the sukha puri at the end.

It was so much fun! Of course we couldn't complete the whole Baner Road trail but from what we had, here's what I liked:

# 1: My pitch-perfect pani puri is made by the Ganesh Bhel guy. The boy who makes the pani puris is so considerate and polite! I think he gives it the edge over numbers two and three.

# 2: The stall outside Copper Chocs. It is supremely crowded but man, the guy is good! The puris are nice, big, and crisp, the imli water is spiced nicely and the sweet chutney is thick and lush.

# 3: Kalyan bhel is also good and it was our final stop. So, that's where we had our most expensive plate at thirty rupees. The guy making the puris was wearing gloves (if you're into that sort of thing) and their sweet water had the boondis nicely soaked in them.

Most of the places we went were serving chopped onions for us to use as toppings. This seems to be a new phenomenon because, you know, I have never had raw onions with pani puris. But it tasted good, all the same.

I love pani-puris. I love them. I want to be rich enough to hire some great modernist architect from Sweden to design me a house that looks like a pani-puri. The walls would be translucent golden, think fibre-glass, the punctured top would let in the sunshine, a jade pond with red mosaic flooring could be the green and red chutney, and yellow dandelion puffs all around to be reminiscent of boondi. Yes. That's my idea of success. When I can have a house shaped like my favorite food. 

480, 479, 478, 477, 476, 475, 474

A lot has happened.

I spent a lot of time with my sister-in-law and mom, which was sweet and fun. Caught the 'Ground Hog Day' at Lost the Plot - which is an open-air screening that happens at the Seasons Hotel in Aundh. It was lovely. (I'd definitely recommend catching a movie there. They have those cushy chairs and headphones and you can watch the film sipping wine or glugging beer or nibbling crumb-fried mushrooms. And maybe during a slow moment, you could look around and see an inky blue sky threaded with stars. A pretty cinematic dissonance there - at least for the first few times.

Also watched Joy which I loved immensely. Jennifer Lawrence is so,,,solid. In an odd way, she reminds me of Anthony Hopkins. Like if they just said 'Open the door', they'd say it in a way you'll replay in your death-bed because it would be momentous. I haven't seen any of her other films but this one I quite liked.

Speaking of good actresses, I liked Nimrit Kaur's performance in Airlift. Airlift was quite a movie. I mean, I didn't find it exceptional or anything but my father had visited Kuwait during the time Saddam had attacked it. When we'd visited him in Aquaba 2 months before, we'd seen tanks lining the streets. And there was evacuation of such a large number of people. All this happened not too long ago and I was obliquely involved. But because there was no internet or mobile phones or anything, you really just went with the collective flow. It was heartening to see the Indian flag flying at the end of the movie when the refugees are finally brought to Aman from where they board the flight to Bombay. Patriotism - that moment of pride when your country finally comes through for its people. Overall, I liked it.

Finished reading Em and the big Hoom by Jerry Pinto. Cried hard after that. Starting reading Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro. Sometimes tears flow soft when I am in the middle of one of those short stories.

I had some friends over. It was nice. We sat in the balcony, in the candle light, and had coffee. A couple of days later, a friend had us over too. The person I was dating was invited too. It was so massively uncomfortable for me to go that I couldn't skip, you know? Sometimes, you just decide to go and put yourself in a situation to see if it will break you and if it does, how much. So I went and spent a lot of time in the kitchen making coffee. But then, I think one softens when you see people operating from a basic sense of decency. The person I was dating was polite, my other friends were discreet and didn't bring up anything that I couldn't handle, and only friend I felt, repeatedly kept putting me on the spot. But I think it's all okay if you remember that people mean well.

I read out a passage from Nocturnes. I also got everyone to read out a passage from Shame by Salman Rushdie.

And that's why I love books so much. Books listen. When you read something and you are stirred, the words on the page listen. You may feel like you are the vessel that's taking all the words in but I think, there comes a point when the book hushes and pays attention to whatever story is pouring out of you as you read it.

I think that's why I believe in the goodness and salvation of the world. That even in a civilization that may be as doomed as ours, we are still capable of that.

487: Food, cinema, and other assortments

Yesterday I saw a white flower and an orange flower on the same branch. The sun was setting and these two blooms nodding in the wind like happy siblings.

A pal and I went to Café Joshua in Aundh where I tried a hot chocolate called 'Nutty Affair'. It was made with Nutella and it was really hearty and nice. I'm not a fan of chocolate but I liked it a lot. My friend a slice of carrot cake which looked really tasty. You could see the generous gratings of carrots and smell the lovely cinnamon.

This morning I did yoga. It made me feel good and sore and disappointed at the same time. But no matter. I'm sure things will improve.

With another friend, I tried out Le Plaisir on Prabhat Road. Relished the pasta there and she recommended an expresso panacotta that was creamy and soothing. Oh, and a special mention to the cappuccino I had there. It was King. It reigned the meal. It reigned my mind. That coffee ought to have its own conversation.

We also got some more coffee at Peter Donuts on Bhandarkar Road. It's big and all but I didn't like it too much as a spot to actually go and work there. I definitely prefer the one at Aundh. There's a lot more light there and I follow the sun.

Things got a little difficult with a friend in the evening and I'm beginning to get a little hassled with the unpredictability of human relationships. I mean, things can change so quickly. You know, sometimes you go wanting the approval of your friends (even though it may be freely given, which is why the friendship exists.). Then somewhere, life situations happen and you may find yourself in the awkward position where your approval may be sought. I'm finding this more and more - at times with people at work, at times with relatives, and at times with friends. What they seek or expect from me...or why they feel I may even have anything to give them, I'm not very sure about. Harsh words get exchanged, they will play in the mind until very carefully and consciously, one forgives and does not take it personally. But well, I guess such things will happen. You just have to breathe through it. And maybe remind yourself to be kind and strong. Kind enough to let things go. And strong enough to let the friend go, if necessary. And of course, wise enough to know whether it is necessary or not.

Much later in the evening, another friend and I went to a movie, 'The Danish Girl'. It's a moving story of a painter in Denmark who is also married to an artist. One day, the wife asks this painter to try on the clothes of a ballerina who was modelling for her. The man obliges. Except that when he tries on the stockings and the shoes, something awakens within him and he's drawn to the life of being a woman. The couple moves to Paris. The man's immersion in the experience of being a woman becomes more pronounced and worrisome. Therapy is sought. Therapy doesn't work. There's anger, doubt, confusion. The marriage survives all this. The wife stands by him and ultimately, the man undergoes the operation to become a woman. With this wife on his side.

The painter dies in the end. But it is such an uplifting story. It's poignant and moving and those stunning vistas of Denmark, Paris, and artist studios strewn with large, opulent canvases.

In the end, there remains whatever you began with. And maybe it always begins with love and beauty.

That's the hope.
 

Wrote something on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pani-puri-humaneness-all-things-manual-mukta-raut?published=t

I love pani puri. It makes me happy. In fact, what also makes me happy is thinking of a list of my favourite dishes to eat. :-) Will do that soon.

620, 619, 618: Recommending eats in Pune (Part 1)

1. The Book Song Café in Aundh behind McDonald's: The first thing you should know is that it's very very cute - like dollhouse cute - and maybe that's why I'm gushing. Neat space with nifty knick-knacks and books in Korean. There's a tiny patio, a space on top where you sit on the floor along with some stuffed toys seen in a teen's room, and maybe two small tables on the ground level. I love that space for the nibbles of good taste that spot is surrounded with. You get a great assortment of herb teas (I like their white chocolate and lavender) and very nice French toast. Also, I'm partial to the hazelnut black - which is black coffee with hazelnut flavour. They don't accept cards, service is slow-ish, and no takeaways. But it's a pretty, pretty spot with some good stuff. Reminds me of a simpler time - which is exactly the mood I go for when having coffee.

2. Malaka Spice, Baner: I think that a restaurant is evolved when they have thoughtful non-chocolate options on the menu. Or something other than honey noodles (which really, when you think about it is what?!) Anyway, the monsoon menu at Malaka has some options made with jaggery that are very, very good! The other night, I just had soup and 3 desserts - all jaggery-based. There was a jaggery pudding which comes looking really tiny on the plate - like an innocent, lost continent. But it's flavorful and somehow, just right when you mindfully eat spoonful after spoonful. They also have a wedge of jaggery tart that is served warm and, from how wholesome it feels, maybe with grandma's blessings. This was my favourite. The other thing, that I really wish Malaka increased their portion of, was the jaggery ice-cream served with caramelized oranges. I got only two scoops of that sweet churn and two quarters of the orange. There should be three scoops and 5 quarters of oranges. I don't know how I arrived at that number but it feels good to my heart.

3. Kimling, Aundh: Some days, I get tired of places serving so little food that it looks like the grub is painted on the plate. Kim Ling is not that place. I love how a thick wad of spring rolls comes laden on a pan or how the noodles overflow from the bowl or the soup looks like it's a river in spate. I love this place because one does get tired of this minimalistic nonsense that is taking over the world. Less is not always more. Sometimes less is less only. Sometimes the heart just needs to burp at the sight of plenty.

4. Food Court, Baner: Whatever else you have in this place, definitely try out their tandoori food - especially with people from Delhi who make it their job to not like anything from anywhere. A friend from Delhi almost teared up at their chicken sholay kebab. And I would earnestly recommend their tandoori mushrooms. Not the tandoori mushrooms with melted cheese - which is strictly okay - but tandoori mushrooms that are perfectly seasoned and marinated and charred. Eat two plates of it with a broccoli and badaam soup.

 

622: Wines, dessert at Malaka Spice, getting stranded and other things

Today, there were four glasses of some mediocre merlot and a nice dessert wine. There were two glasses of chilled white wine. There were three desserts - jaggery pudding, jaggery ice-cream, and  jaggery tart - all at Malaka Spice. There was a late night drive with someone we just met. The car ran out of fuel on the highway. Then even later my friend and I went for a drive by ourselves. There was a near-enough accident with a car with two boys who chased and followed our cars until they had shouted an abuse and showed the finger.


That was the day today.


Add caption

 

626, 625: The pasta, the pasta

At Nature's Basket and such places, I suffer from this mild lapse of memory where I forget that I don't cook. Can't. Won't. But everything looks so tide, appealing, and inviting - the ripe plums, the little vials of sea-salt, hefty avocados, cartons of raw sugar, boxes of interesting pasta - that I think I'd love to cook and of course, I can whip up something nice.

Last night, I had a friend over. She just happened to be on this side of town and I was done with work. It would be nice to catch up. But just that morning, I'd asked the cook to not make anything. It's end of the month so there isn't a whole lot I can buy from a restaurant either. I'm not one of those proud and particular hostesses who needs to lay out a laden table but I really did want to put out something nice for my friend. There was paratha, some soya sabzi, and daal.

Then I remembered.

From the moment when I'd mistaken myself for someone who likes to cook, I'd purchased a box of beetroot pasta (that was supposed to be gluten-free, organic, etc. etc.). There was a packet of instant mushroom soup. Mom had sent across a large packet of peas and two packets of dried cranberries (which I love).

So I cooked the beetroot pasta (it takes slightly longer to cook than regular pasta) and made the soup separately with just water, some butter, pepper, and peas. Then I drained the pasta, coated it with the soup (it has become a little more runny than what I'd liked), and seasoned it with mixed herbs, some rosemary and lots of chilli flakes.

It was quite nice! I can imagine that with more veggies - at least mushrooms and leek, it would be quite a meal.

Maybe another trip to Nature's Basket is in order.

646, 645 - Bandra-Kurla Complex and Yauatcha

I'm back from Bombay. It was a great trip and I've come back tired and with a cold.

Anyway, I bought an iPad mini for my father (it was his birthday last month). Personally, I prefer Android tablets but I thought he'd like all those important lectures and research material that an Apple product gives you access to.

Today, mom and I had lunch at Yauatcha at BKC. It's a posh Tea and Dimsum place (so...not a Chinese restaurant because that would make it pedestrian) at BKC. B-K-C. Bandra-Kurla Compex - next to Kalanagar! I was halfway through my pot of orchid tea when it struck me that when I grew up in Bandra, this place was a dumping ground. It was a space for the city's grime and a scratchy underbelly. And now, it's so swank! Now it was a place where I was having lunch at a Michelin starred restaurant! Anyway, nostalgia aside, I really liked my dimsums - I had one filled with Shitake-mushroom and another one stuffed with mock meat cooked in Peking style. You get only three pieces of dimsum per plate though - all the size and look of signet rings. But the main course was better. I had a tofu that was so silky and soft that I wanted to take home large sheets of it to wrap myself up while sleeping. It is the best tofu I've had in.the.world. Mom had a braised chicken which she enjoyed and the jasmine rice was tasty too - simple and fragrant with the earthy tones of that clay pot it was served and possibly cooked in. The piece de resistance, though, I think was the dessert. They have a tropical cake that is some kind of a mango mousse served with some white chocolate ganache, a pina colada rabdi type thing (which was so delish!) and rum infused vanilla ice-cream. It was s good - so good -you involuntary close your eyes. Next time, I'll just go for desserts. There was exquisite looking raspberry velvet cake that I've started dreaming about.

My slipper snapped there so we drove around until we found a cobbler. He repaired my slippers and gave them a new lease of life for ten rupees. Some things just move you, you know.

In the evening, we went to Taj Land's End for our regular snack of potato wedges. Now I kow, it's only the humble potato wedges but I love them. They are so evenly salted and flavoured. I eat potato wedges everywhere and I can safely say that not everyone can manage that.

Now I'm back in Pune - all feverish and rheumy-eyed. Made some instant mushroom soup (Knorr). Used less water to make it thick. Maybe it's a testimony of just how bad a cook I am because I think cooking 'instant' stuff isn't all that easy. I had a hard time removing all the lumps from the soup. And I like lumps in my soup - but not the dry, powdery lumps but lumps that got cooked and are slightly chewy. So I used a sieve to first strain the soup. Then, in all the lumps that remained, I added some hot water separately - just a sprinkle to cook them enough to make them chewy. Not sure if it's warranted, but I got a technique for cooking instant things.

And oh, I do miss Maggi.


 

669: What I cooked today

I reached home at around 1. Roasted some vermicelli. I had a container full of chopped onions which I sauted properly in mustard oil. I also fried dried soya nuggets in the oil. To that I added the roasted vermicelli, salt, turmeric, chilli flakes, and water. Then I pressure-cooked it. While it was cooking, I did a few suryanamaskars. (That is not part of the recipe, by the way.)

After 3 whistles, I turned off the cooker and ate this very tasty rice substitute with curd.

692

One more day wanted to end but I'm holding on to it and stretching it beyond its own exhaustion and mine - pulling it this way and that so that it can accomodate the beads of fatigue that currently swell.

But on a good note - I made aam panna with farm-fresh raw mangoes this morning. Pressure cooked the raw mangoes, removed the skins and scarped off the pulp. Added a large ladel of honey, some sugar and a screw of chilli powder. Added a lot of ice and water to dilute the drink.. Didn't use a blender because I like pulp. But it was tasty.

Day begun well. 

694, 693

Had not done any suryanamaskars the last two days. I did 20 today. At 1:30.

There's this thing someone at work had introduced me to. It's a sev sandwich which the dabheli guy makes. It's a bun stuffed with mayonnaise, cucumber, spicy peanuts and sev. The bun is lightly toasted. It is such a tasty snack to have around 7:30. Really filling. It gets even more satisfying whe yu have it with a chilled Diet Coke - especially, this season.
 

761

Last night I cooked something that was sinful, salty, spicy and absolutely delightful. I'd set out to make a simple Maggi. Midnight is not when I cook up anything fancy anyway. So I boiled the water, broke in the noodle stacks, added the Maggi masala and by mistake, added some manchurian masala from a separate packet of Ching's noodles too. It was so brown and spicy and delicious but a little strong. So I cooked some plain white rice on the side. Plating was a large scoop of the rice and then layered with a ladelful of the spicy noodles. It was so very good!

786 - Moshe's at Koregaon Park

A great dinner at Moshe's last night.

My friend and I drove down there after work which in itself felt like a novelty. The drive was of course lovely because it was Koregaon Park and it was also Tuesday and there was a sweet breeze shimmying through the skies. At Moshe's, we tried a cheese platter which is quite lovely. There are slivers of some four or five slices of cheese, nice warm bread, crisp wheat-crackers, olives, and a stalk of asparagus that we nibbled off later. The cheeses were really good. I don't like cheese so much but the varieties that were offered were really good. Mostly mellow and smooth, although one of them had a slightly sharp taste. There was a side of fried potato skins which were also crisp and nicely seasoned.

The dessert platter came with some very tiny, dainty looking things which seemed to have been made in a doll-house, considering the portions. All of them were non-chocolate options – some kind of a pistachio financier (yes – that’s a type of dessert apparently – wish I’d known that when I studied Economics – would have taken the sting off many things), slim rolls of baklava, a white chocolate ganache, and this – THIS – was a surprise – two thin blocks of kulfi with a dried rose petal syrup. The kulfi and the syrup were spectacular! The kulfi was the thickest, creamiest kulfi ever – with no bubbles on the surface, so smooth – and strongly spiced with cardamom.

All that washed down with a robust, hot coffee.

Will definitely visit again.

831

An awesome lunch was had at Curry Leaves. If you find yourself in the vicinity of the Baner-Pashan Link Road, definitely try out the Kerala spread at Curry Leaves . Flaky, soft parotta and a later of spicy roasted mushrooms that came dusted with cumin powder and garnished with crisp, fried curry leaves. A bowl of payasam one slurped hastily enough and a tall, cool glass of spicy lassi. That was what I had. Friends had a chicken thali that came with three pieces of fried chicken, avail, Kerala rice, sme stew, payasam and some bowl of veggies. Fish thali had all of the vegetarian things and also Surmai.

The best part that the place is very reasonably priced.

The best part was that we walked along the curve of the road in the afternoon. It was hot but there was a really sweet soporific calmness. Day has ended. I walked a little bit around Aundh too. Visited Crosswod and made mental notes to buy Pyaasa.

Day has ended and am really looking forward to gorgeous sleep.