Food and me

Like I said I have always loved food. I was not too experimental as a child or a teenager with the kind of things I tasted. North Indian food was a novelty to me, in those times. A trip to Saravana Bhavan was the high point of dining. Paneer was ambrosia.

Brought very simply with middle class family values, junk eating too was not really something I did. The occasional Lays packet and some kurukku-murukku stuff was all I indulged in.

It began with a visit to Red-E's food at Alwarpet and an etiquette class. Four of us were representing our school in an International Maths Olympiad at Lucknow. The school wanted us to be 'prim and propah' when it came to eating. And hence a Vidya Reddy(who also ran a prevention-against-child-abuse campaign) helped us know our 'left hand mein fork aur right hand mein knife' routines. Over lasagne, enchilada and other food I can't remember, I first tasted something non-Indian and non-pizza!

It was love at first bite. But the Olympiad turned out to have the worst food, and nothing was International about the cuisine except salads, if you stretch your imagination that much! Once again, it was back to my idly-dosas.

Somewhere as I grew up, and I realized, as my one-time Maths tuition sir(what is with Maths and food and me?!) exclaimed, that "the sun does not rise in your backyard". I may not have learnt any XI-standard Maths from him, as I was too busy making friends and having fun. Also I quit almost before the year ended! But the biggest takeaway for me was this sentence. It still resonates. Once I realized it, my world opened up. There were more cuisines to be explored, places to be seen and lived in. Oh so much world out there!

College opened up my head a bit. But it was truly the trip to Dubai that made me know my baklavas and falafels! I still remember biting into a caboose and feeling like a queen!

NID- as I always gush- was where I truly think I was born. What I was before, was the gestation period- the incubation time! At NID, I roamed and explored many types of food. I loved my dimsums at Oriental Wave, craved over the water chestnut dishes at Mainland China, fell in love with pine nuts in Little Italy, popped-my-eyes over teppanyaki(the peanut butter teppanyaki, to be precise) at Not Jut Grilled and also grinned over ice cream buns and fruity danishes at Delight Bakery.

Also I realized how amazingly light the idlies were and how you pride over South Indian breakfast when you are away from it. It hit me that I prefer chapathis over rice but still loved it when there was Onam & Pongal celebrations on campus and there was olan and vathalkozhambu to be slurped!

Undhiyos at Uttarayan, fafdas in the old city, chai over green-painted graves at Lucky chai, Kalpesh's maska buns, sweet sambhars and other Gujarati food added a hitherto unknown dimension to my palate.

Now, thanks to a job I am absolutely in love with, I get to look at food in multiple ways- as a critic(!!!), an illustrator(lerv it!), a photographer(not happy yet!) and a filmmaker(most exciting as well as challenging bit).

It thrills me when I get to dine on Mediterranean food with chefs, organize beer fests at star hotels and sip on beer with strangers who become friends in no time and bite into good old Indian delicacies with a spin. It is as if the world as I know it has changed, and I see food everywhere. Rooted in the city of my upbringing, I am travelling now through food.

A dolmades paints an azure sky and sea and a lovely terraced Greek village in white. A koththu barotta brings a thinnai, mittam and a paati playing pallanguzhi with her grand daughter in view. Every bite brings a new terrain in my mind.

There are very many stories that are getting spun in my head. And they shall all be penned here.

Food and me, have a history. And a present. And yes, a future too!

Maybe, just maybe, this was the true love everyone talks about! ;)

PIC: The Domates Pipiries Gemiste that I have recently loved eating.

Brew me silly!

The one true-blue craze I have had from childhood was for coffee and tea.

A South Indian family meant a flow of filter kaapi every morning(and The Hindu paper, of course). Visits to families also resulted in coffee. Even as a child, I used to glug down strong coffees of every kind.

Amma is an expert at making elakkai chai(cardamom chai)- my friends going silly over it always and finding excuses to come home for it. My friends used to tease me for the copious amounts of coffee-tea I drink saying "Sandhya drinks and bathes with the same mugs"!

Having had my share of various Sri Lankan teas (thanks to a friend's father who was a tea taster there), and my own visits to hill stations resulting in experiments of chocolate tea and various masala chais, I was a reasonable chai taster myself.

However it was Lalu's chai at NID that made me an addict to the brew. Not that it was great. It was passable. But you drank chai for Lalu- the affable chai wala at 'chai gate' who had a plate of bhajiyas and bina-adrak-waali chai ready for me. Atleast seven cups a day, apart from maybe an occasional cup from Kaka's, was my routine.

There was also Chiraag coffee- a must a day. I was such a regular that the staff recognized me and assumed my order for a cuppa, soon as I entered. I saw the prices escalate from Rs.10 to Rs.40 in my three and a half years there! There were occasional visits to Natrani and Zen Cafe for better coffees according to cravings.

Having a best friend who was equally crazy about everything coffee and chai only made my weakness worse. We drank everything from black coffee to Nido-powdered milk-chais in the room. The constant sound of kettle boiling is what I'll always remember from our days in the hostel.

I made coffee friends everywhere I went. There were hours of coffee talk and bonding over tea as well.  The Arabic coffee I had at Dubai, the chai near Kalpesh's, the coffee that a friend Siddharth Tripathi made, the cinnamon coffee Aparna Rajagopalan used to make every once we went home- there are unforgettable tales associated with every cup and sip.

Today I had a Turkish coffee at Azulia. A strong black coffee brew. Despite the fact that I'd have liked a lot less sugar, the coffee tasted wonderful. Chef Ethem sweetly let us smell the coffee. I cannot express how wonderful it was!

The Madaras Kafe coffee and the Coffeetales coffee are two other coffees I have recently thrilled over. There is thyme tea lying in my house, waiting to be tried- I am still gulping down Wagh Bakri Chai that I bought from Amdavad.

I may not find many things I am searching for in life- like true love, endless travels and contentment amongst others- but I sure hope there is always a cup of coffee around. If not, then tea!

Please lord, 'Amen' to that!

PIC: (from top to bottom) Coffee from The Madaras Kafe, Coffeetales, Azulia. Below: Lalu's chai at Chai Gate

Mouthfull

This is going to be a mouthful of my thoughts on the food I have chewed, drinks I have tasted, coffee I have sipped(of course!) and tea I have lost my heart to, and much much more.

This is the polished morsel- a blog of a person who knew always what-was-wrong-with-the-food. A foodie with a maternal grandfather who once had a hotel and a paternal great-grandmother who named recipes after neighbours. Here are sketches, notes, musings etc on food, beverages and people of course!

Thank you Divya Ramachandran- and- her- blog for inspiring me to start this at once! <3

PIC: Coffee in my mug, Karachi biscuits gifted from Hyderabad, rains, sound of trains, my balcony and the neighbouring red-tiled terrace!