- Tongba, Bamboo Beer....Hot Stimulating Cafe, Darjeeling. This is a rocking drink. Made of fermented millet and rye based in a round Bamboo Container and drunk with a Bamboo Straw with a netting at the end. The base of fermented millet and rye is topped with hot water and allowed to settle for a few minutes. You sip and sip and then top up again and again till the alchohol in base lasts. Never ending and superb. Best had with the house speciality which are freshly made Momos (all vegeterian in this joint)
- Grilled Alligator Meat with Garlic Toast and Red Wine at Brassilia - the restaurant at Lagoons in Lagos. With baby tomatoes and herbs, this is a strange, if not a very appetizing food.
- Tomato rice stuffed into scooped out Cucumber @ a friends place. Tasted terrible ....try if you like that kind of thing...specially when the cucumber is boiled
- Bhindi stuffed with Keema at a parsee friends house...made the same way that you would make bharva Baingan or stuffed bhindi (with besan).... Crazy ...the Parsees need meat in everything
- Jadoh....in the North East of India...I believe its origin is Shillong...but its recipe is like pork Biriyani but the Rice is cooked in Pork Blood ...or so I believe. Loved it before I found what it was boiled in
- Chhola Burger at Bhopal...This is crazy...It is Chhole ...pounded and made into neat cakes and placed as patties between buns... I can think of better things...Didnt taste half bad though.
- Bheja Fry @ Bhatyar Gali ...was horrible....picking goats brain....yucks
- Tea, creamed with Camel Milk...again a strict no no.... a few years back at Sarita Udyan in Gandhinagar...realised something was wrong the moment I sipped the tea...only to be told that normal milk was not available and so the Camel variety....
- Crispy Sweet Chicken @ Tangra, Kolkata...Just in case you did not get enough protien during the meal itself, here is what you do...dip chicken strips in bits of sweet marination (honey in it I believe and til) and fry it till crisp.... Sweet very sweet...And kind of ok to taste
- Alloo Tikki Burgers at Macdonalds....Hello what was that? Alloo Tikki ...ok ... but Alloo Tikki Burgers at Macs? Absolute no no...
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Craziest Food I have ever tasted
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Ever Changing Freedom
I am tired of the ugly things in life. Thats why this is gonna be a happy blog. Thoughtful and positive yes. Unhappy ...NO.
Therefore I have kind of stuck to neutral topics ...things that one would love till now. Stuff like food, drinks...basically 'bring a smile on your face' thingies.
So today I continue in a Nation swelling with pride and happiness. A pride and happiness thorroughly justified in the emerging 3 days, 4 night weekend coming up. All government and private sector employees will be paid during this period and all trade and businessmen will do brisk business.
The occassions are nebulous...at best preserved in the back of our consciousness, but the pleasure genuine. Janmashtmi is, on the whole, more important than Indipendence day, the latter however being more widely celebrated in its geographic extent.
Nehru said, 'Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny....the time has come to redeem that pledge'...well have we kept that pledge? ...in many ways we have.
We are a Free country. Politically and Economically. But the time has come to fight another battle. The battle to free us from the brand of Political and Economic freedom that we have, from the disparity we suffer. The time has come to ask...Has the freedom we have really made a difference?
I presume it has. I was not born during the occupation and so I dont know the emotional hassles of being secondary in my own country. Moreover I was born into what may be considered a Socially elevated family (if not an economically elevated one). To add to it, we were not exactly hand to mouth. Therefore I was a part of the new Elite. The Elite that had taken the place of the Raj ...to create a new order....a new Raj. I must confess though...There were thousands, nay, millions of people around me, not so lucky as me, who were secondary...any which way you look at it. And this realization of mine was acute from a very early age.
Our house in Kolkata had 2 entrances. One a delapidated side door that led to the backyard, and the other, a grand entry for cars that led to a stairway into the drawing room. The side entry was used just once a day. A jamadar would come and knock and the servant girl would go and open the door. This Jamadar with a broom tail (quite literally) would go into the backyard and then take the back intrances to the bathrooms. He would clean up, take the refuse and leave the same he came. The maid servant would directly go into her bath and be allowed into the house after that.
We were not so much as allowed to go near the sweeper man. After all, the sweeper man was an untouchable. He and his ilk were unclean. In fact, these were a subhuman race...descended of the lowest of the low. They never had any chance in hell of rising above subhuman as their children would be from the same dirty seed as them.
That has changed. At least in the urban context. There has been significant changes in the Rural India as well. The Brahmin heartland of India has a seen a significant revolution that has seen the rise of the opressed classes. They have entered the earlier Brahminical bastions of Politics and Administration and have made significant progress in terms of individual property and community. Problem is that soon as these people become empowered, they become elitist. The irony is that its their origins themselves that make them elitist. They wear their untouchability like a badge and garner votes from the silent majority. They give long discourses on how to break the grip and retire back to their marble palaces and big cars. I am sure they, in their ivory palaces, have a different entry point for sweepers as well.
So nothing much has changed. We have created a new Layer of Noveu Brahmins who are in many ways even more exploitative, as they dont have the generations of education that the erstwhile higher classes have gone through. One would see this as a natural process of National Evolution and one may be right. The next generation of the New Brahmins, will be not so crass and in your face and would be capable of taking clean sophisticated decissions. These decissions, one hopes will open the road for even Newer Brahminism. There will be new graduates to the Elites ..who will reduce the span of the underprivilaged and continue on the path of unsophisticated, unplanned progress which will eventually destroy the decaying social order and a create a new ruling class in the generations to come. They will be the Brahmins of the new age espousing a new freedom that will run out of fashion eventually till newer Brahmins cause a social catharsis..
This cycle will continue till the utopian death of class politics. Which, with all due respect to the changing liberal elites, is not possible, because, all things on par, we will always need a ruling and a ruled class. There will always be parties, organisations, people, groups etc who will be more equal than others ...who will controle the food that hits our table and the safety we need at home and the healthcare we get in our old age. These people will always be elitist, till they fall to the new order.
Hell...Freedom is cool...phew....Its momentary, utopian and ever changing....That gives each one of us the freedom to celebrate our indipendence from a different cause in each succesive year. The Raj is irrelevant...let us celebrate our Indipence Day as a symbol of freedom ... from anything at all...
Therefore I have kind of stuck to neutral topics ...things that one would love till now. Stuff like food, drinks...basically 'bring a smile on your face' thingies.
So today I continue in a Nation swelling with pride and happiness. A pride and happiness thorroughly justified in the emerging 3 days, 4 night weekend coming up. All government and private sector employees will be paid during this period and all trade and businessmen will do brisk business.
The occassions are nebulous...at best preserved in the back of our consciousness, but the pleasure genuine. Janmashtmi is, on the whole, more important than Indipendence day, the latter however being more widely celebrated in its geographic extent.
Nehru said, 'Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny....the time has come to redeem that pledge'...well have we kept that pledge? ...in many ways we have.
We are a Free country. Politically and Economically. But the time has come to fight another battle. The battle to free us from the brand of Political and Economic freedom that we have, from the disparity we suffer. The time has come to ask...Has the freedom we have really made a difference?
I presume it has. I was not born during the occupation and so I dont know the emotional hassles of being secondary in my own country. Moreover I was born into what may be considered a Socially elevated family (if not an economically elevated one). To add to it, we were not exactly hand to mouth. Therefore I was a part of the new Elite. The Elite that had taken the place of the Raj ...to create a new order....a new Raj. I must confess though...There were thousands, nay, millions of people around me, not so lucky as me, who were secondary...any which way you look at it. And this realization of mine was acute from a very early age.
Our house in Kolkata had 2 entrances. One a delapidated side door that led to the backyard, and the other, a grand entry for cars that led to a stairway into the drawing room. The side entry was used just once a day. A jamadar would come and knock and the servant girl would go and open the door. This Jamadar with a broom tail (quite literally) would go into the backyard and then take the back intrances to the bathrooms. He would clean up, take the refuse and leave the same he came. The maid servant would directly go into her bath and be allowed into the house after that.
We were not so much as allowed to go near the sweeper man. After all, the sweeper man was an untouchable. He and his ilk were unclean. In fact, these were a subhuman race...descended of the lowest of the low. They never had any chance in hell of rising above subhuman as their children would be from the same dirty seed as them.
That has changed. At least in the urban context. There has been significant changes in the Rural India as well. The Brahmin heartland of India has a seen a significant revolution that has seen the rise of the opressed classes. They have entered the earlier Brahminical bastions of Politics and Administration and have made significant progress in terms of individual property and community. Problem is that soon as these people become empowered, they become elitist. The irony is that its their origins themselves that make them elitist. They wear their untouchability like a badge and garner votes from the silent majority. They give long discourses on how to break the grip and retire back to their marble palaces and big cars. I am sure they, in their ivory palaces, have a different entry point for sweepers as well.
So nothing much has changed. We have created a new Layer of Noveu Brahmins who are in many ways even more exploitative, as they dont have the generations of education that the erstwhile higher classes have gone through. One would see this as a natural process of National Evolution and one may be right. The next generation of the New Brahmins, will be not so crass and in your face and would be capable of taking clean sophisticated decissions. These decissions, one hopes will open the road for even Newer Brahminism. There will be new graduates to the Elites ..who will reduce the span of the underprivilaged and continue on the path of unsophisticated, unplanned progress which will eventually destroy the decaying social order and a create a new ruling class in the generations to come. They will be the Brahmins of the new age espousing a new freedom that will run out of fashion eventually till newer Brahmins cause a social catharsis..
This cycle will continue till the utopian death of class politics. Which, with all due respect to the changing liberal elites, is not possible, because, all things on par, we will always need a ruling and a ruled class. There will always be parties, organisations, people, groups etc who will be more equal than others ...who will controle the food that hits our table and the safety we need at home and the healthcare we get in our old age. These people will always be elitist, till they fall to the new order.
Hell...Freedom is cool...phew....Its momentary, utopian and ever changing....That gives each one of us the freedom to celebrate our indipendence from a different cause in each succesive year. The Raj is irrelevant...let us celebrate our Indipence Day as a symbol of freedom ... from anything at all...
Monday, August 10, 2009
10 things to eat before you die...there are 100s....but for today
- Chello Kebab at Peter Cat, Park Street, Kolkata....the recipe is pure. Delicately herbed rice lightly suated in butter ringed with tender makhmali Sheek Kebab and melt in your mouth Chicken lasagni tikkas...topped off with a perfectly rounded fried egg.....
- Prawns Fry with Malabari Paranthas, Bhatiyar Gali, Ahmedabad....Shrimps (sizeable) fried in flavored oil (flavored with thousands of rounds of frying) slightly caramelized and with a masalla of tomatoes, garlic and onions. The Malabari Paranthas ...slightly sweet to the taste ...brilliantly rounded in layers and roast fried to perfection...You generally sit in your car and order for this. Carry a Thumbs Up with you. If you prefer something harder .. feel free.
- Liver Curry....you will get this in any standard Bong Home....Diced Goat's liver and potatoes....in a gravy of Peas flavoured with light haldi, tomatoes, garam massala, onions and garlic....Dried and stir fried it tastes great with Rotis...preserve a little liquid and it tastes great with Rice
- Patra Fish, A 1 Parsee Food Corner, Nanpura, Surat. Silver Leaf, Ahmedabad. Yezdi, Flora Fountain, Mumbai or at Sagar, Navsari. Slabs of white Pomfret ... marinated in a fine mixture of pudina, dhaniya, coconut, raw mangoes and other condiments...Steamed to perfection in its on marination wrapped in banana leaves...
- Kolkata Biriyani @ Shiraz, end of Park Street, Kolkata....Delicately flavoured rice covering mutton cooked to perfection in a wonderfully evolved marination and topped with sauted potatoes soaking in mutton gravy and 1 boiled egg...Nobody in India has a better Biriyani recipe. Its actually evolved from Lucknowi biryani brought to Kolkata by a very kind Wajid Ali Shah and then evolved into perfection.
- Chingrir Malai Kari @ Bhojohori Manna, Ekdaliya, Kolkata. There are many shops that serve this in many cities, but the one at BM, Kolkata is special. King Sized prawns with their heads on soaking in a evolved gravy of coconut cream and other usual masallas. Tastes devine with Rice
- Gujju Thaali at Vishalla, Ahmedabad...I will get discent on this one...but I still maintain that the Vishalla Thali with its atmospheare and ambiance and of course delightfully tasty condiments to go.
- Khichdi and Labra (mixed vegetable) at any Durga Puja Mandap in any city at all...Dont try this at home... it will never taste the same. Seems to taste the best on Ashtami.
- Butter Chicken @ Ranjit da Dhaba in the road behind Safdarjang Hospital, Delhi ... I have forgotten the name of the Road. The creamy red white mixture bubbling with sinfull chicken tastes super with Tandoori Roti.. The Pandara Road variety isnt too bad either...but there is something special about standing on the road amidst polluting vehicles to have this
- Prawns Kolivada @ Lambas, Chembur main Road, Mumbai.....Words fail me here....Kolivada...dont have it with anything at all....and watch it getting made...if you want a little Rum and Coke wouldnt be out of place
Patriotism...the meaning
A very young friend of mine asked me " What is Patriotism" . And I kept on thinking about it the whole day.
The conclusions. Patriotism is a partisan feeling towards ones ilk. You could be a Bengali Patriot or Indian Patriot. You could, if you so wished, even be a Tamil Patriot or Amdavadi Patriot. The moot point therefore, you have to identify yourself to your belief of a Nation...a geographic / political entity.
Still that doesnt quite describe the feeling.
I personally am a patriot. In the same way that I would, feel badly, if someone spoke ill of my mother, I feel terrible if someone says lousy stuff about India...my chosen subject of passion. I illogically try to find virtue in every grime filled corner of this country. I magnify beyond belief every small achievement of the collective polity. I blame every ill that it suffers on myriad conditions and fate. I am proud to be Indian, even when Children get raped and killed. I am proud to be Indian when people get lynched on the road and when mature grown up people drive on the wrong side. I am proud to be Indian when we send a mission to the moon and make our first neuclear Submarine. I am happy when Amartya Sen wins the Nobel Prize for a life spent in America and when Indophiles like Dalrymple write about our History.
In a nation starved of Heroes...Patriotism is the only Hero that one worships. Its good that the feeling rises above the individual and truly rises as a giant body ....Something like Krishna's Vishwaroop.
That said, I look forward to the day that Nationalism in its present form dies out. The day that the whole world becomes a nation.
That day, patriotism will have a different meaning.
The conclusions. Patriotism is a partisan feeling towards ones ilk. You could be a Bengali Patriot or Indian Patriot. You could, if you so wished, even be a Tamil Patriot or Amdavadi Patriot. The moot point therefore, you have to identify yourself to your belief of a Nation...a geographic / political entity.
Still that doesnt quite describe the feeling.
I personally am a patriot. In the same way that I would, feel badly, if someone spoke ill of my mother, I feel terrible if someone says lousy stuff about India...my chosen subject of passion. I illogically try to find virtue in every grime filled corner of this country. I magnify beyond belief every small achievement of the collective polity. I blame every ill that it suffers on myriad conditions and fate. I am proud to be Indian, even when Children get raped and killed. I am proud to be Indian when people get lynched on the road and when mature grown up people drive on the wrong side. I am proud to be Indian when we send a mission to the moon and make our first neuclear Submarine. I am happy when Amartya Sen wins the Nobel Prize for a life spent in America and when Indophiles like Dalrymple write about our History.
In a nation starved of Heroes...Patriotism is the only Hero that one worships. Its good that the feeling rises above the individual and truly rises as a giant body ....Something like Krishna's Vishwaroop.
That said, I look forward to the day that Nationalism in its present form dies out. The day that the whole world becomes a nation.
That day, patriotism will have a different meaning.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Biryani Cake...and you may not have THIS recipe
Here goes .....
Ingradients
Ingradients
- 1 Kg mutton ....cleaned
- 500 Gm palak
- 3 large Capsicums
- 2 jharis of Dhaniya leaves
- Some Tulsi
- 1 Sweet Mango
- 500 gm Dahi
- 6 wonderfully white onions
- 8 kernels of Garlic
- 4 delightfully tight tomatoes
- Red Chillies
- Green chillies (5)
- Garam Masala (the usual suspects powdered)
- Garam Masala (Seperately ..Cloves, Cinnamon, Elaichi (kala and green), Tej Patta
- 200 Gms of butter
- 2 table spoons of Ghee
- 2 Eggs
- Saffron in cold milk
- And before I forget ... The finest Basmati available (1 Kg)
Phase 1
Take the palak, dhaniya leaves, Capsicum, Mango, tulsi, green chillies. Cut them into fine pieces and grind them to fine consistency with a table spoon of cream in a mixie that works
Heat a wok, put in the butter and when it clarifies, put in 2 jullianed tomatoes, 3 kernels of garlic and the powdered garam masala (around 2 tea spoons will do ... so that the other natural flavours come out)
When crackling, pour in the Palak mixture with the Dahi and allow it to simmer for 2 minutes. put in salt to taste, let it boil for 5 minutes and set it aside to rest.
Take the Rice and parboil with a drop of ghee. Drain in muslin and set aside
Clean the wok (or take another one). Heat the Ghee and the remaining onions and garlic. Put in the full garam masalla and let it crackle. When delightfully brown, throw in the mutton and let the color fade. Now put in the tomatoes and salt to taste and set it on high heat till the entire juice is semidry and the mutton looks wonderfully red golden brown. Dont pay any attention to whether boiling has happened or not.
Phase 2
Take a large heavy base (prefereably non stick) tapela. Grease the same with some ghee or butter.
Take the 2 handfull of par boiled basmati and mix in 2 eggs. mix them to create some very eggy parboiled rice. Now coat this mixture into the base and sides of the Tapela
Now put in a layer of rice ...and follow it up with a layer of Palak and mutton...Repeat this till you are out of ingradients. Take care to see that the top layer is a thick layer of rice.
Now mix the Saffron well with the cold milk in a small bowl and sprikle the concoction on this top layer. Take your call whether you want some roasted almonds on it or not. I personally preffer this straight up.
Seal the Tapela with Atta or foil (atta priority) and slow heat this on the gas or burner for 1 hr 15 minutes.
Phase 3
Turn of the heat and let the Tapela rest for 15 minutes. Now break the seal and Turn Tapela upside down on a large dish. The biriyani will ease out like a piece of pie or something. Sprikle golden brown fried onions on this and other personal garnishing and serve ... hot.
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Birth of a Blog
You know how it works...You read a lot of Wodehouse, Kazantzakis, Tagore and Amitabh Ghosh. You write a few class esseys that are liked. You speak a kewl tongue and find that the majority dont understand what you are talking about. And, subsequently, you start fancying yourself as a writer, a sharer of ideas and information.
Its actually a mid life crisis...or the beginnings of one in any case. A situation when bills run faster than prize horses, and the paunch looks like it needs immidiate drastic action. Its when you realise that you cant be the Prime Minister or Mr Bill Gates,.....why....you cant even be the guy next door who bought that snazy car. Your credit rating is average and your commitments are legendary. It is also when you realise that most people couldnt care lesser about your interests. When knowledge or the yearning for it becomes irreversibly destroyed by basic real life practicality. So you sit down and tell the Krishna story to your daughter .... and she listens to you with rapt attention and then says...Dad can I have that PSP now that I have listened to all you have to say...and you start calculating the coming pay packet.
To top it all, rickshaw drivers start calling you Uncle...Now that is miserable.
So one needs a release and technology offers the perfect solution. This Blog therefore is about anything at all. Anything that one may want to say. Anything that one needs to share. For posterity...if not for the present.
Its actually a mid life crisis...or the beginnings of one in any case. A situation when bills run faster than prize horses, and the paunch looks like it needs immidiate drastic action. Its when you realise that you cant be the Prime Minister or Mr Bill Gates,.....why....you cant even be the guy next door who bought that snazy car. Your credit rating is average and your commitments are legendary. It is also when you realise that most people couldnt care lesser about your interests. When knowledge or the yearning for it becomes irreversibly destroyed by basic real life practicality. So you sit down and tell the Krishna story to your daughter .... and she listens to you with rapt attention and then says...Dad can I have that PSP now that I have listened to all you have to say...and you start calculating the coming pay packet.
To top it all, rickshaw drivers start calling you Uncle...Now that is miserable.
So one needs a release and technology offers the perfect solution. This Blog therefore is about anything at all. Anything that one may want to say. Anything that one needs to share. For posterity...if not for the present.
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