Flashes of delight in gastronomy

I love food.
So does our entire extended family. Ya, I know what you thinking - who in the world would not like eating? But saying that I was a gluttonous omni-voracious foodoholic would be quite close to describing the real me. Though as I reached my late 20s (sigh!), my gastronomic habits have become more sober, much closer to normal, civilized people.
Still remember the days in college when we used to devour our food like there was no tomorrow. And then our gang of hungry souls was solely responsible for putting out of business at least two all-you-can-eat food joints. God bless them.

Speaking of which, it brings me to last month which was a complete delight for the tummy. The folks were here in Stuttgart and that resulted in such great culinary wonders that not for a moment we felt we were away thousand miles from India. So here is a small walkthrough over what we treated ourselves with.

Caution: If you are somewhere in office or on a diet or craving for food, DON'T read further! Reading ahead and looking at these pictures could give you serious cravings, withdrawal symptoms and greedy tongues.

Yellow spongy bliss.
Khaman dhokla has been the snack of choice for every self-respecting gujju fond of food. Though not made as ubiquitously like the humble idli, it is a well known dish even to non-gujjus.

Top up these yellow steamed cubes with heavenly alphonso mango-ras and puris and it is a already on way to being one of the best lunches ever.
Whats for dinner, btw?

The Handvo is a relatively unknown dish from Gujarat, more so like a savory cake made by baking ground pulses with veggies of choice and a tasty mustard-spice tempering.
(the pic wasn't intended to make the Handvo look like Pacman, but here it is)

A completely microwaved stuffed Karela (bitter-gaurd) and potato dish. Loads of jaggery and spice, cooked to perfection, over the veggies, topped up with coriander and sev.
Ahaa...

Sinfulicious Daal-Makhni made by the missus, with generous amounts of cream and butter falling just short of the annual dairy produce of New-Zealand.

And here comes the most famous export of Gujju-land after Mahatma Gandhi and the Ambanis. The awesome Pav-Bhaji. Probably the most coalition-friendly dishes of all - a delightful mix of mashed up veggies and pav-bhaji masala and topped up with.... well see for yourself.And yeah, eaten with the humble paav, buttered and browned.Bliss!

Nice little south indian breakfast of bowled upma , only the coffee replaced by aromatic ginger-tea.

Speaking of South-Indian breakfast, how about masala idlis washed down with saffrony Alphonso mango milk-shake?

And now the Western Breakfast. Pancakes with a generous dollop of Apricot Jam. But mixed with Indian ginger-tea again.

Paalak Daal and jeera-rice go well if you in a mood for north-south collaboration. And why leave behind cool refreshing peach-flavored ice-tea?

A very gujju coup.

Gujju bhakhris (parathas) with a most tradtional eggplant-potato curry. Just yummy!

Lemon Slice-cake does the trick to cheer you up on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

And since we mentioned desserts, an Apple-pie with the best light-brown crust in Stuttgart will do just fine.

And to round up this yummy array of savories, we have yet another gujju dessert. The always-underrated Doodh-paak. Yummylicious thick flavoured milk with copious amounts of dry-fruits and saffron.

I'll leave you now drooping with saliva and running to the kitchen/fridge for some life-saving eatables...

Of 'guilt at the stoppages' and megapixel rains

Imagine....
Its a nice sunday afternoon and you are just done with a family lunch. Then you get to your fav place in the drawing room and get glued to the television. It hasnt been a few minutes of visual joy, when the screen goes abruptly still! (much like the blue screen of death in Windows) And then there is a flash with the very familiar words:

'Rukawat ke liye khed hai'.....

Rings a bell?

And the 'Guilt at the Stoppage' doesn't stop there. Its very smoothly followed by a black-and-white mesh of haywire pixels, juxtaposed with a sound which is oddly similar to heavy rain falling on a metal sheet.
No other channels to jump to, the disappointed yet hopeful spectator had nothing else to do but to wait till the black-and-white rain subsided.

Circa early 80s: Television had arrived!


Its difficult to forget the eerie DD signature tune that reminded of graveyards and the ugly-looking DD logo that looked more like a top-view of a Mexican hat gone slightly awry. See that and you will agree >>

And what characters! The kid called Swami in small town South-India, the carrot-eating investigator, the forgetful day-dreamer, the Sherlock-Holmes-styled white-clad bengali detective, the huge bunch of myriad characters at a roadside corner (nukkad), white-haired ghosts taking a ride on the shoulders of unnerved Kings, bunch of youth hanging out on campus, a prime-minister telling us stories of India's glorious past, families with a member-count higher than the population of Australia, and badly-done special-effects of mythological characters throwing at each other, weapons of every possible dimension.... just to name a few. They were the ones who made the evenings and Sundays enjoyable for every middle-class home in India.

So starved were we of motion pictures or anything remotely similar, that on lazy Sunday afternoons, we ended up watching regional-language movies (forget about understanding a word of it), and even news bulletins for the deaf-and-dumb!! Now thats desperation.

These were just a few lines about the hey-days of old-time idiot-box, fully garnished with doses of nostalgia and memorabilia.... but hey, don't pull out your tissues or mom's pickles just yet.

On a philosophical note, the memories remain at their pedestal, as long as they are those faint memories. The moment you take them out of the grandma's closet and wham - there goes the charm! It hits you right there in the face that something which you always cherished from the past, actually tips precariously towards mediocrity, and towards a big disconnect with the immediate present.

But more about that later...

(Next post - a few of the favorite old-time shows...)