If Life were a Beach Part II

If life were a beach I'd wear cockle shells in my ear
I'd douse my hair in yesterday's leftover beer.

I'd love the smell of spiced pig blood
Every newcomer in my square foot of sandy paradise would be a long lost bud

I'd wake every morning wondering which crustacean to skewer
And go to bed dreaming about a pink and juicy porker.

The Tale of a Lobster called Shushanto (circa 2008)

As I fell hook, line and sinker for the artful poesy of a romance stolen from Woody Allen and Satyajit Ray involving country boats, rainy days, shared umbrellas and stolen moments under bright city lights, there was little that could stop the deal from being sealed. And so a whirlwind followed and the events ended with a missus tag, a bag full of sunscreen and an air ticket to Port Blair and a raging appetite for something other than the rich Mughlai kebabs and curries that had dotted the week-long wedding festivities.

I had acquired the look of a half starved newly wed through a rigorous cud-chewing diet of salad leaves and boiled chicken in order to squeeze into my expensive wedding outfit tailored to perfection to a size I used to be three months before the wedding. Now that I had survived the endless photo ops  without a major wardrobe malfunction...I was a woman on a mission. A mission to make up for all those missed luncheons and dinners.

Knotted, be-ringed and otherwise tied to each other for what was to be presumably a long time, we we set off to the Andamans with love in our hearts and a rumble in our bellies.

Our first port of call was Port Blair - a strait-laced administrative capital...a rocky non-beach...the dreaded home of the Cellular Jail, a pitstop serving toast, chicken sausages and tea.

 I remember going on a long ferry ride. I remember the smell of cauliflowers which despite my fondness for the vegetable is a very rotten smell indeed. I remember the smell following me to the corners of that boat. I also remember the endless shades of blue as the sun glinted off the water. I remember a European girl with a very flat belly that she promptly decided to sun on the deck. I remember two very sullen newly weds (not us!) and an American Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

I remember arriving at the island that unlocked that perfect picture postcard which had been in my head since I was a youngling. I remember glimpses of white sands, a pair of elephants, red-roofed villas, coconut trees and a long menu of seafood specials. And I remember every detail of the first meal.

The sun shone benevolently. The bamboo curtains in front of our lovely gazebo style resort restaurant parted and we walked in, our bare feet slip sliding over the burnished wooden floor warmed by the balmy weather.  The meal ordered, we sipped on chilled coconut water and whetted our appetites which seem to have grown meaner and keener with the smell of the sea and could slash a poor crustacean to shreds with its sharp-edged fury.

And I remember my first meal. All these years later, the taste of that freshly grilled, gargantuan crab doused in garlic butter still makes me burst into a corny song:

You know I'm such a fool for you.
You got me wrapped around your finger, ah, ha, ha.
Do you have to let it linger? Do you have to, do you have to,
Do you have to let it linger?

It has lingered in my taste memory somewhere just like the blood memory of vampires. You could tap into some neuron and see the dark fantasies of my teeth closing over a tender, bright red claw or my hands pulverizing a belly full of sweet flesh.

We had all the conventional must-haves for any honeymoon.
There was the dappled sun, azure seas, sun dresses, glorious tans, canopied four poster beds, open-air luxurious showers, yellowfin tuna, wine at sunset, kisses by the moonlit sea. 

We also had games.
We played scrabble on the beach and 'count the tentacle game' with our deep-fried whole baby octopus platter.

We had accidents and adventure.
We fell off our scooter on day two of our honeymoon after deciding to see the island like the other young and freewheeling sporty outdoorsy sorts. Thereafter the  husband being too traumatized by the 'accident' decided to nurse his wounds in our lovely four poster with a book and his ipod, while I decided to continue on our scheduled activity for the day -  'kayaking for two'. With the first fledgling wings of adventure sprouting on my shoulders, I rowed my not-so-sturdy sea vessel into the ponderous roots of the mangrove-studded riverine canals. After the first half hour entangled in acute embarrassment, I managed to steer into the widening rivulet, all the way out into the open seas. Buffeted by the salty air and carried by the gentle waves, I freed myself from my city sloth and  pulled and pushed with my gravel-scraped palms into a wonderful ride over yellow coral beds.

We also had alcohol.
We drank a most exotic tropical cocktail. If there could be a drink that could act like a portal  into a land of summer, spices and the ocean breeze, the starfruit martini would be it. This tiny drink without any frills or cocktail umbrellas packed a deadly punch with the muddled fruit, dollops of salt and lime and some sugar syrup and oodles of vodka/white rum. We rubbed the salt off the rim and watched the last rays of the setting sun getting distorted through the condensed glass.

We also made friends.
The man in question was a jolly Italian cook, who for some strange reason had chosen this spit of land to get marooned on (four years ago, living on Havelock Island was akin to getting marooned here. dark patches of forest, erratic electricity, basic infrastructure, lots of fresh seafood) with his wife and had started a lovely restaurant called Mahua serving rustic Italian fare with seafood as its focus.

We had a murder.
Two minutes after we met Shushanto and posed for a photo together, we ended up murdering him.
He was handsome after the green-blue fashion popular among his kind, dripping salt water and smelling of the sea. He struggled bravely trapped in the Italian man's vice-like grip in what he knew were about to be his last moments. There was an air of gravity and tragedy about him. And in a spurt of sentimentality we decided to name him, Shushanto, a perfectly peaceful name for a creature that grew more thoughtful and more still as its end drew near.
We sealed the deal with the Italian and became the sea lobster's de facto executioners.
In order to honour him, we dressed for the occasion and ate a meal akin to the last supper. We were so deliriously well fed by Shushanto, that we didn't mind if the punishment for our crimes led to an eternity in an underwater hell in the belly of a giant green lobster.

 We had a haunting.
In an odd twist of fate, we got lost after this meal and as the last twinkling light of the restaurant (which was a good 30 minute walk from our resort) disappeared, we found ourselves in utter darkness. We walked through damp undergrowth on that especially moonless night with all kinds of night creatures hooting around us and little crabs crawling across our flip-flopped toes in a spine chilling manner. We were convinced it was Shushanto's revenge from the beyond and we laid our feet carefully on the ground in order to avoid stepping on his crab cousins. The husband sang some old silly ditty about farm animals (most of which we had eaten in the recent past) increasing the dread in my heart at the awarness of our growing ledger of sins.

We had a moment.
But just as I was about to take a dreadful vow of vegetarianism, we stumbled back on the path we knew. The gods had spoken. Shushanto was at peace and we were ready to fly back home with love in our hearts and our bellies full of optimism for the life ahead. 


The chronology of this little travel series is a little flawed. While Part I started with the most recent holiday, part II and III are earlier trips and the pieces themselves are half-remembered pieced together versions which might not reflect journalistic accuracy. I choose to call these my personal vignettes based on smells (good and bad), memorable meals, standout dishes, gorgeous sunsets, midnight walks and crabs by moonlight. This story has more to do with the actual surf and turf of things rather than detours off the beach.

a fish called cat

http://www.farmfreshauctions.com.au/articles/featured/basa-fish.php

The first time I ate Vietnamese basa from the Mekong River, it was lovingly handcrafted by a genius cook in this gem of a restaurant called Indian Accent tucked away in a leafy avenue in Delhi. Here it was steamed in a leaf, infused with flavours of galangal and other smells and spices redolent of the South east Asia.  This was a special anniversary meal.

Since then I have had this fish pan-seared with the lightest hint of pepper for a light lunch, Crumbed and fried into a rainy-day snack, slathered with garlic, butter and a bouquet of herbs and served as a delicately flavoured dinner to go with copious glasses of bubbly. 

This variety of catfish has little in common with its grim-faced wriggly Bengali cousin. Its delicate flavour, white colour and flaky prettiness makes it versatile enough to adapt to any culture-specific cuisine.

This post unlike the pieces actually has a recipe to go with it. It is a response to a Del Monte recipe contest and unlike other contests, this one made me sit up and take notice. There is always some Del Monte product at home, be it the tangy mustard sauce, the space saving and easy-to-store tomato ketchup in its fun 'squeezy' bottle, the plump green and black olives and the olive oil which don't run the household budget into a grand deficit, or the pulpy green apple drink that the husband has a special affinity for.

From this inventory in my larder, I chose the  Pitted Black Olives and the Extra-Virgin Olive Oil

and to this I simply added my current favourite fish - the basa. 

So the basa in mi casa went for a ride aboard the Del Monte express....

Grilled Basa with Black Olives and Basil

INGREDIENTS

The marinade

750 gm basa fillets cut into medium sized pieces

1 fat lemon

fresh ginger - 2 tsp minced

garlic - 2 tsp minced

Del Monte Pitted black olives - 15 nos. finely chopped

salt - a pinch  (I used celery salt which is divine and is also less salty than regular salt. The salt should be sparingly used at the olives are quite salty)

Freshly ground black pepper 1 tsp

basil - a handful roughly shredded

Del Monte Extra-Virgin Olive Oil - 2Tbsp

METHOD

Combine all the ingredients with the fish and place in a bowl in the refrigerator for 2 hours. 

Brush the grill pan with a dash of  extra virgin olive oil. place the fish pieces carefully and let it brown. Check for doneness with a fork. the fish should remain white but the flesh should be flaky.

Take it off the pan and serve immediately with lemon wedges and fresh basil leaves. Some olive studded foccaccia on the side would be excellent accompaniment.

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If Life Was a Beach Part I

If life was a beach
dotted with crabs, cocktail umbrellas and drinks smelling of plum and peach
I'd begin my day with a seafood stew
I'd wash it down with some pungent coconutty local brew
I'd splash about in the waters till lunch
To sate my belly with a lobster brunch

But well, life rarely lets you sunbathe in peace and so it is only on rare occasions that one trades the computer mouse for a bright yellow toy spade and thus armed embarks on a journey to search for the perfectly sunny clime, the perfect stretch of unbroken white sands and the sweetest grilled crab in butter garlic sauce there could be.
With such humble ambitions the husband and I embarked on our longest vacation till date to explore Goa in all its lovely rain-washed splendour.
The fact that this was off season, meant great discounts, lower numbers of seekers searching for the elusive 'self', lesser raggedy shacks and many more fresh catches of the day to go around.
Our journey started on a rather ominous note as we  found ourselves on a roach infested, smelly interstate bus. What was advertized on the Internet was a glamorous coach with pop art on its body and  luxurious extras. What we clambered into on a rain sodden night was a rattly tin can airing mindless David Dhawan juvenile sex comedies at top volume.

The dreams of sun and the sand on the other side helped me survive the night.
The moment we entered the state I felt my spirits lift. My heart soared as i could imagine the spray of salt in my face. Although when I embarked from the bus all i felt was a light rain drizzling down and wetting the end of my freshly painted pink toenails.
The sky was grey as we took a cab to our hotel of choice, a highly recommended spanking new and small little resort in Anjuna. I was dreaming of the sound of the sea and a view of a vast blue expanse from my room and I nearly missed what was right under my nose.

It was not the beach, it was not the sea and it wasn't even sunny.
But here was Goa like a hidden pearl glinting in the watery sun. There were rows of gleaming pink walls, latticed windows, red tiled roofs, purple geraniums in little pots, spotlessly white churches with jet black steeples. Old Portuguese architecture cleaned by the rain, offset by shades of emerald green. Life bursting at every corner as creepers unfurled and waved delicately as our car whizzed by at breakneck speed.We had been travelling for over an hour through the rural heart of North Goa awash in the tender green of young coconuts and strangely I had forgotten all about the sea.

 As we turned into a little village road and drew up into the driveway of our hotel - the Hacienda de Goa, there were no sea facing windows. In fact the sea was a good 15 minute drive from this place. Before I could voice my disappointment, the Mediterranean design, the sprawling suites, spotless white walls, chintzy curtains, red tiled roofs and chirruping of birds had turned me into a convert. A few moments later, as I sat by the pool side with a beer in my hand every hint of a grumble had escaped with a burp.

Run by the friendly and gracious Mr. Thomas who was as hands on in the kitchen as he was in the office, the Hacienda de Goa truly embodied the grand maternal warmth of a family run estate. As i took large swigs of the local King's beer which to be honest is not the best brew in the world. But the price point (it costs as much as bottled water), the thrill of consuming an authentic local drink without worrying about alcohol poisoning and the fact that it was icy cold really smoothed out its imperfections. Combined with home-cooked Kerala beef cutlets with the crunch of coconut and whole black pepper, a succulent beef fry and  mounds of steaming rice, the day seemed full of potential. Coming from a beef deprived state, these tender and flavourful bites of meat did all that its tough as nails buff  counterpart constantly failed to do.

A few winks and some more beers later we decided it was time. To see the sea and eat all its divine creatures. As we made our way to Baga Beach, that buzzing centre of north Goa in our newly serviced sturdy steed of a Santro, we expected the tourist hordes, the honeymooners, the hippie relics, the yuppie NRIs etc but what we saw was woebegone shopfronts selling dusty I heart GOA t shirts, roadside shacks with their shutters half down and puddles of rain water collecting on their thresholds and a few vendors hawking their florescent sticks and lurid devils' horns rather half halfheartedly. while we expected it to be slow, we didn't expect it to be a somnambulist's paradise.
In hope of a meal that might compensate the lack of  bright lights and festivities, we made our way to a tried and tested Britto's - that much visited bastion of drunken nights, seafood binges and idle days. At least our collective nostalgia had hued it in all those rosy tints. And like most nostalgic lenses the view it offered was a little askew.

Rambunctious little boys played tag around our chairs. Precariously balanced on a wooden platform with one chair leg buried in the sand, staying upright had become a task. The plate full of butter garlic prawns cheered me up some although it lacked that fresh 'I was swimming around under your toes under a minute ago' taste.

The husband reliving his bachelor days boy's trip had ordered his drink of choice - a swimming pool - a strange looking pale blue concoction of curacao, pineapple and coconut cream. Admonished by the waiter for demanding something as absurd as coconut water on a beach, I sheepishly sipped on my Malibu and diet coke and attacked another prawn dripping butter. The crabs that I wanted were ominously expensive, the ambience missed a certain joie de vivre and the congealed butter on the plate made my stomach churn enough to want to leave and go somewhere new. Nostalgia does leave an aftertaste sometimes that is not altogether pleasant. I walked out to catch my first glimpse of the waves, a sight that made had made me smile since I was a wee child. I saw the white crested stormy sea, felt gusts of cold blustery wind and drops of rain on my upturned face. It wasn't quite the balmy-summer-night-on-a-beach-where-you-could-hold-hands-under-the-stars. I felt bits of garbage under my toes and heard a gaggle of Punjabi housewives shrieking at a baby wave licking at their toes.

And onwards to Cavala, one of the oldest bars in the area. It warmed the cockles of my heart and I felt like a  traveller on a cold winter's night who had walked into a Victorian inn warmed by a roaring fire and pitchers of ale. Warm wooden interiors, soft light bulbs imaginatively imprisoned in bird cages and little fairy lights hidden inside squat, green coloured King's beer bottles, with a bar menu that included exotic absinthe cocktails as well as an old man playing Frank Sinatra songs on the piano. If I was a fish, i had just been hooked. Dinner was a Goan sausage curry - pert pieces of fatty sausage in a fiery potato and onion curry and a rather overpowering prawn masala. We never ate there again but we returned time and again to partake of the tipple and the wonderful ambience. Cavala was like a colonial club for the locals, a lace to meet and greet and sing all the 60s songs you knew and dance atop tables with as much flair as you could manage. It was a place where the old and the young mingled with equal ease and friendly banter flew around the room.

And sometimes life's a bitch...even on a beach. dissatisfied with our night time hello to the sea we decided to brave the busiest of beaches which is Goa's Chowpatty - Calangute. A beach that is depressing in its built up squalor and filth, Calangute was crowded (come hail or storm, Calangute is always crowded) and teeming with life. I wanted to run the moment I arrived. back to my peaceful Hacienda and my chilled beer at Cavala. However there we were to try one of the restaurants which had received much praise and success...enough to open up branches in Delhi. That should have been warning enough as north Indians are not big on seafood and as I sat munching my crisp tandoori lobster with tasted all tandoori and very little lobster in a character-less restaurant, I rued the waste of half a day at Calangute and an unappetizing meal. 

Goa in the monsoon is not a place where you lounge on the beach. It rains all the time and is clammy and still when its not raining. The beach is muddy and squelchy and every single shack serving Goan treats and Goan tipple has been dismantled and dumped under layers of tarp for the season. It is not the time to hunt for fresh seafood because even the fishermen take a break and there is no fresh catch of the day. So the buttered and garlicky grills are not a good idea unless butter garlic rubber is your thing.

Goa in the monsoon is a place where you explore the lovely country side, when you soak in the laid back vibe of the land without being an idiotic tourist and learn how to bring a little bit of susegad into your life...Goa in the monsoon is where you go trekking in the hills, where you stand behind the ramparts of old Portuguese forts and where you eat full bodied meats cooked in the familiar-yet-unfamiliar gullet burning spices and souring agents.

It is the time of the year where you do as the locals do, eat as the locals eat and party as they do. Abandoning the idea of a beach holiday we tried to discover Goa shorn of its hummus and pita bread, schnitzel and pancakes and welcomed the sausage pulaos and vindaloos with stomachs reinforced with Uni-enzyme pills.

Lloyd's Steak and Grill - a non assuming eatery was a surprise of the good sort. with four tiny tables packed into a tiny garage, the only cooking surface was a large sized charcoal grill and the only ingredients - the best cuts of beef, pork chops, lamb racks with a few fat homemade sausages thrown in for company.The tiny space behind the counter had a microwave and boxes of freshly made Goan food prepared by Lloyd's mother. This place operated from 7 in the evening till 4 in the morning and was a veritable treasure trove for a meat lover. I broke into meat sweats but I savoured every last bite of the perfectly done, smoky flavored grills.

A quiet meal comprising a fish recheado, meaty and fragrant vindaloo and sausage fry  at the pretty Charcoal & Cheese tucked away on the road leading up to the Taj Aguada was better than anything we had eaten as we drove from one pitstop to the next all over north Goa eating fried calamari and butter garlic prawns till we felt like the two of us had made a sizeable dent in the population figures of these creatures.

 Churches, cathedrals, old Portuguese markets, a mackerel recheado, vindaloo and more prawn and squid later we realized that our time was nearly done. Just as I was getting used to the gentle drizzle and learning how to put up my umbrella at the exact moment before it turned into a downpour. Just as I was learning to love the winding roads through green fields without worrying whether we would skid off the wet roads and land with a crash in the self same fields. Just as I was falling deeply in love with this state and planning my post retirement home here which would NOT be on a beach. As we made our way to the airport through the heart of north-central Goa, the changing scene outside my window and the promise of a meal with potential kept me from sinking into utter despair.

 And what a delightful last supper it was. Ferdinand's Nostalgia nestled in the heart of Salcette is a neighborhood joint as well as a well kept local secret. We crossed grounds with local football tournaments going on in full swing, neighbourhood schools which had just given over for the day and majestic country churches hunting for a restaurant whose address had cryptic local references such as 'near Eduardo Faleiro's residence'. We pestered the helpful lady who ran the place and every passersby on the street every 200 metres to make sure we didn't miss it and finally drew into a leafy driveway with an old brightly painted Portuguese mansion. Not knowing what to expect we walked into one of the most charming places I have been to in my life. A large open hall had been converted into the restaurant space with a stage and a dance floor. The tables were nestled on a raised platform  and covered in bright cloth. An array of quirky bric-a-brac cluttered most spaces giving the place a very unique look. The bottles on the set out in no particular order and the whole place had an air of gay abandon. One whole wall had a mural by Goa's most famous son, Mario Miranda and right in front of that was a long trestle table with a huge family of 20 odd members come to celebrate the 80th birthday of someone who looked like the grand patriarch of the household. The space, the setting, the warmth of the sun, it all felt like a Buendia family dinner straight out of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

The restaurant was started by a locally renowned chef called Fernando who incorporated some of the most interesting elements from Goan-Portuguese cuisine in an attempt to popularize the lesser known food as well as preserve the traditions of making them. His wife continues to run the place and the aptly named Fernando's Nostalgia seems as much a paean to her husband and their shared life as it is to the food that he created.

As the jolly old saxophone player came up to our table playing an old fashioned ragtime tune especially for us, I sat spellbound. This was the moment of our trip where we clasped hands across the table without a care as to how we would catch our flight which was a mere hour and a half away. We felt old fashioned, romantic, like we had discovered our very own hideaway for a special date. We ordered off little metallic lids with the menu engraved in ink and ate among the most spectacular meals ever. Sauteed ox tongue in Goan spices, a meaty, brothy, bloody, spicy sorpotel (made with pig blood and offal), a pomfret ambotik (a spicy sweet and sour sauce) wiped up with fluffy sannas (idly like steamed breads) and washed down with gallons of beer.

We ate, we ran to the airport and boarded our flight. As we were taking off, we burped nearly in unison...to a holiday well eaten.

This is no lily-livered tale

LIVER, n. A large red organ thoughtfully provided by nature to be bilious with. The sentiments and emotions which every literary anatomist now knows to haunt the heart were anciently believed to infest the liver; and even Gascoygne, speaking of the emotional side of human nature, calls it "our hepaticall parte." It was at one time considered the seat of life; hence its name— liver, the thing we live with.

Ambrose Bierce The Devil's Dictionary

My earliest memories of Liver were bitter - they were of cod liver oil capsules

Then i remember liver being spicy.

It was my grandfather's favourite Sunday afternoon nosh and wound up on our tables ever so often without any preamble unlike the fussy mutton curry and rice which announced its arrival hours before it made its way into our bellies. Spiced and fried into a delicious kosha alu mete (a spicy fried liver and potato dish), it embedded itself as a taste memory of my childhood.

In my terrible teens, liver became the stuff of horror movies - Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs destroying my sleep with a single line:
"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."

 And somewhere in the recent past, liver got pounded into becoming a chronicle of my kitchen.

While I am no lily-livered kitchen warrior, this particular skirmish with liver left me pale faced. It is a good thing that chicken liver has fantastic restorative properties and it especially helps the production of red blood cells. Thus I survived, though there were other casualties...

a. my World War II era Sumeet mixer grinder
b. my favourite paisley-patterned-pretty-pink apron
c. my already shaky self confidence in my somewhat questionable and often flawed culinary abilities

and all these great sacrifices of objects grand and inconsequential - for one measly little hospital-white soup bowl of liver pate...sigh...I wallow in the slush left behind by all my flimsy food fantasies.

And this particular episode was inspired by a book. Ha! Of all the foolhardy things to use as a guide...a book written by a neurotic non chef having an early mid life crisis...a book so close to my heart and a protagonist who could be my soul sister...it reeked of a bad idea. And it was a meaty kind of reek.

Yet, since my life is a case study where idiocy usually triumphs better sense, I did eventually follow Julie Powell's excessive obsession with offal. For weeks on end, the only thing i could think about was offal. I fell in love with the syncopated syllables of the word that had previously existed in my vocabulary as one of those dirty words that could desecrate a place by its mere utterance. I was fascinated by Julie's downright graphic description of these bitlings of meat and sex and forbidden fruit all rolled into one.

And after obsessing about it in theory, I went on an eating spree. I revisited all the offal I had ever eaten from the squidgy heart in a broth to the divine devilled (tee hee...i love the silly oxymoronish nature of offal) kidneys on toast, from the fiery capsicum and onion braised ox tongue to the lovely creamy-kernel of carnivorous pleasure, every gourmand's favoured posion - the exquisite liver pate.

If i ever wrote a book on food, I would devote an entire section of it to foie gras. Sophisticated, sexy, stark, with a touch of S&M (the obese goose with its bulging fatty liver), it was a bit like a jazz maestro delivering his magnum opus before slitting his wrists.

It was fresh new love forever etched in my memory. I tasted foie gras for the first time at a French restaurant in a wonderful colonial hotel circa 2001. Where every mouthful of beauteous beige tasted even sweeter because it was the fruit of hard labour. It had been earned over a month of hour long sweaty bus rides populated by lecherous groping hands and foul breath and fouler tongues over the winding streets of Old Delhi.

It was a grown up romance. A sinful duet of minced meat that would melt in your mouth and a surprising centre of tender foie gras that would settle on your tongue for a second before melting away and leaving behind memories of gold. It was a quiet candle lit anniversary dinner at a quaint manor hidden amid leafy vines circa 2010.

It was a meeting between old lovers over a glass of their favourite spiced wine. It was foie gras, radiant in all its glory unmasked, unpretentious, demystified. Served on fine white porcelain, it was devoured by twin forks awkwardly touching in the quiet scuttle for the last dashes of this precious organ.

I speak of a time past and a time that is yet to come. Through all of it, the obsession with foie gras remains constant.

Meanwhile, in the recent times I was dreaming of liver and its meaty, dark and brooding flavours, I would wake up in the morning hungry. Like there was a little gooey liver coloured man in my head, asking me to feed it...well...liver. 

After scouring five meat shops and two supermarkets, I manged to collect what looked like a respectable amount of chicken liver. Alas, my meagre bank balance and an obvious scarcity of cackling white geese around these parts makes raw goose liver a hard thing to come by. So I settled for chicken liver which strangely enough I have developed quite a soft soft for.

I mention the word 'strange' because there is not too much that is likeable about chicken liver. It turns an ugly grey once cooked. It is bothersome to cook. If overcooked it turns hard and mimics the consistency of cork and leather cricket ball. If undercooked it resembles a bloody science experiment gone wrong. However, if cooked right, it can knock the wind out of your gut with its powerful aromas. And I mean that in a good way.

I ran my fingers through the red, jelly-like nearly alive bits of liver in my kitchen sink almost trilling with pleasure at their velvety softness and fatty trims. I washed, patted them dry and dressed them in a winey, herby, buttery sauces. Then waving a metaphoric good bye to my little meatlings, like the veritable Mother I grilled them, broiled them and pureed them with a dash of this and that .

I survived some tragic losses. I broke some family heirlooms and nearly lost a finger. I nearly required smelling salts by the time the whole process was over and also nearly destroyed my own liver with the copious quantities of alcohol consumed in a really short capsule of time.

Yet, at the end of it. There it was. Love on a plate. Sex on toast. My liver pate in a bowl.

To be lovingly shared with the husband. Since I can't sing, I will render my love song in pate.

We smeared it over our crackers, our whole wheat loaves. We stuffed it into tarts. We paired it with jellies. We laced it with crisp salad leaves and bounced olives off its buttery crust.

It was liver-induced madness. With a hint of humour lurking around its edges.

The Shop around the Corner

It started with a rat. Albeit it was a small, grey, possibly-cute-in-a-parallel-universe kind of rat. Yet, when this creature jumped out of a shelf full of wilted spinach, I couldn’t help thinking that this signaled my entrance into the circles of retail hell.

This story actually begins about a decade ago in the leafy neigbourhoods of a shiny-as-a- new-nickel India where our home-grown retailers opened the first supermarkets selling everything from Kissan jam to Bata shoes.  The first customers gingerly stepped in lured by the promise of convenience and super deals (‘Buy five kgs atta get one kg besan FREE) and the rest as they say was retail history.

When I entered this story, things had already started to go a little bad. The recession had hit the retail world. Potato/onion/tomato prices had sky rocketed and global warming had led to strange rainfall patterns which had affected everything on my plate. Supermarkets were mushrooming in a desperate bid to succeed through numbers.

I was an old fashioned sort. I liked handpicking my veggies. However, as a grown up, working/married woman who had recently moved back to Delhi and was getting used to the searing heat and dusty auto rides, these shopping rituals were not a luxury I could afford.  For the first few weeks I had to make do with my neighbourhood vegetable shop. This was a mere cart which had lost its wheels and had now become a semi-permanent fixture around these parts.

On one particularly cruel summer evening, the idea of some cool respite at the neighbourhood supermarket was tempting…especially as I stood haggling over the ridiculous price of onions with the grouchy sabzi wala. With a steely resolve, I decided it was time to embrace the era of neatly pre-wrapped and pre-weighed veggies.

I walked in ignoring the warning signs. It was empty and there were far too many shop assistants.  I tried to ignore the smell of overripe tomatoes. I tried to ignore the dust. I tried to ignore the fact that at least five bottles of the exotic marinating sauces had passed their expiry date.

And I moved towards the vegetable section with my hope still afloat.

Alas. Every single vegetable looked like it had travelled the breadth of the country fighting disease and deprivation till it reached this particular metal shelf—its chosen spot for its last breath. It was a graveyard of vegetables. The potatoes had either turned green or into mutant flowerpots with little leafy stems.  A tomato burst into a bloody mess the moment I picked it up to drop into my empty cart. And then just as I moved a few wilted bunches of spinach looking for a bunch that would survive the night, the rat jumped out.

Ignorance is bliss only with respect to abstract concepts.  A rat darting around my peep-toed sandals is far too real for the (ignorance=bliss) model to work. I turned on my heel and fled. 

I returned to my sabziwallah with my woebegone face. He smirked at me and imperiously tossed fresh, plump and firm tomatoes into my nylon bag.

Needless to say, this poor, suffering, rat-infested and overstaffed shop shut down soon after.

Since then, I have visited many a supermarket, in the hope that it might just be that everything-under-one-roof paradise. However, it has been in vain. The only things I have ever found in the vegetable section of the most gourmet supermarket are curry leaves, packets and packets of them that I have bought with grand hopes of cooking everything ‘Kerala style’ from rice to my meat. However, I have always been informed by my astute cook that it is a most useless purchase because curry leaves are best fresh and they are also available in plenty all around our neighbourhood. Other useless exotica I have purchased have been ridiculously expensive shitake mushrooms, overpriced skinny Thai bird chillies and not-so-fresh-looking dill, each of which have either wound up in the selfsame astute cook’s experimental mixed vegetable concoctions (indeed a Shitake mushroom and mattar (pea) curry which I chomped my way through in utter shock) or simply lain in my fridge till they quietly dried up. 

Still, there had to be an alternative to my bespectacled, mustachioed grouch of a sabziwallah who always sneered at my ignorance about the seasonal vegetables. And frankly I didn’t give a hoot about these seasonal wonders which all looked like they belonged to the same bland watery gourd family of the tinda-tori-lauki dynasty.  

I convinced the husband to drive me to another market which was famed for its regional (read Bengali) produce.  Wading through an hour long traffic jam on a ridiculous concept of road, I finally reached the small bustling market lined bordered by a small temple on one side and a strong smelling fish market right next to it. On the other side there was a small concrete clearing with the national flag flying high. This was usually buzzing with elderly gentlemen in their whites and young arty college boys in their fab india kurtas celebrating the martyrdom of communist heroes.  For a moment there I was nearly convinced that this was my home away from home. 

As I picked up slinky drumsticks, caressed the beautiful florets of the purple banana flowers and tossed a few pokey baby gourds into my basket, I nearly squealed in joy. The sweet and helpful guy behind this pile of organic manna, even drawled out a recipe or two in Bengali, clearly enjoying my obvious enthusiasm.

However, it didn’t last. The benevolent shop keeper soon turned into a snarling-cheating monster and sold us everything at thrice the price. 

I have to hand it to him though. He had the gift of the gab. One standout sale he made that day was a lau (bottle gourd). He told us it was fresh as a newly unfurled leaf and had that very day arrived from Calcutta on the Rajdhani Express.

“Think of the train fare, and see how little I am asking.  In AC too so that it stays sooper fresh. And you are getting it for only 80 rupees madam,” he said with a toothy grin.

I was dazed at the logic. I was not sure if he was entirely serious. 

He was.

I dug into my wallet to pull out the money, ashamed at my stupidity. Just five minutes ago, I had exclaimed at the beauty of the vegetable and quickly packed it away in my bag without asking its price! I had also quickly bought the equally expensive shrimps as accompaniments for this jet setting lau. I had planned the lovely lau chingri (a shrimp and bottle gourd dish) dinner that we would eat. And I could hardly turn back now. 

He conned us with a smile. And sold us a fifteen rupee vegetable for more than five times its worth.

The next evening I was back to my regular sabziwallah with his vegetables on his non- cart. The familiar face behind the pile of pearly white cauliflowers growled at me. “Why have you not bought any vegetables for a week?” Ashamed, I rattled off a long list.

Struggling with the packets, I dropped a few potatoes. “You go on ahead. I’ll send my boy to your place with your vegetables,” said the former grouch with…wait…it was a hint of a smile.

So there it was. I found my perfect vegetable shop a few yards from my own house. Somewhere over time, it acquired a phone, delivery boys and started stocking exotic leaves and mushrooms. This little cart and its grouchy owner saved us from starvation on rainy days and on broke days at the end of the month and on days when a culinary crisis would have brewed minus that one particular vegetable that I desperately needed and had forgotten to buy for the latest exotic recipe. 

And he always sold me the plumpest, reddest and freshest tomatoes.

'Keep Truckin - like the Doodah Man'

A never-ending stretch of asphalt and the growl of an overloaded truck with a Haryana number plate and a witty saying to avert the evil eye fills up the mid morning air in March. Dappled with sun, infused with diesel fumes, this is an ordinary day on the NH1 in Haryana. Yet, if you turn your head for a split second, right off this busy highway there is a sea of yellow filling up the once empty acres of brown earth. Bobbing their heads merrily in the light morning breeze, the mustard flowers are a herald of change. Right by these fields of yellow gold stands a colourful canopy with a few tables with cheap laminates. 

Weaving his way through a sea of bright red plastic chairs is a little boy who cajoles every passerby with a wave. He tempts with his little plate of wonders. Piled high with fat, freshly baked parathas with a big dollops of white butter or a spicy plate of rajma chawal or even a simple dal-sabzi-roti this is sin in a stainless steel thali. 

White, brown and cream  roundels of just-baked unleavened breads stuffed with generous helpings of fresh white radish, greens and white cauliflower florets, and a medley of leafy treats and little coin sized servings of spicy, orange pickle. 

These are the predominant colours of spring for a truck driver or businessman doing the familiar circuit down the NH1.

Haryana in spring is like a mischievous bride who is somewhere in between puberty-inspired awkwardness and dazzling beauty. There is the proverbial spring in the step as visitors, locals, friends and foes bounce from one charpoy to the next...

Driving down the highway in Haryana, one learns to eagerly wait for these dhabas with their freshly made rustic fare served in without any fanfare under dusty umbrellas and fringed by acres of mustard. The whole scene could be a set piece out of a glorious Bollywood romance. A dhaba in Haryana is her gift to overworked truck drivers, young holidaymakers, enthusiastic Enfield biker gangs and adventurous city folk alike.

Interstate travellers on NH1 stop for a stretch, fresh air, potty breaks and the glorious parathas. One of the first pit stops for highway crawlers is Murthal. Barely 50 kms out of Delhi, this little town in the Sonipat district of Haryana has seen a fair bit of development due to its location right by the highway. Its claim to fame however is its beribboned and streamer festooned dhaba. There is a dhaba nearly every 100m the moment one steps into the Murthal stretch and this particular culture has extracted the town from its anaemic existence and given it shot of pizzazz...akin to the tiny servings of red onion juliennes doused in red chilli powder and lime juice that transform a simple meal of dal-chawal.

Though primarily vegetarian, some of these eateries will serve tandoori chicken to go with layered parathas and dal tadka. Early to mid March is a lovely time to visit as the weather is perfect for a leisurely afternoon meal on a charpoy. Spring time veggies and greens just make the experience more enjoyable. Homemade  butter comes as a side order with anything that you order here. Don't forget to order the spicy bathua raita (a Haryanvi specialty made with curd, bathua saag or pigweed and dried spices) that will send oodles of pleasure to every nerve fibre on your tongue. 

Further along the NH1, many cheerful establishments just  pop up on either side of the road and sometimes pass by in a blur of colour as your speedometer registers a 100kmph and the milestone reads Panipat - 1 km. Tinny sounds from the radio play herald and a string of  light bulbs twinkle like a minor constellation. These are the sights and sounds that welcome you to Panipat. The dhaba land of Panipat is distinguished by a new sign. Pachranga is to Panipat nearly what the first, second and third battles of the selfsame Panipat are to the annals of Indian history.

This local pickle manufacturer has built its brand for nearly a century and has carried rich aroma of its pickles and chutneys to every corner of India and abroad. A special seasonal favourite is the carrot, cauliflower and turnip pickle that is matured in the sun through the winter months and is ready for the first taste with the end of the cold season. From the ubiquitous mango, lime and chilli to the more exotic lotus stem pickle, Pachranga pickles are available at nearly every grocery shop and dhaba in Haryana. Those merely passing through can buy bottles of this divine concoction at the numerous makeshift tents and roadside stalls. Bring a bottle of Pachranga pickle home and watch your end-of-the-day, five-minute meal transform into a tingling feast for the taste buds.

Continue driving down the long snaking artery through Haryana’s heart and you will reach the town of Karnal.
Famous for its dairy research centres ( yes they actually study milk and its varied produce), the undisputed cereal queen or Basmati rice and Liberty Shoes (remember its cute, retro-pop advertising?), this town is recommended for your sweet tooth. 
From ghee-soaked and piping hot jalebis to the much lauded rewri and gajjak. These peculiar too-sweet molasses and sesame seed concoction are oddballs in my sweetmeat heaven. Yet, they seem to be incredibly popular around these parts. 
Big piles of these sweets dominate every glass-fronted, fly-encrusted sweet shop in this town. 
Around Basant Panchami or the spring festival, there is a new entrant on the scene. 
Like the Coldplay song, like a surly teen's jaundiced vision, every thing is yellow around this time, around these parts. Mithe chawal (a traditional delicacy prepared with rice, dried fruits, nuts and saffron) is a confection in yellow, eaten by people dressed in yellow sitting by fields aglow in yellow. 

As the NH1 passes through the age old district of Kurukshetra, the pre Cable TV, Sunday morning 9 o clock ritual comes to mind. Doordarsan gave us Ravi Chopra's magnum opus called Mahabharata and as you drive through the forlorn streets of Kurukshetra, fuelled by an empty stomach and hyperactive imagination, you can feel yourself ducking magical arrows with multicoloured sparks. And shocking a placid cow with your acrobatics.
Notable because of its Mahabharata connection, Kurukshetra is a religious hub and a picturesque rural retreat. Jyotisar which is a short detour off the NH1 is a lovely spot where Krishna delivered the Bhagwad Gita. This is also a good pitstop if your hungry stomach is playing tricks on your mind. Their simple and hearty Makki di Roti and Sarson da Saag will not disappoint in all its buttery effusion.

Now just before the highway enters Punjab, the land of five rivers and Fish Amritsari and the real Tandoori Chicken, a  largish industrial town materializes from the fug. Ambala, a genteel town with rough edges is part colonial, part Punjabi, part Haryanvi and all chaos and colour. This major railroad junction and army/air force base is a repository of different types of cuisine and celebrations. The spring breeze tied to a kite string flies from roof to roof spreading warmth and joy in every passerby's heart. 

Moving up from the heart towards the gullet that is, one must take a detour off the NH1 into the Halwai  bazaar or sweetmaker's market. One of the interesting things about halwais are that they are versatile and try their hand at delicious savoury treats like pakoras, kachoris and the lovely chaats glutting you with multiple sensory experiences till you are ready to swoon. 

This particular bazaar is a collection of halwai shops, reeking of the pungent aromas of spicy dipping sauces,  the oily perfume of onion fritters and the gently tantalizing whiff of sweet ghee and molasses. You cannot return without having dipped your chops into the golgappas with seven types of flavoured water and bhalla chaat ( a sweet and sour symphony in curd, mint, tamarind and lentil dumplings. 

Strangely bereft of meat, this road trip can wind up or down at the meat lover's Mecca - Puran Singh ka Mashhoor Dhaba. Strangely enough the success of the original spawned many clones and all of them mushroomed around the same spot. 

Arm your nose with a Holmesian instinct and walk around from one Puran Singh Dhaba to the next, sampling its tender mutton curry till you find your personal favourite. 

With this last stop, the NH1 enters Punjab. Our well-sated trucker has eaten his fill. He has stopped for a customary pee in the mustard fields, he has heard his old battered CD of Dilwalein Dulhaniyan Le Jayenge on loop and revelled in the clean spring air.

Now its time to return to the highway again.

(A more journalistic version of this piece appeared in the Jan-Feb issue of India Today Travel Plus)

Kerala Redux

And after this I will shut the doors to this particular kitchen...at least until my next journey to this magical land.

Once upon a time in Kerala

My story stood peeking around a corner.

It waited on tiptoes behind the curtains, waiting for an audience

It hid in dark rooms, waiting to be rescued

And it crept through long corridors on stormy nights

To ambush me
And you.

It is a story of a God that resides in coconut trees

And is sometimes benevolent and sometimes not.

It is a story of a fisherman's song

That matches the ebb and flow of the tides.

It is a story of men with red and green faces whose dance

Chases away hobgoblins.

It is a story of food that makes you weep

With its aroma of love, loss and longing.

It is a story of food that makes you love

With the memories that it evokes.

It is a story of a thousand tinkling laughs in a thousand glass bottles.

It is a story often meandering, and often tall,

Dear reader, do not judge me, for I might just trip and fall.

A strange three-headed monster on certain full moon nights

And a lesser god on the other days of the year
This tree gave birth to a hundred coconuts

That went forth and conquered the world.

And one fine day,

A hundred coconuts dropped all at once and were scattered over the land.

Riven from the sheltered boughs and protective fronds.

These orphan spheres appeared on the horizon
Like a hundred fallen moons from some distant galaxy,

The hundred coconuts came of age under the sun and by the sea.
The hundred coconuts oozed their sweet milk over the land.
The hundred coconuts nourished the daughters of the soil with their succulent meat.
The hundred coconuts were transformed into the mysterious quintessence

Of fish curries, pot roasts, avials, and custards.

The hundred coconuts cracked open

to reveal a glimpse of a colonized world of the future. 
Of kitchens in thrall of this alien fruit
Of cooks offering deep obeisance to this grand oval of green
Of mothers using the hard brown nut.
As a charm against all evil.
Of little children sucking the last drop of sweet coconut water

Through neon-green plastic pipes.
Of big corporations marketing its coconut products

To divas with Gucci sunglasses perched on their delicately powdered noses

Carrying retro jute bags and eating organic tofu.

The hundred coconuts changed the destinies of men.

The hundred coconuts created food fit for kings

The hundred coconuts desiccated the swamps and turned them into plantations

The hundred coconuts became signifiers of health, wealth and prosperity

And many years later

The hundred coconuts blew away in a gale

Leaving behind a seed of doubt and possibility

In the minds of men who had lived through these times.

Many moons passed

And many a child grew into the pink of youth
In the midst of political turbulence
And economic upheavals.

Young men left the land in search of greener pastures 
In the desert land across the world.
They built double-storey homes with pink walls and bathroom tiles 
Perched precariously on their picturesque village greens.

They came home two weeks in a year,
An army of haggard men,
An army of bent men
An army of hollow men
Lugging their broken spirits and slipped discs along with the new 21-inch colour tvs.

The coconut crops had been failing
The water wasn't as sweet anymore.
The people forgot the lesser gods
Who presided over domestic corners. 
An amnesiac race poured gallons of milk 
Over the Creators and Destroyers of the world.

Only a handful of ancient, toothless women would go hunting for a coconut tree
On the hottest summer afternoon of the year.
"We must find him. The God of all our Small Things," they would mutter and hobble away into the distance.


One spring morning, 

A young bride dressed herself in her day-old wedding finery
She tied her vermillion smeared hair 
Into a loose knot
And walked hesitantly
To the bullock cart which would carry her toward adulthood
In a matter of a few hours.


She swayed from side to side 
Her shoulders grazing those of her husband of a few hours.
She shed a silent tear 
Of love, loss and longing 
As the trees and fields of her childhood games
Filtered through the flimsy gold gauze of her wedding veil
Disappeared into the horizon 
With the suddenness of a magic trick.

A random stone 
Crippled the bull
And punctuated the doleful ride
With a much-needed stop.
The swollen-eyed bride peeked out from under her veil 
And looked skywards on a whim.
And a few feet away, she saw it for the first time.
The strange three-headed monster

That was growing out of the soil.

A hundred baby coconuts hung ponderously from its delicate limbs.

The bride looked up in awe forgetting her veil and her husband of a few hours

She simply pointed and muttered a half remembered phrase from her grandmother’s tales,

“This is the God of Small Things. 
He has returned to our land again 

And now we will live happily ever after, she said with a watery smile."