![]() |
The thali that set this post off. The pickle is mango pickle from Old Fashioned Gourmet. Papad is Rambandhu and made in the microwave. Dal, rice and methi by #kayteecooks |
Yesterday I went to my first food event since the covid 19 pandemic hit us. As you might have seen from my feed, we have begun to step out a bit and eaten at restaurants. Visited friends at their houses too. However I have stayed away from food events as one would be a with a group of folks there, with our masks down as we would be eating. I am not sure if one is ready for that. Apart from questioning the very prudence of it.
Can I confess that this suits me fine as I was never much of a socialiser or networker and this has been a convenient excuse to use? Do not quote me on this!
![]() |
With Marina Balakrishnan at the Masque Lab |
I made an exception yesterday as our friend Marina Balakrishnan, AKA as @thatthalasserygirl on Instagram, was doing her first public physical pop up since the pandemic. An Oottupura pop up, which is her home chef brand, in conjunction with Aditi Dugar’s Sage&Saffron catering unit. This was being held at the Masque Lab. We were introduced to Marina by Sanjana Thakkar of La Folie soon after the pandemic began and became big fans of Marina’s home chef Kerala vegetarian ‘Oottupura’ meals subsequently. The opportunity to meet her in person for the first time and to try her food straight from the kitchen, without having to unpack a million boxes was too tempting. Plus there the desire to support someone we admire and who has become a friend over the past few months. Our wavelengths match so much that I consider her to be my soul sister. Or wait, do both parties have to be women to be soul sisters?
I was not disappointed by my decision to step out. The theme of the pop up was ‘Breads of Malabar’ and Marina enthralled us with a well planned chef’s table meal which did not even make one realise the fact that the food was vegetarian and sans onion and garlic. The burst of flavour in each dish, true to what she had learnt in her grandma’s cooking, made the meal a near spiritual experience. The collaboration with Sage&Saffron worked very well as evident in the manner in which the aesthetically plated food came out of the kitchen with clockwork regularity. We were a group of 8 at the table and the room was tall and deep enough to ensure social distancing. Lunch was a happy affair.
In 2013 I was fortunate enough to have been a part of one of Gitika Saikia’s first Assamese food pop ups. This was at the start of the regional Indian home chef movement in Mumbai in which Gitika played a key role. The meal was organised Rhea Mitra Dalal.
Later that year I was also fortunate enough to attend one of Asma Khan’s first large scale Darjeeling Express pop ups at chef Vivek Singh’s Cinnamon Library. Since then she has become one of the most impactful voices on Indian food in the world. She had started as a home chef too. I still dream of the Kolkata biryani that I had that afternoon in the heart of London.
Yesterday, 8 years later, I was fortunate enough to experience Marina Balakrishnan’s first public physical pop up which was done in collaboration with Sage&Saffron. She’s a trained chef who serves us food based on memories of what her grandmother cooked in Thalassery in Kerala when Marina was a child. The sensorial experience offered by each dish yesterday was truly spiritual. This was such poetic food. Delicious too. Pure veg with no onion and garlic or mock meat!
Mark my words, this is the beginning of something great.
I took advantage of the fact that I had hired a driver for the outing and had the car and stopped at our local market on the way back. The idea was to buy a new saucepan after exchanging the old one. I went to the Kamal Steel Emporium, the tiny shop at the start of Pali Market ,where we have gone to for years to buy our utensils. Run by a Gujarati gentleman his two sons. K had bought a supply of kitchen utensils online recently but to be honest that does not work for me. I like to do it the old fashioned way. Purchasing stuff at our local shop. Support small businesses as they say nowadays. I have been doing this before it became a woke trend!
I asked for a copper thali set after I bought the saucepan. Good for Instagram and all that jazz. Turned out that there were not any as wholesalers were not buying them right now as prices are high. ‘After Diwali once prices come down,’ explained pappa and his elder son to me. I then spotted a compartmentalised stainless steel thali (plate) and a rush of memories surrounded me.
![]() |
My Rs 180 plate |
It was probably in 1987, when I was in the 7th standard, that my mom had bought plates like these for us. Or had she exchanged some old clothes with the folks who would give utensils in lieu of a pile of used clothes. My memory is a bit hazy.
‘Less bowls to wash,’ she said. Perhaps our maid was bunking then and mom had to go to work everyday. My 13 years old self found the plate to be the most fascinating thing in the world and I used to love eating from it.
More happy memories. This time of returning home on breaks during 1997 – 2000 after I moved to Mumbai on work. Of ordering the coveted chicken curry plate in the Bombay Howrah mail which would be served in such plates. Made fresh in the train. Way better than the one one got on the Geetanjali Express. There was no Duronto then. Ordering a non-veg thali was a luxury one could afford after working. Before that it was the veg thali as a student.
Some not so happy memories. That of the thali served in my office canteen. Rice pressed on to the plate to ensure it does not fall. A soul-less dal poured on to it. Chunks of cooked tomato and curry leaves lying listlessly on it. A grim sabzi in one compartment. Watery lime pickle in another and a deep fried papar kept balanced on this weary plate. Soggy as the Dadar Flower Market in the rains by the time the plate was thumped on ones table!
![]() |
Work from home canteen lunch |
Thankfully those days are over now and I am a freelancer who works from and eats at home. Earlier cooked by Banu who reaches well after lunchtime. Now by #kayteecooks who comes to work by around 1030 – 1045 am which is often before breakfast time for me! Which she did today and I happily entrusted the duties of making breakfast to her as I woke up feeling a bit of out sorts and had an online meeting to join. She made me an omelette and toast by the time I joined the meeting and that ensured that I was full of beans before I had to talk. I had requested her to make her non-coconut sukha chicken for dinner, methi bhaaji, gobindo bhog rice and my mom’s kalo jeere diye mooshoori dal for lunch.
![]() |
Breakfast by #kayteecooks |
The aromas of methi (fenugreek leaves) which wafted out from the kitchen took me back to an evening in Kolkata, once again in 86,87. It was winter and Mom had brought methi leaves from the Bansdroni market on her way back from work. She gave it to our rannar mashi (cook) to cook. She excitedly told my brother and me about having it in Delhi while growing up. I tried some and loved it so much that I had methi shaak with roti for the next few days as tiffin in school!
Thanks for reading till here and indulging me.
![]() |
Chicken sukha and roti by #kayteecooks. Stuffed karela and chilli by #noorbanucooks |
PS: While going to pop up I saw that the premises of my first office in Mumbai now houses an SBI branch with my agency having shifted to Andheri east. I wonder what happened to the folks who ran the canteen. They did serve a super puri bhaaji on Thursdays. In smaller compartmentalised plates.
PPS: Do you have compartmentalised thali memories? I would love to hear them.
Appendix: Some more pics from Marina’s pop up and the food tasted even better than it looked. I was there as her guest.
And a video:
