The begun bhaaja that I made at the last moment to salvage my lunch yesterday What is begun bhaaja? Read on… |
- Why do I eat late lunches and an insight into my life as a freelance writer
- Two things that I love about working from home
- Some things that I don’t and which explain why I go to a cafe to work from every day instead of doing so at home
- Why do I eat more vegetarian dishes than before
- What is the Bengali dish, begun bhaaja all about. How to make it
- Stories from my home starring my mother in law who visits us on weekends and our cook Banu
- A reference to some other Bengali dishes made with brinjal
I like to finish everything on my plate and then take a shower and have lunch. It’s usually around 3 pm by the time this happens. If I am hungry before that I pop in a few almonds or walnuts or pistachios from the kitchen and continue what I am doing without stopping.
Post lunch, I sit on the easy chair in the hall and write a longish Instagram post about what I ate that day.
It’s yoga or a walk after that, a spot of chanting after that, and then its time to think about dinner, if I haven’t already.
Dinner is pretty late too much to good old Mohit’s chagrin but more on that some other day.
I do feel that eating an increasing number of home cooked meals has led to people telling me that they think that I have slimmed down a bit.
Wait, Finely chopped and vegetarian lunches?
Though, to people who DM me or leave comments on my post extolling the moral values of vegetarianism, my response is to say, ‘I don’t lecture you on what to eat, so please don’t do so to me.’ If they still do, I block them with the ferocity of The Hound (a GOT reference).
Contrast this to my office days when I would take lunch cooked the previous day or subscribe to veg dabbas and eat it at my desk or dreary canteens. This explains the sense of gratitude that I feel when I sit down for lunch these days.
An example of my post lunch Instagram posts. This is from today ant talks about the merits of having freshly cooked baigan. You will get the link to this at the end of the post |
It takes a lot to motivate oneself specially if you don’t have deadlines to adhere too or a monthly salary to look forward to.
Why? Because I love to write and feel uncomfortable when I don’t do so for long. So what if this is not for an assignment or on a trending topic or a list of new openings or cocktails which will get more views for my blog and hopefully sponsorships in its wake?
My mother told me last night that she feels the same about blogging and that it is the cornerstone of her life today. Now you know where I get this addiction to writing from.
I cracked a new strategy while writing this post. I wrote it on the phone in the bed. Later, when better, I mailed it to myself, sat at my desk and worked on the laptop to edit and post it.
There was a time when the solitude of an empty home during the day would get to me too. That was unnerving after spending 15 years in office cubicles. Thankfully I have got used to my new life now and the stillness doesn’t bother me any more.
Unlike an empty home, a cafe has noise. Ambient noise as they say. In a cafe, I can ignore the music and the chatter and the screaming and type on. The noise cocoons me in a way.
I get to have a fresh lunch these days because we have finally managed to convince Banu to come to work early. Every situation has two sides though and Banu usually has a million questions for me when I am my desk. Maybe someday I should tell her that I don’t like to be disturbed when i am at my desk as I am working then. Maybe she gets the non-verbals in any case as I just grunt or nod in response.
Sometimes my mom in law is around too as she come over to stay with us on weekends. She takes care of things then and we put up our feet and relax. She loves to talk too. Nothing beats watching television with her. There could be the movie on TV which has its own plot and then there is the discourse that she makes in parallel which has its own plot and is usually more entertaining and creative than what’s happening on screen.
She often gets excited by something she read in the papers or in the whatsapp group or sees it on the telly and wants to tell me about it if she sees me even if my mind is somewhere else.
Both ladies are too important in my life to be labelled as ‘ambient noise’ and ignored. When they talk, I listen. They are my support system after all.
Or I could be calling the YouBroadband guy trying to get the internet to work and suddenly my mom in law will come in and ask me if I have seen Mallishka’s video on potholes.
Yesterday both came to me to know my verdict on what the grocer had sent over as ‘kalo jeera’, and whether it is shah jeera in reality.
Of the cafes I go to work, only Bombay Coffee House has free wifi. And I think Fitness to which I went recently.
Suddenly it felt as if knew what I had to do. Driven by latent memories I sliced a couple of pieces from the brinjal. I smeared slices of brinjal with a light touch of turmeric, salt and red chilli powder. I cut each slice into half moons. Heated a liberal amount of mustard oil in a kadai (wok) and then popped in the brinjal when the oil was hot. I turned the pieces around a couple of times, for them to cook evenly, and they were ready in about 3 or 4 minutes.
The pictures look ghastly as they are from my Instagram Stories. I hadn’t thought of writing this post while frying the brinjal. I was too hungry then. |
The begun bhaaja which made my lunch happy |
What is begun?
Begun, pronounced bae-goon, is Bengali for brinjal. Begun bhaaja (bhaaja is fry) is a favourite item to start to a Bengali meal with, along with the aloo (potato) bhaaja. Brinjal was introduced to India and to Bengal by the Portuguese as journalist Kanchan Gupta reminded me on Twitter. As was the potato without which almost no Bengali dish seems complete today.
Another popular fried sliced brinjal dish in Bengal is the beguni where aubergine slices are dipped in a spiced gramflour or byashon batter and deep fried. This is often eaten with muri or puffed rice as a snack. Then there is the begun pora. A smoked mashed brinjal dish which is lightly spiced, and to which mustard oil and green chillies are added. I find the begun pora of Bengali homes closer to the middle-eastern babaganoush in its demureness than to the more heavier spiced baigan bhartas of north Indian restaurants. Another iconic Bengali brinjal dish is doi begun where sliced brinjals are cooked in a yogurt based sauce. You will find versions of these across eastern India. The Odiyas for one make one too. Now don’t ask me who invented it. The blessed roshogollas have caused enough problems between us!
I lasked Kanchan Gupta about whether I should spell it as begun or begoon and this twitter exchange followed |
Update since when I wrote the first draft of this post:
YouBroadband is working, my back is a bit better and I sat at my desk to edit and post this. Banu made a baigan bhaaji fresh for my lunch today with the remaining brinjal from yesterday.
If you spot typos please tell me so that I can correct them. I have spotted many each time I sat to edit it!
- Link to my Instagram post from today. I do hope you follow me on Instagram as I write many mini-stories there
- A post I had written a while back on how I make begun pora. This is from before I began to use mustard oil at home. I recently met a young Gujarati lady in Candies who came up to me and told me that she read this post when she was in Botswana or some place in Africa doing relief work and that she had loved it.
- A post which has my recipe for making a layered brinjal salad with hung curd. I first made this for the lone vegetarian at a party at home. It became a hit since then among vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike.
- Link to my mother’s blog, Tabulous Mom. She lives to write too and readership stats and comments drive her.