I attended a lovely online food photography workshop conducted by Vernika & Souvik of Delectable Reveries last Saturday. I went into the kitchen to experiment with my iPhone to experiment the next day and then, since it was a week from my birthday, I decided to do a series of nostalgic posts on Instagram. K initiated a bit of a spring cleaning of our book shelf on Monday and so I decided to use books from past as props in the pictures. Characters in the stories.
We are off to Goa tomorrow to bring in my birthday as I have often done in the past. Our first out of town break since the lockdown and something we are anxious about and yet looking forward to.
Before leaving, I thought I will go to Instagram and collate those posts and put it here as the memory of the thoughts going on in my head in my last week as a 46 year old. Hope you like them.
Tuesday: French toast
It’s my birthday week and the time for some nostalgia.
Breakfast at home in Mumbai today took me to the Kolkata of my teens.
Of weekend mornings spent with Moley, Ollie, Bertie, Spikey, Bond and Roald Da (pun intended), Fleming, Lawrence, Murdoch (Iris not Rupert) Maupassant and Maugham. Boi’er poka, or book worm, as they say.
No, not luchi alur dom, koraishootir kochuri ghoogni.
Breakfast in my mom’s kitchen would be (savoury) French toast ot omelette and toast. That’s a ‘traditional Bengali breakfast’ for me, for nostalgia is a very personal sauce. Ketchup and kasundi add to the joy.
Tuesday Mumbaiyya machhi
And then came Mumbai, the Maximum City.
The city of Shantaram, Moraes Zogoiby and Bhiku Mhatre.
The city of hara chutney, patra ni machhi, paaplet/ chhamna, kolmi/ jhinga, surmai, bangda, mandeli, sol kadi and jowar and bajra bhaakri.
The city of the ‘mysterious’ K,
who loves her pomfret as much as she now loves her pabda and parshe.
The city of a kitty named Nimki, who has to be kept in another room when there’s fish on our plates. And his favourite, the legendary #bunkinbanu!
The city I have called home for half my life now!
PS: The faux patra ni machhi was made with pomfret from Poonam of Khar market, smeared with a fresh green chutney of coriander leaves, green chillies, ginger, lime and garlic, put in the air fryer in a foil for 20 min at 200 C with a few drops of coconut oil. There should have been grated coconut and banana leaves (versus baking foil), we had neither at home.
Kindly adjust, as we say in Mumbai.
The jowar bhaakri was made by Banu.
Tuesday Machhed mudo diye dal
Ending with some more of it, as today has been about nostalgia.
A story from my early years in Mumbai, when I began to miss the food that I had grown up on in Kolkata. The sort of fare that I’d not really cherished when I lived in the city. Even spurned at times.
Not just the obvious roll, biryani, phuchka triumvirate, but the more mundane machher jhol, dal bhaat, chorchori and even shukto.
The two dishes I missed the most from my mom’s kitchen were alu posto and machhed mudo diye dal. Dal with fish head.
Then one day I spotted a rohu head at Munna’s shop at Bandra’s Pali Market (before the renovation). I bought that and made machhed mudo diye dal for the first time in my life.
That was the day Mumbai felt like home for the first time for me. 3 or 4 years after I moved in.
K fell in love with this dal too. It became a regular in our kitchen. Was our dinner tonight. 22 years after I moved in for good. Made by our cook Banu, who has picked this up well from me. Posto too. Please use the search field on my blog for the recipe.
The books in the background are an example of the Kolkata/ Bengali centric books that I’d seek out and read in Mumbai to stay connected with the life I’d left behind, while I built a new one.
PS: K purchased the plate online from @bag_of_bong The designs are hand drawn I believe and no two are exactly the same.
Wednesday: Love Infanteria
Ready for some more ‘birthday week’ nostalgia?
Let me tell you about our first Goa monsoon experience. 16 or 17 years back. Baga and Calangute were desolate. The shacks I had told K about were shut. The roads were empty and damp, as were our spirits.
Then she told me about a place called Infanteria that her boss had taken her to during a shoot just before our trip.
We went there for lunch. Ordered an ox tongue roast and fell in love with both the place and the dish and had many happy returns to both.
Last night Baby Loaf & Nimki’s Godmother, Erika, made & brought us a mind blowing roast ox tongue. She’s Goan and had used a green masala.
We had a bit for dinner and kept the rest for breakfast.
I had mine as a ‘memories of Enid Blyton’ tongue sandwich. For K, there was a fried egg. Seasoned with Tuticorin sea salt from Iskha Farms, black pepper which had brought the Portuguese to India in the first place and red chilli powder, for they were the ones who introduced us to chillis.
The books in the background are some of the food travelogues, whose anecdotal and reflective styles inspired me to write, The Travelling Belly, my food travelogue.
Thursday deemer poach
I was 7 & we had just moved into India. I was fussing about what was there for lunch that afternoon. My mom was at her wit’s end.
I liked what she made so much that day, that I asked for another. And another. My grandmom complied and then told me about how my father and his 5 siblings would have to share an entire egg as kids as money was scarce and that I should be thankful for what I have & not bother my mother.
It was almost 30 years later in Mumbai that I learnt that what the grandmoms of Bengal called ‘poach,’ are actually fried eggs!
Soon after I moved into Mumbai, I met a former college mate of mine who introduced me to the late Erma Bombeck’s rather wry world of parenting and you can see some of Bombeck’s books in the background.
I made the fried eggs today in the Sow Fresh sesame oil & added some of the chilli garlic sauce & chilli oil that Hakkasan had sent yesterday and toasted some Baker’s Dozen multigrain bread with mine.
I make my eggs well done because of Bird Flu these days so the yolk holds.
Wednesday: Fried rice
There’s something about a good #friedrice that makes me happy. And my niece and mum too, who are fellow fried rice lovers in the family.
It started with the chicken fried rice my mum would make me when I’d refuse to have plain fried rice as a fussy kid. Then there’s the fried rice, I make myself now when seeking comfort. The mixed meat fried rice at Ling’s Pavilion that talks to my heart. And, as K reminded me during lunch today, the fried rice that I’d pack from Stomach,
Bandra, in a plastic bag and smuggle into my ‘no outside food’ allowed PG in Mumbai when I’d moved into the city two decades back and had a bad day at work. My PG aunty would look the other way. I was like a son to her. She is no more now and I miss her.
Memories sparked off by the “flavoursome truffle (oil) and edamame fried rice sent by Hakkasan, Bandra. A part of their ‘peace, love and sharing’ #ChineseNewYear #hakkasanathome menu from which they sent us a sampling. Our other picks were the lovely chicken wakame puffs, crab dumplings with a tantalising ‘Singapore sauce, very soothing and tender stir fried chicken in lang chin sauce with snow peas and juicy wok tossed prawns in a sweetish pumpkin sauce. Quite the sumptuous lunch! Here’s wishing all #gongheifatchoi in advance.
The tasting was organised by De Tales Communications.
Thursday: Pabda curry
‘All Bengalis love fish.’
False. I didn’t till recently. Specially ‘chhoto maachh.’ Small, bony river fish, had whole.
I learnt from folks in college that the pabda, though a small fish, is quite coveted. I was slightly convinced about this when I saw ‘Mesho,’ the gentleman who ran our office canteen when I was in IMRB Kolkata, serve pabda instead of mutton on a Saturday and be lauded by my bhojon bilashi (epicurean) colleagues for this.
Then I moved to Mumbai and married a Parsi who loves fish and who fell in love with ‘Bengali fish’ including chhoto maachh and the pabda. I love to cook it for her and with time have learnt to eat it myself.
Today I rustled up a very easy to make cheat’s pabda shorsher jhol (mustard curry) using kasundi which she lapped up and which I felt wasn’t bad at all.
PS: As some pointed out, the pabda is not a bony fish.
Friday: The Jamshed
‘Dikra, remember that even any leftover bhaaji from the fridge, put in bread and toasted in the griller tastes great,’ is something our late Jamshed uncle repeated to K and me often in the year he passed on.
Who was Jamshed ‘uncle’?
Not family. Not a friend.
It’s hard to label such unconditional love and I feel thankful to have encountered him through K.
He loved eggs too. I made a boiled egg toastie today with a dash of Ananya Banerjeee’s kasundi and the Licious chicken shawarma dip.
My mom in law has come to the babysit the Kitty Karmakars and I made her a sliced cheese toastie with the last slice of Baker’s Dozen bread left, though she had had an alu paratha paratha breakfast earlier, and added a bit of the Hakkasan chilli oil to it. ‘Oozing with cheese.’ she said with a smile.
Talking of grandmas, Didu had introduced me to alu toast sandwiches in the summer of 1980 in Calcutta using a hand grill she’s brought back from Delhi. She made this for me when I stayed with her a few years back for a precious couple of days.
What’s your toast sandwich story? Or what I call #TheJamshed now. I use a Prestige griller from my #timeskitchentales days for my toasts.
Friday: Love your leftovers
I remember my mom not ‘minding’ using leftovers when I was a kid. She used to say that using leftovers was not a very prevalent practise back then in India but spending a few years abroad and using refrigerators had changed her mindset. Being a working mother while raising my brother and me after my dad passed on, this was very useful to her. A bit of that has influenced me in the shape of my #loveyourleftovers approach to life in the kitchen. Lunch today was rawas marinated in the chilli garlic sauce that Hakkasan had sent and grilled in the air fryer with the fried rice they sent two days back, which I tossed up on the tawa.
The blue plate is one of the last remaining from the set I bought the day Simon Majumdar had come home for dinner and I’d cooked kosha mangsho, alu posto and chingri malai curry. He’s been a mentor for me and has written the foreword of my book, #thetravellingbelly.
Like me, he too was born in the UK and his father too was Bengali and an orthopaedic surgeon. His mum was Welsh and he fondly remembers her ‘life saving dal.’
Friday: The Travelling Belly
I hope you enjoyed the recent ‘run up to birthday nostalgia series’ that I did here. It was sparked off by the food photography class by Vernika & Souvik that I attended last Saturday and the experimenting that I did post that with my phone camera in the kitchen. We began the spring cleaning of our bookcase at home the next day & I started referring to some of the books dear to me in the pics in the #finelychoppedalbum.
Talking of books, how could I not tell you about the memories evoked by the chicken sandwich, tomato and cheese sandwich & Goan fish curry that K had ordered from Candies for my mum in law and me yesterday?
Memories of ‘my desk’ at Candies, our neighbourhood cafe in Bandra, where I went every morning to write the first draft of my book, #TheTravellingBelly. Fuelled by fried eggs and toast and double shot cappuccinos for breakfast. Somewhere down the line I navigated the inner turmoil I’d felt while making the transition from market research to food writing and the sense of purposeless that followed. The new journey began when the book contract from Hatchette came and K suggested that I go to Candies to write and before I realised, I’d slipped into my new life seamlessly and for that, I have all of you my dear readers to thank for indulging me and encouraging me all the way. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 🙏🏽🤗
Me on Instagram
Some bonus Kitty Karmakar pics for you
Some happy news:
