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| Breakfast today. Fried eggs. What I had once known as ‘poached eggs’! |
The first time that I had a fried egg in my life was possibly in 1980 or 1981. Just after we had moved into Kolkata from Iran.
This was at lunch one day. My mother had cooked my lunch as she always would and then my thakuma (paternal grandmother), who is now no more, came out with a plate from her kitchen and said, ‘this is deemer poach‘ (in Bengali).
I loved it so much, specially the bit where the yolk blended into the fried egg white, that I asked for a second one and polished that off too.
I was, and still am a very fussy eater. I loved, and still love anything fried.
Thakuma obliged and then smilingly told me about how my father and his five siblings would have to share one such fried egg together when they were kids as funds at home were tight then. Chubby little me listened agog in wonder.
The year 2001 one was when K and I had rented an apartment in Mumbai. This was my first home in the city and I had lived in a PG before this. There was a short period during where I lived by myself in this apartment before we got married and then K moved in too.
Our kitchen there, which was just a veranda pretending to be one, was not really equipped at the start. We had an electric stove which my mother in law gave me to use till we got a LPG connection. It was a sort of hot plate.
On that, I would set an egg to fry on a pan every morning, and some sausages and bacon too (oh to be be in ones 20s again), and let it all cook while I got ready for work; and would then gobble it up before I left.
I would make this combination at times for K on weekends after we got married. We had a proper gas connection by then. We had began to build our kitchen together saucepan by saucepan, spoon by spoon.
The fried eggs eggs for her would have to be made in butter as that is how she had grown up eating them. Or, in ghee!
I could imagine the look on my cholesterol fearing mother’s face if she heard of this.
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| The day I began writing The Travelling Belly at Candies in 2013. The picture still remains my Twitter profile pic. |
I began writing my book,The Travelling Belly, in 2013. I had just moved out of a full time corporate job then.
Seeing how restless I felt working alone at home, K suggested that I go to a cafe to write. That is how I began going to Candies every morning. Typing away after I had finished off a plate of fried eggs along with lavishly buttered toast, a hot cup of cappuccino giving me company.
It is 2019 now. I made myself a plate of fried eggs after ages this morning to have with some sourdough on the side. And mushrooms with balsamic and truffle oil, some for me and the rest, with toasted walnuts, for K’s lunch at work. I have a shoot to go to tonight for a project I am really looking forward to.
As I sat down for breakfast I marvelled at the number of stories that a simple plate of fried eggs could hold. Well, not so ‘simple.’ I did add a couple of drops of truffle oil on it and made it in olive oil too.
I do miss my bacon days though.
Wait, I did have a lovely plate of bacon on Saturday morning at a cafe. Yes, gratitude is important. There were two eggs on my plate today. One was in memory of my dad. K had a couple of bites of it before leaving for work.
Thanks to being married to a Parsi, I now know that ‘poached eggs’ and ‘fried eggs’ are not the same.
Since you are here:
2. The story of how going to Candies for a plate for fried eggs helped me get back my life on track again
3. A post that I had written on my father and on my memories of him. This was in 2008. A year after I had begun writing the blog.
3. A post that I had written on my father and on my memories of him. This was in 2008. A year after I had begun writing the blog.
