Lockdown and the bare necessities
If you have been a reader of my blog for a while then you would know that I became a big fan of using home made hung curd dips a couple of years back. A positive fallout of my attempt to eat healthier. I used hung curd dip as a substitute for butter, cheese, mayonnaise etc. A part of what I called the #littlejackhornermeals. Hung curd, in case you did not know, is thick curd with the water drained out of curd (dahi) through a sieve.
I stopped making hung curd when the first lockdown was implemented. It was not easy to get packaged curd (which we use) that easily, with going to shops becoming a panic-filled adventure sport and online shopping not working then. We began to buy local processed cheese and butter, which were easier to source and they became the mainstay of our kitchen once again for the first time in years. Yes, we led a life of privilege and I am aware of it.
A whiff of normalcy
It felt so good when I finally made some recently. I made a boiled egg and hung curd dip salad for breakfast. Added toasted sesame, almonds and pistachios to it and then some of the products I had received to sample. There was the Tuticorin sea salt and organic moringa powder from Ishka Farms in it and the cold pressed organic sesame oil from Sow Fresh. The resultant salad was glorious. K had it by itself. I paired mine with the last of the jalapeno olive sourdough from Binal Valand.
Since then hung curd dip has featured often in our breakfasts with cheese, mayonnaise and butter fading out. Little Jack Horner was back in the kitchen! One more vestige of our pre-pandemic life restored.
‘We were on a break.’
I am not sure if you had noticed, but I had taken a break from here during the Christmas week. Why does a freelance writer, who just writes about what he eats everyday on his own blog and social media channels, need a break, you ask? Well I did ask myself that question, even if you did not.
‘Imposter syndrome’ and all you know. Let me explain.
One of my biggest concerns when the lockdown was first implemented was that I should not feel lost and rudderless. I knew that commissioned work would be scarce in the times ahead. I had seen how protracted idleness…what we knew as the ‘devil’s workshop’ when we were kids… could mess one up mentally. I had been in there a few years back when I made the transition from being a corporate market researcher to a freelance food writer. I was in no hurry to revisit those dark days.
I furiously created self-initiated content through vlogs, blog posts, youtube cooking videos, podcasts, zoom interviews, Instagram lives; keeping myself busy through the lockdown where commissioned work was few and far between.
Full house
I was not alone at home during this period. K was working from home and with me, the Kitty Ks too and we were snug and safe at home. We had friends and neighbours who looked out for us. We had food on our table. Usually very good food. We had our finances in control and a roof over our head. Our family members were safe. Including elders who stayed by themselves and for whom we were very concerned. Yes, we had many, many reasons to count our blessings.
I must admit that at a personal level 2020 is not the worst year that I have had in my life and I feel thankful for that.
Brain- freeze
I began to a feel a sense of fatigue as the months progressed, mental and physical both. Fatigue from writing, podcasting, shooting, editing, publishing, sharing. Yet, I did not want to stop. There were two reasons for that.
The ‘imposter syndrome’ as I mentioned earlier. When a bulk of what one does is self publishing, one does ponder about the substance and significance of it all.
Secondly, I enjoyed what I was doing to be honest and saw no reason to stop. There was never a shortage of ‘content.’ I wrote about what I ate and I did eat everyday. Many times to be precise. Since it was self published, I did not have to convince someone else to accept my work. It was all me. For good or for bad. So I kept sharing.
Do less
The need to take a break was impressed upon me by our yoga teacher in the online course for back pain that I took from the Sivananda Institute. Slow down, said the Namita ji. Do less. Don’t keep running all the time. Take some time to do things that you enjoy.
I started by first switching off social media apps on my phone on two successive Sundays in December. That felt good! Then I decided to take a Christmas break the way that K and her colleagues had decided to in their office. They had been working very hard through the lockdown and the idea was to stay away from work in the days between Christmas and the weekend after the first of January.
What would a ‘break’ mean for me? I did not have any clients or bosses to answer to after all.
Stay logged out of social media apps for large parts of the day, I told myself. Do not write even if you want to and feel that you have the time to do so. Do not shoot, edit and share videos and podcast.
This is how I had defined the scope of the ‘break’ and I stuck to it. For the first time in 23 odd weeks, I did not even do a #foodocracyforher interview. My weekly show on women entrepreneurs in F&B.
I felt that I was the better for it at the end of it all.
Reclaiming our lives
What did we do during the break?
We lived a version of our old lives. With masks on, sanitisers clasped in our hands.
We went to neighbourhood cafes for breakfast… and for dinner.
Seems too mundane? Not really!
Home away from home
Going out for ‘leisure’ after being indoors and under siege for 9 months was quite the Covid landmark for us. As someone else I spoke to later said and I agree said, it is the first step outside that is the toughest. In both our cases, it was hotel stays that helped us.
For K and me it was our staycation at the ITC Maratha Hotel in early December. An obvious choice for our first staycation post the pandemic. This is the hotel in which we have done most of our staycations so far. A place where we know many of the staff and knew we would be taken good care of. We let K’s birthday pass and then our anniversary, before we mustered courage to check in for a two night stay at the Maratha.
They sent a sanitised car (a rather posh Audi with a sunroof which reminded me of my dad’s Audi with a sunroof when I was a kid in Iran) for pick up and drop. Priyanka Jacob from Richa Sharma’s marcomm team told us that we had got upgraded to a deluxe suite as this was our first outing in ten months. This gave us a lovely sense of space with Divyanshu, our butler, as our first point of contact. We had a ‘meals included’ package and they also have interesting meal credit packages versus room rates which make for good value. Our first meal was in the room and at night we went to the Peshawari. Our first restaurant meal since the lockdown! We were a bit tense at the start, but the hygiene measures in force (contact-less check in and in the restaurants, paper bag sealed crockery, glass partitions at the table, staff serving food on a board from a distance) coupled with warm and familiar faces under the masks, made us feel at ease. Emboldened, we had breakfast at the Peshwa Pavilion the next two days and had dinner at the Dum Pukht the next night and got pedicures, head massages, hair cuts (for me) and blow dry (for K) at Kaya Kalp (spa services were curtailed in keeping with government norms).
We enjoyed a series of our favourite dishes at the hotel with chefs Mayank Agarwal, Nikhil Merchant and Liang and their teams serving us dishes that one had dreamt off during the lockdown but had no access to: double fried Beijing pork, soya poached sauce cod and mixed meat fried rice from Pan Asian (at request and served in our room though they have a limited menu at Peshwa Pavilion), perfect eggs Benedict (my first since the lockdown), vada pav (ditto), pohe, puri bhaaji and kande bhaji for breakfast at the Peshwa Pavilion after some healthy muesli and ragi pancakes, dal bukhara and barrah kebab and butter roti at Peshawari, kakori kebab, mashkali dal and my favourite Awadhi mutton biryani at Dum Pukht, grilled pomfret for K (which she repeated) and a delectable dark chocolate creme from Fabelle.
My mom in law had come over to look after Loaf and Nimki while we were away. This was the first time that we had left them at home and were anxious about that too. Our neighbours Erika and Gia came to check in on them too. Our cook, Banu, told me that Nimki was fine but Loaf was moping and refused to eat and later Nimki became quiet too. That was the sad part of the trip.
We recently went back to the ITC Grand Central Hotel for the first time after the lockdown and enjoyed the seafood festival on at the Shanghai Club there. It was nice bumping into chefs Paul Noronha, Mohammed Shareef and Swanand again and Atika from marcomm.
Bandrawallas
The hotel outing made us a bit more confident and we masked up and went to Candies a few times for breakfast since then, enjoying the chicken sandwiches and cappuccinos and I once even made myself a Goan mutton chop sandwich there. Another old favourite haunt that we went to, again after ten months, was Salt Water Cafe. First on invite to try chef Gresham’s lovely Christmas fare and then for breakfast by ourselves for eggs benedict for moi and creamy scrambled eggs for K and Dope coffee cappuccino. It was so good to see familiar faces and smiles (Sylvia, the security lady, the aunty at the cash counter at Candies, Farman and Patil and the wait staff at SWC and chef Gresham of course). They had kept adequate social distancing among tables at both places (the delivery counter at Candies does get a bit crowded at times), the staff in both places wore masks properly, sanitisers were around. My takeaway was that the staff at the F&B establishments are doing their best. Now we customers need to respond by doing the same. K and I wear our masks even when at our tables when we go out, taking them off only when we eat.
We visited some of new ‘bakeries/ cum cafes’ that have opened in Bandra. On Christmas morning we went to Suzette Bakery as Candies was too crowded. Had the excellent cappuccino (KC Roasters beans) and liver pate rye bread sandwich there and called in for the avocado toast from its sister and neighbour, Kitchen Garden by Suzette. We went back a few evenings later for the avocado toast at Kitchen Garden. We loved the thick slices of avo that they add on the sourdough toast there. The place is small but they ensure social distancing. Familiarity bred much needed comfort in these cases.
We walked down one morning to Subko, the new Bandra sensation. They had opened 3 days before the first lockdown was announced in India, held their ground, opened once things were relaxed and have grown since. We got to try the lovely cappuccino there (mix of beans from Karnataka and Kerala), chicken quiche with Meghalaya sesame and the Kashmiri walnut cookie with chocolate from Kerala. We had earlier tried their cold brew tart at home and that was beautiful too. Got to meet to Rahul Reddy, the owner, on our way out and learnt about how they are sourcing products from across India to showcase here. The place was packed but we kept our masks on till we ate and the only scary moment was when a couple came and sat beside us in chairs kept blocked earlier.
When we were not eating
What else? We did a few vet visits to Happy Tails with the boys, first to meet Dr Nicole for a check up and then later to get Nimki neutered. Went to Vijay Sales and bought a cool, new fridge. Everyone was masked at both places. As they were at Jean Claude Biguine where K and I went for a pedicure one evening.
We did not move out of Bandra in order to avoid using public transport/ cabs, though we had hired a driver from Driver Suvidha for the vet visits. He was masked.
Oh and yes, I went to Hush Puppies and Nike before the Nasik trip, and bought much needed sneakers and sandals. My existing ones were tattered by then.
Road trip to wine country
I did an outstation trip too! Not a vacation, but a work trip which I said yes to after vacillating for 4 months about it.
I went to Nasik to record my workshops on brand building for home chefs with Nidhi Agarwal’s Bookaworkshop.in. There was no flight involved. She had sent her own car for the travel. I stopped at a food court for a Mc Donald’s burger and a Starbucks cappuccino on the way. Feeling more alert and cautious than I ever did on the roads.
I stayed at the spanking new Marriott Courtyard at Nasik. I did not move around in the city and we shot in her office and I managed to come back a day early as the work went off smoothly. This was my first trip since the lockdown and first time away from K and the boys (barring the staycation) and I was happy to be back soon.
Winter turns to spring
It has been good getting our lives back. Things are not normal yet of course. We are particular to take safety measures. Glad to see that the staff in most commercial establishments that we went to did the same.
The customers? Not always so. That is where we can be a lot more responsible I feel.
One more thing. Please do what you feel comfortable with when it comes to going out. Do not feel overwhelmed or under pressure based on what you see or hear from others, including what you read here, to step out. It is your life and no-one can tell you how to live it.
Take care and have a year full of hope and victory.
To 2021
PS: How did we bring in the new year you ask?
Our friend Shaswati called K and me home and cooked up a storm – caprese salad, mackerel and tomato salsa crostini, beer battered fish and chip, parmesan topped aubergine and shrimp bake – on 31st night.
I made prawn chilli fry for lunch on the first for K and me. This dish became a part of happy occasions at home during the pandemic once Poonam started delivering fish again. I made kasundi pomfret for dinner when our friend Kurush called up and said he was coming over for dinner. I made bacon spaghetti pesto as per his request and honey kasundi chicken wings. His wife Rhea had brought over her amazing Katy’s Christmas pudding and invited Shaswati to join us for the same. The five us had brought in the new year together the previous year at our place (I had made slow cooked pork chops then) and then the world changed.
Time to set things right this year!
We also went for a lovely dinner at the Bandra Gymkhana as guests of our neighbours and friends, Erika and Gia, who have had our and our cats’ backs during the pandemic.
Frozen in time:
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| Peshawari |
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| Peshawari |
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| My new friends in Nasik |
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| Peshawari |
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| With Gia and Erika on Christmas at home |
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| First Candies visit |
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| ITC Grand Central with Atika Singhal and Chefs Paul Noronha, Mohammed Shareef and Swanand |
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| Peshwa Pavilion breakfast |
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| With Chef Mayank Kulshreshtha |
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| With Priyanka Jacob |
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| With Divyanshu Mishra |
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| Fabelle |
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| with Chef Nikhil Merchant |
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| With Atul Bhalla at ITC maratha |
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| At Courtyard Marriott Nasik. That’s Nidhi in the centre |
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| Perima’s Kitchen spread. One of the many home chef meals we enjoyed |
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| Salt Water Cafe with chef Gresham, Farman and team |
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| With Shaswati at Suzette |
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| With the KittyKarmakars |
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| Subko cappuccino is K approved |
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| Rhea with Katy’s Christmas Pudding |
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| Bukhara |
Curiously enough, I wrote about the need to take a break in 2019 too. That was then we checked into the ITC Maratha on our anniversary. You can read about that here.
Link to register to my bookawarkshop.in course for home chefs.
Videos:
Candies
Nasik with Bookaworkshop.in
Salt Water Cafe:
Amazing post.