Finely Chopped Breakfasts |
Few things give me more pleasure than making and having a good breakfast and then not getting up from the table till I tell you its story.
The first person in K’s family that I met after we ‘got serious’ was Jamshed uncle. Technically he was not family. Not connected by bloodlines. Though K said that if you dug deeper, you’d discover that all Parsis are related. ‘Cousins’ as she’d jokingly say. J was a friend of K’s friend’s father and soon became a sort of guardian angel to her and her friends from her college days. He was particularly close to K. Which is why she felt that telling him about us first and my meeting him would be good ‘net practise’ before I actually met the parents.
We finally met at the Royal Bombay Yacht Club. The first of the million dinners that he hosted us to at RBYC. And the odd lunch as well. Jamshed Adrianvala, polite to a fault and someone who tended to be a bit reserved when he first met someone, took me under his wings the moment I entered the club and gave us the boost of confidence that we needed.
Agent J, as we later called him, had many quirks. One was to not waste even a single scrap of paper. Which meant that he retained the receipts of every meal at the club. Of the first time he hosted K there. The first time the three of us met. Of the many more times that we did so. At times with our friends and family who mattered to him because they mattered to us.
I am pretty sure that if you found the bill from we first met, then you would see eggs Kejriwal feature in it. Ham sandwiches too. With club ham. And extra mustard. Some of our other must orders at RBYC were chilli cheese toast, lobster Thermidor, prawn chilli fry and fried rice. He later introduced us to devilled eggs and would order a bucket of them whenever we met. For J was a generous host. He would order not twice, but at least thrice of what you could eat, and then separately more for you to pack and take home. And he would remember what each person liked. They don’t make them like him anymore.
He once read a post of mine where K and I had gone to a cafe in Bandra and our breakfasts weren’t served at the same time. ‘Food should reach all diners at the same time. It’s socially awkward otherwise,’ I thundered as I Finely Chopped the cafe. From then on, J would always wait till K and I reached before allowing the food to be brought to the table. This was rather embarrassing when we would meet him along with a group of K’s Parsi friends from college. J would reach the club before time. Our friends, south Bombayites, would reach on time. Like SRK, our fellow Bandra’ite, we would always be late. The poor souls would be served only after we reached. They were too Parsi to scowl despite this.
J loved eggs. When he got cancer the second time and knew that his time was up, J made it a point to share some of his life’s lessons with K and me when he fought the limits of his ailing body to meet us at RBYC for dinner.
One of which was, ‘have plenty of eggs dikra and dikri. That’s the secret to good health.’
I smiled wryly as the egg I fried this morning came out perfectly. There were a few occasions when J had come to our house for breakfast. All he wanted was fried eggs and toast. And two cappuccinoes from Gloria Jeans (which K had introduced him to). I would make a batch of fried eggs and I am mortified to say that each would be more dismembered than the other. He never raised an eyebrow on seeing them. He would munch on looking content. A bachelor, happy to be with his honorary grandchildren.
I made an ‘eggs Kejriwal burger’ today. Slivers of matured English cheddar slipped in between a toasted burger bun. A fried egg placed daintily in it. Bejewelled with some sea salt and finely chopped green chillies. Turned out well. I wish I could have shared it with J. I gave K a bite. Nothing would have made him smile more than his seeing the smile that followed.
Eggs Kejriwal Burger |
The original RBYC eggs Kejriwal consists of a slice of toast. Covered with a slice of processed cheese and then a fried egg. Cut into cubes with toothpicks speared in. Finely chopped green chillies on the side of the plate. Used to be white bread earlier till they switched to multigrain unfortunately.
I have had many reinterpretations of eggs Kejriwal introduced by chefs of trendy restaurants in recent years. None gave me the same joy. Nice dishes often, but no Kejriwal for sure.
I was invited to tea at the Willingdon Club, where the eggs Kejriwal is said to have been invented, by Kunal Vijayakar once. I asked for the Kejriwal. The same construct as at RBYC and I must admit that technically it was better.
Incidentally, Kunal was one of our many friends whom J hosted at RBYC along with us.