K & I went to Gallups, Mumbai, for dinner on our first Valentine’s Day dinner as a couple. That was 20 years back. Our mobile phones did not have cameras then. Apple just made Macs. I did not have a blog. Instagram was yet to be invented. Big Sam got chocolate sauce all over him. He sat quietly on the chair beside us. K & I got married a few months later. We now have two cats.
14th February 2021 (notes from @thefinelychopped on Instagram)
‘Of all the breakfasts K has made me, egg rolls are my favourite,’ said our young friend Gia to K once. G had gifted a chocolate for my mom in law yesterday before she (MIL) left for home, and more for the two of us at midnight, for V day.
Knowing that there were four parathas made by B anu in the fridge from yesterday, I made Kolkata egg rolls for G and me, and one egg roll without paratha (stuffed with sliced onions and chillies and chaat masala) for K, this morning.
We’ve never really had neighbours we were close to in all my years in Mumbai. Two kitties and the lockdown changed that.
That’s the closest I could come to a #valentinesday story. SEO friendly or not.
It was only after we got married that I had begun cooking in earnest. In the verandah converted into a kitchen in the tiny apartment in Khar that we had then rented.
Eating out every night together, before we exchanged vows in front of the rather nirosh (dour) marriage court officer in south Mumbai, had left us too broke to eat out in the months that followed.
I remember reading Valentine’s Day articles back then saying how men could surprise their loved ones by cooking something on the day. ‘Opportunity lost,’ I’d wryly tell myself.
Close to 20 years later, I hadn’t bought a gift I confess and K said she’d rather eat at home than pile on the calories outside.
I took the opportunity to rustle up a pabda machher jhol for the occasion. Though she is Parsi and I am Bengali, she loves Bengali fish curries more than I do after getting to know them through me.
I added brinjals instead of alu for we are adulting now. The tomatoes added a touch of red as apt for the day!
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