You know you are going crazy when you have recurring nightmares of a plump giant chicken squawking away behind you while you squirm around like a worm, trying to hide from its scaly yellow claws. Fortunately for me, this early bird does not end up getting the worm.
You can either get to the food, or let the food get to you. And usually, I would prefer the former. After all, doesn’t the belly rule the mind? Don’t get me wrong, I am not a glutton- I am an explorer of food.
Haven’t we all watched a movie just for the bucket of buttered popcorn? Or watched late night reruns just to finish of the tub of double chocolate chip ice-cream? Who amongst us is not fond of fondue or plotted for a plate of pot rice? Or gorged on Gouda cheese and Foccacia bread? No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one French fry.
There are some things in life you’ve got to bucket before you kick the bucket. Like a stone baked slice of calzone drizzled with virgin olive oil, or rich Belgian waffles with a side portion of nutella crème crepes with a dollop of fresh cream. A cut of pan seared pomfret with a sliver of herbs and garlic, to a square of exotic mocha crumble, with all its crunchy apple goodness, or a plate of mildly spiced chicken seekh kebabs, caked with a layer of a traditional kathi bread.
Good food, unlike a good friend is not hard to come by. You just need to know the right place. And the right plate. In the end, to binge or to cringe, that is the question. You can never have too many of both now, can you?
Food for thought is no substitute for the real thing. So I think to myself, what do I do the next time the hallucination hen comes up in my dream?
I eat it.
Probably with a chocolate milkshake, and a side order of fries.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Food for thought.
They say that the way to a man’s heart (including mine) is through his stomach. If your heart is full, you don’t feel that hungry. And what do you do when nobody’s particularly interested in finding the way to your heart, you ask?
Well, you do the second best thing. You cook yourself.
Take it from someone who spent a major part of the vacation desserting rather than disserting, the joys of baking brownies is like no other. Two portions of sinful gooey chocolate with heaps of decadent vanilla and a concoction of caramel can solve anything but world peace. And weight loss, probably. If you don’t believe me, take it up with my mother who tells me that breakfast is called so, because it’s the meal that breaks the fast.
What the city loses out it traffic and filth, it makes up in chugging out gastronomical delights., From the lasagna at Churchill’s to the Mississippi mud pie at Fountain’s, all the way to the Bombil Fry at Jaihind Lunch Home. A myriad mix of colours in a Gola cart, to the sizzle of a pound of butter on a plate of Pav Bhaji. After all, who doesn’t know of the pleasure of biting into the first French fry at McDonalds’, or sipping on a Tropical iceberg at an air-conditioned Café Coffee Day on a bright sunny day, when the weather seems so much nicer from inside.
In the post-Anthony Bourdain world where cooking is cool, you realise that the human body’s not a temple but an amusement park, one to indulge than implore, where the next slice of pizza becomes a necessity, or the last chicken dumpling is the key to survival, especially in a friend circle where food comes first, even before friends.
You might be eating Pain Au Chocolat and crackers with Goat Cheese at an upscale New York café, or eating fish and chips in the back seat of a moving car somewhere in London, you might even be binging on a margherita pizza in Rome, or something totally unidentifiable from a suspicious wok in the by lanes of Beijing, hunger knows no language, only its feeder. Whether it be hunger for food, or a primal hunger for power, for knowledge or sometimes, even for love.
Maybe I need some food for thought, or maybe I am just hungry.
I guess I’ll go eat.
Well, you do the second best thing. You cook yourself.
Take it from someone who spent a major part of the vacation desserting rather than disserting, the joys of baking brownies is like no other. Two portions of sinful gooey chocolate with heaps of decadent vanilla and a concoction of caramel can solve anything but world peace. And weight loss, probably. If you don’t believe me, take it up with my mother who tells me that breakfast is called so, because it’s the meal that breaks the fast.
What the city loses out it traffic and filth, it makes up in chugging out gastronomical delights., From the lasagna at Churchill’s to the Mississippi mud pie at Fountain’s, all the way to the Bombil Fry at Jaihind Lunch Home. A myriad mix of colours in a Gola cart, to the sizzle of a pound of butter on a plate of Pav Bhaji. After all, who doesn’t know of the pleasure of biting into the first French fry at McDonalds’, or sipping on a Tropical iceberg at an air-conditioned Café Coffee Day on a bright sunny day, when the weather seems so much nicer from inside.
In the post-Anthony Bourdain world where cooking is cool, you realise that the human body’s not a temple but an amusement park, one to indulge than implore, where the next slice of pizza becomes a necessity, or the last chicken dumpling is the key to survival, especially in a friend circle where food comes first, even before friends.
You might be eating Pain Au Chocolat and crackers with Goat Cheese at an upscale New York café, or eating fish and chips in the back seat of a moving car somewhere in London, you might even be binging on a margherita pizza in Rome, or something totally unidentifiable from a suspicious wok in the by lanes of Beijing, hunger knows no language, only its feeder. Whether it be hunger for food, or a primal hunger for power, for knowledge or sometimes, even for love.
Maybe I need some food for thought, or maybe I am just hungry.
I guess I’ll go eat.
Ouch Potato
Come May, comes one month of nothingness to celebrate, a month where pure unadulterated fun is available in glass bottles and tiny Styrofoam cups. In aluminum cans and brown paper bags. You laze, you lounge, you lavish yourself, doing all those things that couch potatoes are known to do. And then, what do you do? You turn to that one thing in your life which you are pretty sure will never leave you, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, the television set.
Last year, While I struggled to keep up with Jack Bauer’s counter-terrorist agents, superheroes swept in discovering their powers, as a New-Yorker continued his quest to find his future wife while suburban housewives schemed and teamed. A medical resident trudged through nine years at every body's favorite hospital with his black best friend, while a private investigator finished high school.. Others partied and parted on the Upper East Side, and show choirs formed and performed. They called out to me from the TV set, in bits and bytes form, in monochromatic hues of red, green and blue. Each and every one of them, in their tantalizing seductive ways, while I watched. And watched. And watched.
For a month I watched. Glazed eyed and awe-struck. Secretly. In the dead of the night, when I was alone. Like a child caught stealing candy, like a teenager caught watching porn.
Eat, I didn’t.
Drink, I didn’t.
Sleep, I didn’t.
And then I realized. Like a scoffed girlfriend, it came out of nowhere and slapped me hard, squarely across my face. And walked away.
Sometimes life's greatest lessons aren’t the ones that you learn through moral stories and all those things parents tell children so that they get their judgments right when they grow up. They aren’t the ones that hit you after life changing experiences. Sometimes, life’s greatest lessons are the ones you learn from the very same character you watch every week. Those fictitious people who stay in make believe land. The ones you hate, the ones you admire, and even the ones you secretly want to be. And just like that, in a non-creepy and non-you-should-get-institutionalized kind of way, you realise that the voiceovers aren’t voiceovers at all.
Like the way J.D sums up life, or Mohinder Suresh discovers it, Or Mary Alice Young, who remembers it. Like Gossip girl’s summations, and Ted Mosby’s lessons, you realize that life is but the greatest show that you can be a part of. And if you are lucky, sometimes you get picked up for another season too.
Theses voice rush in, coming through to you when somebody goofs up and messes up your destiny, or even when you least expect it, like bad weather. Like the truth so naked, that it feels awkward to just look at it. You switch on the remote and stare at the TV screen, watching out for the white noise. The technical jargon. You watch and you learn, till those 42 minutes are up. What do you do then? Who do you listen to, when nothing else works or when the episode ends?
Well, you wait for the writers to come up with the next episode.
Last year, While I struggled to keep up with Jack Bauer’s counter-terrorist agents, superheroes swept in discovering their powers, as a New-Yorker continued his quest to find his future wife while suburban housewives schemed and teamed. A medical resident trudged through nine years at every body's favorite hospital with his black best friend, while a private investigator finished high school.. Others partied and parted on the Upper East Side, and show choirs formed and performed. They called out to me from the TV set, in bits and bytes form, in monochromatic hues of red, green and blue. Each and every one of them, in their tantalizing seductive ways, while I watched. And watched. And watched.
For a month I watched. Glazed eyed and awe-struck. Secretly. In the dead of the night, when I was alone. Like a child caught stealing candy, like a teenager caught watching porn.
Eat, I didn’t.
Drink, I didn’t.
Sleep, I didn’t.
And then I realized. Like a scoffed girlfriend, it came out of nowhere and slapped me hard, squarely across my face. And walked away.
Sometimes life's greatest lessons aren’t the ones that you learn through moral stories and all those things parents tell children so that they get their judgments right when they grow up. They aren’t the ones that hit you after life changing experiences. Sometimes, life’s greatest lessons are the ones you learn from the very same character you watch every week. Those fictitious people who stay in make believe land. The ones you hate, the ones you admire, and even the ones you secretly want to be. And just like that, in a non-creepy and non-you-should-get-institutionalized kind of way, you realise that the voiceovers aren’t voiceovers at all.
Like the way J.D sums up life, or Mohinder Suresh discovers it, Or Mary Alice Young, who remembers it. Like Gossip girl’s summations, and Ted Mosby’s lessons, you realize that life is but the greatest show that you can be a part of. And if you are lucky, sometimes you get picked up for another season too.
Theses voice rush in, coming through to you when somebody goofs up and messes up your destiny, or even when you least expect it, like bad weather. Like the truth so naked, that it feels awkward to just look at it. You switch on the remote and stare at the TV screen, watching out for the white noise. The technical jargon. You watch and you learn, till those 42 minutes are up. What do you do then? Who do you listen to, when nothing else works or when the episode ends?
Well, you wait for the writers to come up with the next episode.
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