Potato is the king of all vegetables when it comes to my family. In my childhood, I never imagined surviving a single day without having a potato. Just a plate of rice, butter, and a boiled potato mashed with raw mustard oil with salt would make my day. In addition to it, if it was mixed with some raw grated coconut, One would have found me on cloud nine.
There are certainly some places that give us a glimpse of heaven. We yearn to travel there to feel the serenity, picturesque beauty of nature, the peace that hovers in the air all around the place. Among many, Bhutan is one such, that is on my wish-list since I got married. After marriage we moved to the USA. We roamed here and there. But what we did most, was relive memories over foods. Yes, food, you hear it right! Staying far away from our native land we kept on relishing on the dishes to feel the touch of our mothers. Apart from it one dish that kept on budging in our life is ‘Kewa Datshi’. Repetitive requests kept on coming from the man to make the dish for him. He spent a few moons in Bhutan due to work. And the memories of the place and its food got embedded in his mind. I started to travel that place virtually through his memories several times. Recreating the tastes of the country without knowing the exact flavour, I tried to inhale the aroma of the place. The sun-kissed silver lined Himalayan Range, the Monasteries, the pristine beauty of nature every time became alive as I served a Bhutanese dish.
Our life is pretty fancied with all the updated modern amenities. Most of the time we hardly bother if that stuff is really needed but we get glued with the reviews, attractive features and the greed to own that. Life was simpler in a way in the pre-Covid19 era, we sought contentment in collecting expensive/inexpensive gadgets whether we use it or not. I bought a Rice cooker in a whim and it laid around for more than 3 years untouched unattended. Then one day suddenly the Covid19 broke down devastating each corner of the world creating a pandemic situation. The maids got paid off. The gas supply decreased. The household workload shot up all of a sudden and I thanked myself and the family to me for making the house a habitat for the kitchen gadgets (my sweet little soul was condemned each day for wasting money! Okay! No more exaggeration). The Rice Cooker and all the hidden gems suddenly turned into a superheroes who saved these burdened soul showering some relief. I started to cook cake, dhokla, chicken dishes, Idly, Veg/Prawn/ Chicken Biryanis, Chicken rice and et al in the rice cooker. Mr. Pie’s face illuminated each time I used the Rice Cooker. At last his money smiled him back.
Never thought that our life would suddenly take a halt and abruptly force us to reconsider that life is precious. Just before the Covid19 pandemic started to spread its wings, life was different.
Romancing food is not a new phenomena. Memories become more vivid when we shuffle and reshuffle to fish out the anecdotes related to food. The stories turn out to be so intense that one can instantly taste the flavours lingering in the mouth. Today I am going to chronicle one such memory with my readers.
Wish you all Happy New year. I am out of the scene since a long time. Now a day I hardly get a moment to sit for me. Sigh… So I decided to make a move with a guest post – just to ensure that it might make me motivated enough to start blogging again.
I met Debjani Basu through Instagram. When and how, I could not recollect it at all. But we bumped to each other’s feed and started following right then. It is really an honour to feature her in blog. Debjani is not a food blogger, not even a food photographer. She, however, loves anything that’s remotely related to food and nutrition. Her love for food and flair for cooking was passed on to her in her genes (true to her Bengali roots). Stressful corporate job, multiple cities and about a dozen maid who cooked horribly was her story once upon a time which left a permanent damage to her mind. She suffers from a severe phobia – phobia of badly cooked food or devoid of any nutrition (she wishes there was a more formal term for it).
Miss Picky Pie got specs and I was proved to be a bad Mamma……
Incidents #1:
For few consecutive days, I noticed that Miss Picky Pie was getting the remarks – “COPY ERROR” on her school exercise copy books. We considered it as she was not paying attention to her study and too much carelessness towards her study leading her to copy her text wrong. We controlled our temper and tried to make her understand that she should pay more attention to her school to avoid the red ink marks on her copy. Even sometimes she annoyingly would say that her class teachers thought that she was copying from her fellow mates. Miss Picky Pie is very honest, and I know she is not a kind of a girl who will copy. But we were totally ignorant of the fact that the reason could be something else. Because of her blur vision, she used to copy wrong and couldn’t see the Blackboard properly. That forced her to peep on her friends’ copies.
The other day we were busy in discussing on Chicken Chap over a cup of tea and some lip smacking snacks in the evening. It was raining heavily, the Cable on the TV was showing no signal, so we got a chance to spend some quality time with the Family. I prepared Chicken Chap for lunch that day. So the chitchat taking many tours through the gossip lanes stopped to take a breathe over Chicken Chap. All were in praise of the dish that made me lifted on cloud nine in no time, I decided why not sharing some food stories on this dish. I started first. My memory with Chicken Chap is quite elusive to me. I can dimly recollect the memory of a 9/10 years girl holding her father’s hand, all excited as if some hidden treasure is waiting for me inside Aminia of Park Street – one of the most famous restaurants of that era of Kolkata. Neither I can recollect properly the taste nor the texture. What I can remember the excitement of tasting a dish what is one of my father’s favourite dishes. The New Market area was/is always a treasure trove place for me. Whenever my father used to come to Kolkata, if my school was closed, I never failed to accompany him. And if we were in Kolkata a visit to New Market was a must. I roamed around in amazement holding my father’s hand hours after hours watching the busy cacophonic market life. While wrapping up quickly the works in hand, my father kept on telling me his childhood memories. I can recollect very well my father elucidating his first experience of tasting the Chicken Chap when it was nothing but a fancy dish that could only be found around few areas of Old Kolkata. My father was in his mid-30s, one day on his way back home, he took a detour with his colleagues to Aminia. They ordered for Biriyani and Chicken Chap. Whenever he recollects that memory, I have always seen his face lit up with a joy. My father can’t illuminate the exact taste of Chicken Chap he had tasted so many years back neither I can. But we both know that Chicken Chap has become an integral part of our life from then and it will keep on building up many food stories.
I was looking like a roasted duck in the blistering heat at 41 degree C in front of Miss. Picky Pie’s school. Almost lost at the cacophonic chirping of the mothers busy in group-discussions only on one topic- the pressure of the school and study, I snuggled myself at a cozy corner. A mom suddenly popped in front of me with whom I shared eye contact often, keeping me almost on a gun point started to shower endless questions. The questions were ready to dissect my 35 years of journey in a manner to postmortem my life history. When it came to my occupation, I announced, accumulating all my pride that brightened up my face:“I am a Food Blogger”. A vague look in a fraction of moment brushed the Mother’s face and the look screamed at me, that she didn’t know who a food blogger is!! All the pride fumed off in a second. We both exchanged a pale smile. Thankfully the conversation abruptly lined an end. I was both happy and disappointed. Happy that she uttered those magical words that made me to escape from the noxious blabber but disappointed for how come people did not know who a Food Blogger is!! God sarcastically gave a smile and continued the story when another mom overheard our conversation with her radioactive ears and promptly interrupted – “Oh My!! You are a Food Blogger!!” I, for that moment thought like giving the lady a tight hug and press a deep kiss ignoring her stinky sweaty cheeks. But who knew just after that I would wish for snapping the lady. The lady continues: “How lucky you guys are. You visit so many restaurants and eat for free!!” Holy crap!!
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