La Nuit de Legumes

Everything just sounds better in French, non?

Anyway, another post about food is in order. But before I start, a quick note about a friend's wonderful food blog that you can find here.

Right. So today's post is about food, food and more food. That's right. I made three dishes tonight, albeit simple ones. With massive amounts of reading and work to do this semester (more than I had last year), I've been finding new ways to procrastinate. Housekeeping - like cleaning the bathroom - isn't as interesting as it was last year, although I did spend a couple hours yesterday cleaning things (the bathtub, disinfecting the kitchen, organizing things that didn't need to be organized). This year, because of my limited budget and my new-found-pickyness when it comes to what quality of foodstuff I'm putting in my mouth (I've become opposed to the eating out multiple times a week routine. I want to know that the ingredients I'm consuming are of good quality), I've been eating at home a lot. I even come home from school for lunch!

Having eaten a wonderful bagel + Tofutti for lunch today, I wanted to eat dinner at home. I wasn't in the mood for pasta, or rice and couldn't figure out what to make. I looked in the fridge, kept on looking...and then it hit me. I'm a vegetarian! I should eat vegetables!


I've been reading a book by Alice Waters that talks about bringing out the natural tastes of vegetables, so, I thought, why not try? Out came the tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and yukon gold potatoes from the fridge. But what to do with them? Not a soup. I didn't want to put them all into one pan and sautee them. And then I realized that, to bring out their natural flavours, I would have to divide them into families and cook them separately.

The carrots. This one seemed easy at first. I cut them into thin rounds, put some olive oil in the pan, fried some garlic and tossed the carrots in. Added some salt and pepper and started to sautee them. But something was missing. And then I had a brainwave. Balsamic vinegar. That went in, and the carrots started getting a deep orange colour. But there was still something missing when I tasted them. And then I remembered - sugar! So I added some cane sugar and glazed the carrots. Ahh...I devoured them as soon as they came out of the pan and while I was finishing up my other veggies...

Now for the cauliflower and broccoli. Instead of doing something special with them, I just sauteed them in olive oil with some salt and pepper. To give them some more taste, I made a quick tomato salsa - roma tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil, oregano and a touch of a beautiful white Bordeaux that I bought a couple days ago - and cooked it for a little bit.

My favourites were the potatoes though. I have a weakness for anything fried/sauteed and potato-y. Par-boiled them first, cut them up and put them in ice water for a bit to cool them down/get rid of some excess starch. Put them in a pan with some olive oil and coated with zaatar (yummy!!), salt and pepper. Then I ate them with the most amazing hummus ever (I love you Sabra - even if you are owned by colonizers).

All in all. One of the best meals I've had in a while. There's nothing like fresh food. There's nothing like simple food. And, for us veggies who became veggies because we don't like the taste of meat/chicken etcetera...there's nothing like an unadulterated, fresh vegetable.

Thinking of You, On the Rocks

I now have a signature drink. Chivas (or Jack, if Chivas is unavailable) on the rocks. You(#2) were right about the Chivas. You(#1) were right about the whisky.

It's best on the rocks. I'm glad You and You agree.

Ok. Enough sentimentality. Back to work.

I Left You at Nizamuddin

I think about you - often, and more so these days. I think about that endearing smile of yours, part playful, part mischievous, genuine and free. About your sheer confidence and shrewdness, the latter and how it bothered me for days, but which makes me proud of you - in an odd sense of the term. It was your freedom of spirit - the term, so often misused, but apt in your case - that drew me to you, that disengaged all my apprehensions of who you are, of what you are. I still remember the old women, the one that refused to let me capture her face but whose face remains etched in my mind, and her warnings about you. How I shouldn't let you watch me, or talk to me, or help me, how your family's trade would force you to harm me and that I would regret my decisions. But I didn't listen.

I think about you and your friend - yes the other one. The one that followed you around, that hung on your every word, that didn't even talk back at you when you accused him of lying. He was slower than you, not a natural leader like you. Unbelievably sweet, but without that charisma that you possess in excess.

I think about saying bye to you and wandering into the gullies of Nizamuddin. How I didn't expect to see you again, but how you waited for me and came to me and then spoke to me. How could I have not expected it? She had told me you would. But there was a part of me that didn't believe her. That didn't want to believe her. I still remember your high-pitched voice. I still wonder whether you had been trained, or whether it was natural. I remember you tapping on my arm, being disgusted at first, but then other instincts sinking in and wanting to do anything I could for you. Of fearing for your safety, of not wanting to be accosted like that time, 10 years ago, in a distant parking lot, at another sacred place. Of telling you to be quiet and to follow me and to wait, and promising. Of getting into the rickshaw. Of you not believing me. Of seeing the hurt in your eyes. Of telling you to come to the other side of the auto and giving you the note, telling you to use it well and to be safe. Of seeing you stare at the note - in some sort of amazement - of looking up, smiling, and running away. I hope you shared with your friend. I hope you bought food. I hope they didn't take it from you, or hurt you because of it.

I hope you're ok.

I wonder if I'll ever see you again.

Khuda Hafiz Ali,

Didi.

If Only My Thesis Were on Food

G'evening folks! Or, shall I say good night? Once again, I'm up during the wee hours of the night (well, wee-ish given my tendency to stay awake until 3/4am. It's only 1am right now), but this time without a paper deadline in sight - and no, my thesis proposal does not count. In fact, I've spent the past 2 hours procrastinating about my readings on Indira Gandhi and the Emergency by surfing through the wonderfulness that is Amazon. I'm still in the process of designing and decorating my new room, and have a couple walls and wall features that I'd love to accentuate. I've always had this fantasy of drawing on my walls, and I found a wonderful dry-erase decal that would fit perfectly on one.

Anyway. This post is not about my new-found-love-for-decorating. Rather, it is about food. Now that my kitchen is set-up and I have access to my pots and pans and spices and pantry and multiple beautiful knives and can actually eat (I went through a month-long phase during which I could barely eat anything), I've been trying to cook wholesome meals for myself. What, you may ask? Multiple types of frittatas, pasta with fresh tomato and red wine sauce (so yummy!), vegetarian fried rice, multiple types of salads and sandwiches (I found the most delicious za'atar the other day and can't stop using it) and so on. Today was supposed to be potato-vegetable patties with wilted greens and some yoghurt/dijon sauce, but two of my friends decided they wanted to go for dinner so I joined them.

Dinner was fun. The two are great people. But the food was ok. The tomatoes in my salad were pretty bad and the pasta was mediocre. I ordered the white mushroom pappardelle with truffle oil. I figured it would be good. It's a pasta that's hard to get wrong. The pappardelle has to be cooked until al dente, and the mushrooms need to be cut and sauteed. That part was fine, but the truffle oil. Sigh. When will chefs learn that truffle oil is heavy and a little goes a long way as far as taste is concerned? You only need a couple drops of that stuff - not a long drizzle. Anyway, I was pretty full after the salad and only ate a small part of my pasta. Which means that I can mend it tomorrow. The mushrooms and the pasta will stay. Excess oil will get washed down the drain. I'll throw some olive oil into my pan, add the pasta and mushrooms with some salt, maybe get some parsley, and enjoy mushroom pappardelle my way. The potato-veggie patties will just have to wait for Thursday...

Right - perhaps back to my readings, but probably to bed...

Night for now.

A Truce of Sorts

There are days, nay months and years, during which we keep on fighting. And then the day comes, suddenly, when we resign ourselves to our fates. The tears no longer flow and our insides no longer seem to spasm violently with every phrase.

It is at this time that we are our strongest. It is at this time that we are at our worst.

This isn't my battle. It's time you fought your own.

Delhi in 18 Hours - Part 1

I was in Delhi two days ago. Having missed the entire tourist experience when I was in the city 10 years ago, I figured I'd use my 18 hour long stop-over in the city (en route to Amritsar from Lucknow) to take in the sights. Being the Mirza Ghalib fan that I am, I decided that his mazaar, along with Nizamuddin Auliya's dargah and the tomb of Aamir Khusrao were on the top of my list. After a quick breakfast of wonderful sandwiches and cold coffee in Jangpura Extension, a trip to the ever-wonderful and oh-so-NRI Khan Market (where I saw some gorgeous Jamini Roy paintings), I hailed an auto and went to Nizamuddin with a friend.

We went through the narrow alleyways and happened on the Ghalib Academy. I'd been looking for it, but had decided I'd wander around and hope to find it, rather than actually ask someone for directions. We went in and I was immediately shocked with how nonchalant everyone was. It was as if they didn't care at all about Mirza-sahab (which they probably didn't), and were just there to earn some money.

Hue mar ke hum jo rusvaa hue kyon na garq-e-darya,
Na kabhi janaaza uthtaa, na kahin mazaar hota.

Immediately upon entering the Ghalib Academy, I was greeted by a stack of books - arranged helter-skelter of course - on a wide variety of subjects. A book of ghazals by Qateel Shifai caught my eye, and I started going through the book, in the hope of finding the words to a beautiful ghazal sang by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Hum apni shaam ko jab nazar-e-jaam karte hain,
Adab se hum ko sitaarein salaam karte hain.

As I was flipping through the book, a random guy came up to me and asked me what I was looking for. I told him that I was looking for a Qateel ghazal. He responded that he had no idea what I was talking about and that I should buy the Kulliat-e-Iqbal. My entire exchange with him weirded me out. He tried forcing me to buy an English translation, to which I responded that I knew Urdu and how to read the language. He either didn't believe me, or really wanted me to buy the English version, and kept on repeating that I should buy it. To which I, in a frustrated manner, responded that I already had the Urdu Kulliat-e-Iqbal and wasn't going to buy the English version. I then demanded to see the other books, and was taken first to the library (which was full of old Muslim men, who stared in shock when a girl walked into the library) and then to the little museum on the top floor.

The museum was interesting enough. There were some curios from Ghalib's lifetime, paintings of famous poets, paintings of Ghalib, some of his letters, stuff like that. It also looked as if it was kept shut most of the time. It was disappointing to say the list. Annoyed, I got out of there as soon as I could, and went looking for his mazaar.

NB: I was in Delhi on the 13/14th of July.

SarZameen-e-Avadh

Lucknow is beautiful - the streets, the people, the air, the light, the food. I think I'm in love with this city already, and it's only been 4 weeks. My housemates and I wandered around and got lost in Chowk this past weekend. It was amazing. Here are some pictures from our wanderings...