Postcards From J

8 JUNE 2018 4.57 PM: It's Friday, and I am looking at my to-do list and hoping the day gets done soon. That I get to go home and enjoy the start of another weekend. One of the WhatsApp groups buzzed. "Anthony Bourdain is dead. Shite." I was the first to reply. "NO". "WHAT?" And then I started to Google with a strange mix of anxiety and sadness.  Say it wasn't true. Bourdain was gone. 61 years young. It was surreal.  I pinged D but knew he would be asleep as he was working the night shift. Gawd, D will be devastated to wake up to this news. My mind was racing. Bourdain would feature in our conversations often over the years and I didn't know anyone who was a bigger fan of the chef-turned-storyteller. Still can’t believe it. People were shocked but I was in another zone. My hands had turned cold and my brain was blank. What the hell had just happened? That it was by suicide was equally perplexing. And v...

One of my favourite food places in Pune, Janseva Bhojanalaya near Deccan Gymkhana, does a very delicious unlimited almost-Maharashtrian thaali . It's mindboggling, really. So instead of just posting multiple photos, I experimented with a little something . Hope you like it. When I ate there in May 2012, the thaali was priced at Rs. 130. This time around (November 2013), it was Rs. 250. WHOA!!! But still totally worth it. ~j~

Hello, hello! I'm back on the blog after two months. In fact, I had almost forgotten about this space... Most of the time away was spent on a project that took me out of Bombay on New Year's Day - an all-confusing (at the start) and then an all-consuming assignment which involved a university cricket tournament. BUT all rants aside, I learnt a great deal during this time - operationally and from a business perspective - and made some new friends in the process. It was just a first step in a new direction for me on the work front. So let's see where it goes.  Physically, I can feel the exhaustion and stress of the long hours put in taking its toll on me. Add to it, an erratic sleep cycle and the weird moods of the Bombay summer. And what have you got? Me writing a blog post at close to 3:00 AM! Meanwhile, some notes from my last two months: - The boys from Jain University, Bengaluru won the inaugural University Cricket Championship. I had the pleasure of intera...

Hi there! This evening, I'm off to Mohammad Ali Road and its environs for the annual food extravaganza during Ramadhan. Here are a couple of old posts I had done on the experience in the past: My first trip ever:  Fasting, Feasting .  Last year's iftaar tweet-up: Eat Street . And Fast Food - a favourite photo of mine (not from a technical perspective, but for how it eventually turned out with its limitations). Today, I'm accompanying a new group - most of them known via Twitter - to the southern corner of the city. It's Friday night, and I'm expecting it to be a bit crazy with the crowds. So, let's see how it goes. Will try and update this post on Monday or so. Not tonight or the weekend because I'm off to Kolad for an  overnight   'adventure' trip tomorrow. I was supposed to take it easy this week, but the social engagements have just been piling up one after the other since Monday. I really need to learn the art of saying NO...

I'll post a few photographs of Goa soon. Till then, here's a sample of the food orgy this sunny state has to offer. Sigh! I want to go back for the food alone.

All I really want to do tonight is write a long rambling pointless post. Just like that. But I must share... I had such a fun Saturday night - which technically lasted just two hours and the rest of the nine hours were actually part of Sunday (pointless information, I know). There was a house party at a friend's since her folks were off on holiday. And what a partayyyyy it turned out to be! You had to BYOB (bring your own booze). And there was tons of food. Everything was super! But the entertainment that happened thanks to the boys doing a song-and-dance was just hilarious. My jaws were really hurting with all the laughing that ensued. Imagine watching three grown up fellows doing crazy steps to Quit Playing Games by the Backstreet Boys! Yes, exactly my reaction. *grin* Oh, and I made a little experimental chocolate fudge and took it to the party. Most people who had it said it was nice. :) So, I'll try and blog the process in another post and maybe you could try mak...

Just realised I've never really had a bucket list. But then again, I'm not the kind to go about making and ultimately sticking to resolutions. (Horrible, I know!) It probably stems from my lack of serious ambition. So, I thought of listing down all that I must do, experience, see, eat, drink, make, travel to before I, errr, kick the bucket... 1. Learn to code.  Nothing elaborate, just one line of something. Any language. I never liked studying 'computers'; neither did I ever take up programming at any point in school or college. The only reason I did opt for the subject in school was because it was a choice between that and needlework (ugh!). Maybe I should ask Dan to help me with this. She's the smartest coder I know. 2. Travel the world. More realistically, India. Some places to explore in the immediate future include: Old Delhi for its history. And the food. Hyderabad for biryani. Kolkata for Durga Pujo. Shantiniketan. Eden Gardens. Mother Teresa. Puchkas a...

If you read my last post, you'd recall I mentioned I was going to stuff myself at Mohammad Ali Road - the haven for Mumbai's Ramadhan feast. Last evening, a bunch of us (met/introduced on Twitter) managed to brave the crazy rains, a bus strike that eventually got called off by evening, and a train motormen's threat to strike that was withdrawn before it even began and actually made it to this massive food orgy. Now I didn't carry my camera along, but seeing the enthusiasm of @ghaatidancer with her camera, I tried clicking some on my phone just for kicks. Even though they are really sad, I'm still going to post them here because, well, it's my blog and I'll do whatever I want. :P On a serious note, I don't want to write too much today. So, amidst much talk about people going on a fast, here I am talking about a feast...   Presenting some snapshots from my Thursday night-out: Minara Masjid - the epicentre of the food extravaganza at Mohammad Ali Ro...

My trip to Nature's Basket, Bandra on Monday yielded in not much shopping at the outlet. Reason? Everything is nice there but so bloody expensive. Anyway, while I checked out with some meagre supplies, I noticed these nice-looking recipe cards (will snap a pic of those later as they are at home) that you could pick up.  A lady called Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal - who I've gathered is pretty popular in food circles - puts together recipes on these cards (I think she works with Nature's Basket). Got three different ones this time... and I decided to try the simplest (obviously!) of the three: Sweet Corn Salad. If you know me at all, you'll know that I can't cook to save my life. So today, the salad was my lunch... and while I adapted the recipe as per the ingredients I had, I think it was pretty good. Will update this post with the recipe later. Here are some pics I took of my lunch (quality not so great because they were taken on the phone): Top Left: My Messy D...

Twitter has given me the opportunity to interact with people from all walks of life. It's interesting - and inspiring - to see how some people have been able to pursue their passions with so much enthusiasm. For instance, food blogger Kalyan Karmakar . I don't recall when I first started following him on the 140-character platform, but I'm pretty sure his food tweets and pictures that got retweeted were enough to make me want to.  One of my most memorable interactions with him was when I went to Dhaka on work. A packed 4-day trip, and I was super stressed out with everything going on. Everyone around me was excited that I was in another country, and more so for the fact that I was going to watch the first World Cup match live (It's a different matter altogether that I hardly watched any cricket). There I was, probably moping on Twitter because of the stress one late night in Bangla land, and Kalyan asked if I had tried any local food favourites. Obviously not. So he re...

The Bombay summer is getting to me with every passing day. When will it rain? And this crazy weather makes you eat and drink all things chilled. So the other day, I tried making some iced tea with regular chai at home. Just brewed tea the usual Indian way in boiling water with sugar. Then, strained it and let it cool.. Add sugar, if needed. Let it cool in the fridge. To serve, fill a tall glass with lots of ice; pour the tea till it covers the ice cubes and drop in a few wedges/slices of lime. Give it a swirl and... ta-dah! The verdict: Not bad. It had a strong tea flavour (like d-uh!). But I guess I'll have to experiment with different kinds of tea to perfect my own iced tea version. Any suggestions? PS: Random surfing threw up this interesting site: Chai Time . Check it out!