5 May

I was visiting my aunt in Mumbai in 2018 during the winters. My mesho(aunt's husband) was working in Nabard and fortunately just during the weekend I was visiting, Nabard had setup Nabard Haat, a fair-cum-exhibition of local handicraft where Local and rural artisans from different states showcase and sell their products in more than 100 stalls.  It was spread out in a very big ground and was a big crowd puller. Things like Madhubani painting, sattu, pickle, papad, khadi clothes, Sambalpuri saris, Kerala clay utensils, pulse etc. were selling like hot cakes. It reminded me of the Krishi Mela (agricultural fair) we used to have in IIT Kharagpur annually.  Since back in my childhood days, there weren't many entertainment zones around, we would really wait for this fair where people from the area would showcase any agricultural products. And my main motive to visit the fair was to have the lovely food it would have. It was also the first place I had tasted the Butter fried fish of the famous Benfish brand (Bengalis would surely understand the nostalgia in this!). 

It was in this Nabard Haat that I saw a little shop selling Kerala pots and pans. Immediately my eye hovered on the Meen Chatty sitting on one of the corner of the shop. I so badly wanted to purchase it. While my aunt deliberated whether it was an authentic Meen chatty, my mesho said since it was a Nabard organized event, these were authentic local artisans. Even though the price seemed a little expensive I got the desired Meen Chatty finally. 

The Meen Chatti or Kerala Clay pot has always sounded fascinating to me. The first time I had seen anyone cooking in it was Peter Kuruvita in "My Sri Lanka" Series. He would effortlessly cook fabulous dishes on these clay pots in stunning locations and I used to keep imagining how amazing the food might taste because it was getting slow cooked on a clay pot. The earthy aromas would surely infuse and create a magic in the dish. 

Due to its numerous health benefits, Ayurveda suggests cooking in a clay pot. The food being cooked in an earthen cookware makes it aromatic and retaining the nutrition, minerals that include calcium, magnesium, iron and phosphorus. Clay being alkaline in nature helps in neutralizing the PH balance of the food by interacting with the acid present in the food and hence acts as a natural detox. The porous nature of earthenware allows for slow and even cooking, while retaining the natural juices in food.

Now, every time I thought about cooking in that chatty I was like, I don't want to blacken or harm to pot and kept pushing using it. Eventually I completely forgot about it. And very recently while housekeeping I 'discovered' it. This time around I decided I had to use it, so I followed the standard seasoning steps for the pot and got the pot ready in a week. Since it was a Kerala pot, it was only justified that the first thing I tried had to be a Kerala preparation.

I fell in love with Kerala cuisine when I was staying in Navi Mumbai. I stayed there for many years but only at the fag end of my stay I realized there was a Kerala House in Vashi, which was not very far from where I lived. The anonymity of the place was attributed to the fact that it was tucked away in an  obscure corner behind the Raghuleela mall in Vashi. It basically is the Culture center of the Kerala state Government that has a canteen within the premises.  A no frill place, they serve authentic Kerala Sadhya and you can order a side of chicken or fried fish. But the meal is just outstanding. Even if you are not a Malyali you will definitely end up loving the simple food. I remember it would get crowded fast, hence if you wanted to have a meal you needed to be at the place soon. 

The next time I had Kerala food was in Kerala itself. We dissed the gourmet restaurants and would always wander to the local cafes serving fish curry rice and appalam (papad). The ambience might not be great, but the food would be really finger licking good. Kerala food also has some similarity with the Bengali food culture hence I loved it even more. Any cuisine which has a heavy fish influence is close to my heart. Just like the Malvani cuisine of Maharashtra.

April 25

Calcutta or Kolkata. A city known for its food and culture, where hospitality and love are synonymous with lip-smacking grub. Chowmin, fuchka, egg roll, vegetable chop, Moghlai, biryani - the list is endless. Bengalis staying out of the state, when visit their hometown, one of the primary agenda is to scarf down street food. The calorie counts can come later, but the street food cant wait. I don't think we have this many variety of street food anywhere else in the country, which Kolkata has.

The ubiquitous Egg Toast is known by several names in Kolkata. Call it Dim Pauruti, Dim toast, French toast the charm of this simple dish remains unaltered. I think for 25 years of my existence or even more, the only French toast I knew was the egg dipped breads grilled to perfection. And like me most Bengalis of the same era, had the same understanding, before social media told us, French toast was something sweet and cinnamony and was an elite dish!

Growing up in Kharagpur, the only snacks served at our home was the ones made by mom. When we went to Grandpas home during the holidays, then we would get a taste of some of the Kolkata street food like chop and egg rolls bought for the evening snacks. But back at home, it was all home made by my mom. She had become a pro at making different innovative snacks because both me and dad loved to eat. The egg toast or dim pauruti was one of my favorite snacks. And at times I would also ask ma to make the same for breakfast. She cut the bread into 4 pieces and then fried the egg dipped breads. Those squares were delicious with a generous dip into the blood red Maggi Tomato Ketchup and few slices of onion. 

When I went to college, I stayed in a girls PG in Salt Lake Kolkata. We had a set menu throughout the week for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Since my college was pretty far from the PG, I could never have 3 meals in a day as it was not possible to come back for lunch. Therefore on weekdays I used to eat the lunch for breakfast and then have dinner at night. Thus my weekday breakfast would usually consist of Mach bhat (fish rice) and a serving of veggies and daal. Some of you might think how can we eat so much for breakfast, but when you don't have an option, you get used to it. I still wonder why I didn't think of carrying the breakfast in a tiffin box and could have same for lunch, that way I didn't have to go hungry till dinner. It never occurred to me back then that I could flip the meals and stay full. 

So usually I would end up hungry by the time it was lunch. All my classmates apart from a few boys who stayed in a nearby PG, were staying in their own homes. So they would bring delicious homecooked meals which would fill the classroom during recess. I think that's one time I used to miss home a lot. Most of the days I would go hungry at lunch time as I didn't have a tiffin. and some days if my friends asked me to share their meal I would do that happily. But it felt like an obligation at times, so I turned down most times. My college was considerably new back then, hence the food they served in canteen was very limited. Mostly pre-packed snacks, biscuits and chips. So in the initial college years I never went to canteen.

After 2nd year of engineering, the canteen actually started serving some real food which was made to order. Most of my friends would hang out in the canteen at any given opportunity. But somehow I felt I was bad in a big group and introvert so I avoided going to canteen too. Plus, I had a notion that college canteens were meant for discussing politics and other affairs - which I was totally not interested in. It sounds so funny in my head right now that, I didn't even like to gossip much back then. I just kept to my studies and was a teachers pet you can say. I think I was a little weirdo back then :D

Then one day out of sheer hunger stepped into that place and ordered something which sounded familiar to me - the Dim pauruti. In fact I remember I was so elated to find it on the menu. It instantly reminded me of mom's egg toast. The dim pauruti that the canteen made was no where near to what mom would make, but when you are hungry, any food seems like a gourmet affair. The thick slices of bread dipped in minimal egg and vegetables tasted like an elixir. For the next two years, I was still not a regular in the canteen, but whenever I happened to be there, I would order the Dim pauruti for sure. 

Later on outside of our campus many food stalls came up. It happened when Sector 5 in salt lake saw the rush of development. But by that time we were almost in the fag end of our engineering years and visited college very less. But I remember one of the stalls which served Maggi, had become my personal favorite. But I will reserve that story for another day :)

I tried to recreate those memory filled days through this preparation. During this pandemic situation when you are stuck at home, all those old memories come flooding back unconsciously and make you remember all the bitter-sweet days spent decades ago with people some of whom have faded away with time and some who are still there to remind about the journey you had.

Preparation Time : 5 minutes

17 April

 Summertime and frozen desserts go hand in hand. When we were kids we were not aware of fancy names like frozen desserts. It was simple back then - either it was an ice cream if made form milk or it was a popsicle if made from water. In fact in those days the most popular ice lollies didn't come on sticks. It came in long thin tube like packets which we would call Pepsi. 

Pepsi didn't mean the competitor beverage brand of Coke. It was just multi cultured and flavored lollies in plastic pouches sold in ice cream carts on hot summer afternoons. Probably the simplest of concoctions but we kids loved it to the core. Adults would at times try to dissuade us from buying them stating that they were made of unhygienic water and could make us sick. Still it was hard to resist the lure of these frozen pops. 

The other frozen sensation was barf ka gola or Chuski which was shaved ice with lots of syrup and masala. While Pepsi was my favorite, my mom loved these barf ka golas. She would talk about her childhood and how they had grown up eating them in Bhagalpur. I found them too cold and icy as a kid. And especially since I always had a problem of sinus and pharyngitis, I avoided scarfing down all that ice at once.  Pepsis were more my pace and I loved them. Especially the orange flavored ones.

When I came to Mumbai, and I think we had went to visit the Juhu Chowpatty, after many years I tasted barf ka gola. It was of kalakhatta flavour, which is a mixture of tangy and sweet. Icy, sweet, dripping with a cola like syrup and served with a generous squeeze of lemon, the gola tasted out of the world. 

That experience had renewed my love for the ice golas. With time we started getting so many ice lollies by different brands and those pepsi lollies went out of fashion. But all the kids of my generation and before that would definitely still carry some of the fondest summer memories associated with them forever.

Last year I had planned on getting some pop moulds but the lockdown started and all the plans went into a limbo mode, so this year before time I got the popsicle mould and was well armed for summer days. As I wondered what I want to make as my first ever home made lolly, The first flavor that came to my mind was mojito. I am a huge huge fan of Mojito in general, virgin or not. 90 out of 100 times that would be my default order at any restaurant. One, because it tastes awesomely refreshing, and two, most important, you can rarely botch up a mojito! I did have instances where restaurants served the worst mojitos also, but those were very very rare.

For me it’s hard to think of anything more refreshing than a mojito. Lime, mint, sugar, rum together is by default a winning combination. So for my first pops, I decided to freeze it into lollies. The only thing that can be more refreshing than a mojito is a mojito popsicle. And boy was I corrrect! I went a step further in improvisation and sprinkled some chilli powder on the pops. And it turned into one of the super zingy pops I ever had. Check out the recipe below.

Preparation Time : 5 minutes

14 April

এসো হে বৈশাখ এসো এসো  

পেছনে ফেলে, যত গ্লানি, যত ত্রাস,জীবাণুদের সন্ত্রাস, নিয়ে পূর্ণ চিত্ত হর্ষ - শুরু হোক এই নববর্ষ | 

শুভ নববর্ষের আন্তরিক প্রীতি ও শুভেচ্ছা সবাইকে |

Happy Poila Boishakh and Subho Noboborsho to my friends who are celebrating today. Hope we can finally beat Covid this year and establish health and happiness.

Can't believe a year has passed and this is the second time we are celebrating with restrictions. Pohela is the first day of the first month (Boishakh) of Bengali calendar. Hence, Pohela Boishakh is also known as Bengali New Year. Its all about celebrating the day with good food and new clothes.

 I remember when I was a kid, it was almost a custom to wear a new dress today, just like it is during the Durga Pujas. And thus a month before Poila boishakh there would be a sudden fervor of shopping. Every garments shop would put up lucrative offers for Chaitra Sale (Sale in the month of Chaitra). Chaitra Sale markets of Bengal had always been as vibrant as Christmas markets of the West or Black Friday Sale. People would line up and jostle with others to get the best bargains on their chosen products. 

Everyone would make elaborate plans on how they are going to deck up on this day. It was unimaginable if you didn't have a new dress on Poila Baishakh. Till I left my home, the custom was maintained. But I don't know from when I stopped buying new clothes specifically for today. Instead just wear a washed cloth and do the pooja. I think now a days we do so much shopping from all these e-commerce sites round the year, the fun and anticipation of waiting for a particular time to buy new dresses is gone.

The other important thing on Poila Boishakh is Halkhata. For Bengali traders and shop owners, Poila Boisakh is the haalkhata time – the auspicious day to open a new ledger. Its similar to the practice of Bahi-Khata elsewhere in India, which is usually done during the Laxmi Pooja on Diwali. This day is regarded as auspicious, hence many new businesses would start on these days and people would line up before these new shops to get their share of the sweet boxes or Sharbats being handed out. Now-a-days there are many modern ways to manage a ledger, hence the practice of Halkhata is kind of reduced to a customary thing.

And finally the most important part of this day is the food. Bengalis love to eat - I think is a a universal truth. They have 12 mashe 13 parbon ( the number of festivals exceed the number of months) and I think the Bengalis had made up all these festivals because they just wanted to have another occassion to eat good food and celebrate. Lunch and dinner on Poila Boishahkh mostly consist of the much loved non-vegetarian delicacies.

Fish is the most preferred and integral part of any Bengali on a Poila Baishak meal. Gondhoraj Bhetki, Sorshe ilish, Chingri Malaicurry, Macher Kalia - the entire horizon of fish recipes are on the menu in most homes. Apart from the fish delicacies, Kosha Mangsho is one of the other preferred things on the menu today. 

Owing to the semi lockdown situation this year and unavailability of fancy fishes, I decided to go for Crab curry or Kakrar Jhal which is also considered a delicacy in Bengal. The fragrant and rich curry is perfect for any festive occasions.

13 April

Happy Gudi Padwa, Ugadi, Baisakhi to everyone who is celebrating today!

Being in Maharashtra for over a decade, I always experience the Gudi Padwa Celebrations the day before we celebrate Poila Baishakh which is the Bengali New Year. Gudi Padwa is the first day of Chaitra month and marked as the New year in Maharashtra.  A 'Gudi', a beautiful arrangement of silk saree or cloth tied to stick with a 'Lota' on the top and then decorated with sweets and garlands made of neem and mango. The day symbolizes the victory of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj over his enemies and Shalivahan’s victory over the Sakas.

Its early morning and its New year time! Last evening it rained with thundershower hence the weather feels a little cold. Much respite from the hot and humid feel of last evening. I kept checking out the lovely pictures of Gudi Padwa celebrations that were happening in the houses of my society. It makes me think that every Indian festival has a sweet charm of their own and even if you do not belong to that region by birth, you can still enjoy the festivities.

In Maharashtra, today folks prepare a lovely festive meal which mainly comprises of Puran Polis, Shrikhand, sabudana vada, kothimbir vadi etc. Its primarily a vegetarian fare. Since it is summers and its always refreshing to have a glass of coolers I thought I will add a little festive vibe to the normal milkshake with this Persian milkshake. Its so easy and so creamy you will be delighted to have it or serve it to your guest even without an occasion.