Father, Daughter and the Holy Cadbury, Amen!

There he sits doing his best impersonation of Aaron Hotchner*, sans Kevlar and sans not one but two Glock-17s, throwing death glares in the specific direction of the TV and in the general direction of the world, being and nothingness.

The news is on again. Of course, because he never ever turns it off. It’s a tape on a loop. He is wearing his perpetual frown – I have a feeling he was born with it. I’d have asked Gran but she is dead, alas, and I don’t dig séances.  I see his frown deepening and I can feel the tension in the air, taut as a thin wire ready to trip up whatever idiot finds himself running towards it.

That idiot happens to be me 90% of the time, and today is no different…that pesky voice in my head ill-advisedly goads me on to carpe this diem, to finally take destiny in my hands and stand up to the most humourless man I know (that’s not true, but I deem it so when I know I’m going to lose the battle).

I gather all my youthful (and misdirected) courage and start a war of words that seemingly has no end and is well-nigh ready to explode and take my head with it, absolutely gratis. No, father, I say in a voice made loud by false bravado (ah, the young! The silly, silly, very silly young….tsk, tsk, when will they learn?), it’s not all their fault—their being the faceless political multitude—we have to be accountable for our actions.

At this, my father nearly loses his frown in shock. Had somebody really interrupted him?! But then as his frown takes shape again, I quickly begin to lose my courage. Well, let’s put it this way, it crumbles shamefully, but I squeakily continue despite all reason telling me to, screaming at me to – desist. But nooooo, noooo sir – the stars have aligned to mark this day as my last day on this beautiful earth.

I briefly eye the 15^th floor balcony making a micro-second decision that it would certainly behoove me to make that jump, parachuteless, than face my father’s wrath.

But I am chicken, without spicy wings. While I faintly hear myself talking about responsibility and destiny, the (my?) voice getting increasingly thinner with dread, my eyes fall upon a beautiful, sparkling square of purple, begging me to take notice, filling my rapidly collapsing lungs with hope.

And when he rolls up his sleeves, ready to finish me…I mean the argument, I make a dash for that square of hope, like Jonty Rhodes going for a catch. Briefly, I picture myself levitating and see a halo around my nearly supine, nearly superhuman form. While my father is distracted by my heretofore unseen acrobatics, I break a bit of that elixir and offer him a bite.

And immediately I hear angels singing and the crickets, too, welcoming me back to earth, to this wide, wonderful world.

I chuckle conspiratorially with the chorus of regal purple, the crickets and the universe as the chocolate of the gods melts in my mouth; there may have been a warm hug or two in there somewhere, and I think to myself – my old man, he is really just a softie!

(And because I love you, and this life, I'll give you a simple little recipe for a hot chocolate for those long winter days. You need three rows of Cadbury's Dairy Milk (I had a Roast Almond and a Fruit & Nut - I chose the almond. Two heaped spoons of Cadbury's Cocoa powder, cinnamon rolls and milk to bring it all together. Heat the milk, melt the chocolate in the milk after you've taken the saucepan off the heat, add the Cocoa powder, grate some cinnamon in and bring it nicely to a boil. It should be super thick, pour into espresso cups - any more and you'd likely never sleep again!)

 

 

 

 

*belongs to CBS/ABC, Jeff Davis & Co; not to me (who said anything about life being fair?)



 

The Driver Must Die

I’m having yet another ‘here, hold my cupcake’ moment (what? I don’t wear earrings) in front of the office while my cabbie (henceforth referred to as The Boss) gives me yet another Pulitzer prize-winning story about why he can’t be here on time. I’m tempted to remind him I pay HIM, but I don’t because I’M CHICKEN, full-on fried in Kentucky with mash for a brain. So I re-stuff my ears with my blue earphones (yes of course. In the grand scheme of things the colour of my bloody earphones is important) and let Damien Rice clink his champagne glass with mine . I also run through all the people in my life who have held me hostage and whom I’d like to … tandoor.

So I let myself sink into the aural tragedy of lost love mixed tenderly with a smoky tandoor and stomp around like a miniature Godzilla. I scowl at the passersby, failing to notice a vaguely familiar face giving me what looked at the time like a psychotic smile (I was feeling very vulnerable). I decide to ignore said madman only to realise catastrophically later that it had been none other than our company’s COO. So inside my head I try to imagine our next meeting  (which would  be never hopefully) and come up with a list of excuses that could make The Boss’s stories seem as realistic as those of Balzac. By the time MY car of seven years arrives with MY driver whom I pay, you would think my rage had simmered to the limpness of a bunch of zucchinis cooked for an hour, but no. No Sir! In a Grecian peripeteia of tragic proportions, I decide to be the passenger who finally kills the taxi driver (take that, bone collector)

But … I don’t because I’m still CHICKEN. So I just give him my carefully constructed, oft-practised death glare. The frowning actually begins to hurt after about a minute without a response from the frownee. So I let my eyebrows separate amicably.

This is when I decide to tandoor some veggies and a few sausages for dinner.

Hack the vegetables into biggish chunks – whatever you fancy is ok.
Marinate the vegetables and sausages in:
2 tbsp of yoghurt (hung curd is good)
Add 2tsp cumin (toasted and ground)
2tsp coriander powder
Crushed ginger and garlic (do it in a mortar and pestle)
Green chillies
Salt
Red paprika
Black pepper ground
Garam masala
Olive oil

Mix all of these together and leave aside for a about an hour, although I just didn’t have the time.

Preheat the oven to a 180 degree C, put the veggies/sausages in a greased baking dish, cover with aluminium foil and cook for 30mins, remove cover, check nothing’s sticking to the bottom and cook for another 15mins till everything looks crispy/slightly charred but not burnt. Say a prayer to Loretta Lockhorn and plate up. Add a slice of lemon and a green chilli to prettify.

Enjoy with flatbread/roti/paratha.

How to kill your job and bake a cake

There was a time when you thought you’d be prancing around in an orange orchard in Seville, in super slo-mo, wearing a pretty white dress and breathing in the air and sighing with pleasure at the ripe scent and the heady blue of a clear sky. Of course you’ve never actually been to Seville. Remember, in that little dream sequence you were also slim. And you certainly did not have violent thoughts about anything. Now you just want to kill something or someone, preferably your job if it were alive. Nay, you want to punch it in the face and then when it is lying on the floor helpless like a wet mop, you want to stomp on it wearing 7-inch stilettoes, then strangle it, poison it, stab it, hang it and then throw it down an old chimney in Timbuktu. You know you need a new job when this happens. Also when the word ‘orange’ makes you think of a telecom company. Yes, I know. It’s just me. I have deep psychological issues because I’ve decided to name my future son or daughter EBITDA. They’re not that deep these issues, obviously, because my husband and a few close friends know about this plan.

So I sit here and grump while violent thoughts race through my head in maniacal glee. Maybe I smile crookedly revealing my madness because I see the one and only husband giving me a most intense side-eye. I ignore him until he acquiesces to bake a cake.

Atypically, we have fruits at home. Three kinds even. As I’m feeling deeply acerbic, I decide it’s going to be a zesty orange cake. This recipe is simple enough to give chefs a mild coronary. I do everything wrong, but somehow, against all odds, it turns out absolutely  I-have-to-finish-you-off-in-the-next-five-minutes good. Or maybe our palate lacks sophistication.

Orange cake:

The zest of 2 oranges

1 cup flour
1 cup sugar (I don’t even use caster sugar – I hear Marco Pierre White dying in the distance)
1tsp baking powder
3 eggs (no separating-sheparating – and I hear even the mild-mannered Rachel Allen dying in the distance)
100gm butter (I don’t even use unsalted – all bakers around the world die in the distance…and nearby. In fact my thrice-removed, twice-dead maternal grandmother dies again)
Cinnamon ground
Vanilla – the real deal –extract from  one pod
Toasted pumpkin seeds

Whisk the eggs, add the zest and the vanilla and whisk some more, add the melted butter (keep stirring vigorously to avoid making scrambled eggs), add the sugar and whisk till your arms fall off, pick up your arms and add the ground cinnamon, then fold in the flour, and transfer to a greased baking dish of your choice. Sprinkle the toasted pumpkin seeds on. Preheat your oven to a 180 degrees and bake the cake till it has risen nicely. Use a knife to test it’s done.

Keep your eyes peeled – husband and I were watching it with parental trepidation – will it, won’t it, will it, won’t it….rise?

It did.

We’re very proud.

A Cinderella Story….until she meets Jeffrey Dahmer and loses more than her pumpkin carriage

Look, amidst the hugger-mugger between getting back from work and going to bed at 12:30….(No, no. No, no…ha…11:30 I tell the husband. He just cannot know! okthanksbye), soup is going to be your best friend. This one is a bit more special to me because it benefited from a last-minute change of plan (much the same way all our term papers did at uni). I was so immensely chuffed at the end of it I’ve decided to forgo all planning henceforth. Not that I have ever been hyperopic in the least, neither optically nor mentally. I think I have chanced upon a hypothesis almost Jungian in magnitude: that if one is a foodie—indeed obsessed with food and eating, one cannot see beyond the next meal and is thus averse to medium- to long-term planning. Moreover, if they were ever to become a murderer, they would likely commit le crime passionnel rather than be a methodical serial killer who doesn’t...erm...eat his victims. Jeffrey Dahmer comes to mind with glass slipper in hand.  

I digress.

Anyway, it’s pumpkin soup today, but with a little twist. You could of course make it exactly as you made the Vampire beetroot soup, but I was so inspired at the time I could feel a halo around my head. Here’s my Kumror Malai Kari (pumpkin curry in coconut milk).

You will need:

Pumpkin – you’ll need 500gm – so you can leave the rest to Cinderella (but please, steal the other shoe, too, ok?) - cubed

Onion – one large – chopped

Garlic – by now you  know garlic is as flexible as you are

Coconut cream – 2tbsp

Milk – half a cup

Garam masala

Olive oil

Salt/sugar/pepper – my MacDonald Triad if you please (pumpkin needs a bit of sugar)

Take a deep-dish pan, sauté the onion/garlic till they’re soft, add the pumpkin, add a very small pinch of garam masala at this stage, cover and cook on ultra-low heat till pumpkin a bit soft.

Then add the coconut cream, milk and water to cover the solid bits. Cover the pan and cook till done.

Add another pinch of garam masala and blitz.

And that’s how it’s done.

Chimp Off The Old Block

Yeah, I realize now that it looks a bit like a cross-eyed chimpanzee. So if you can avoid thinking about it too philosophically—ie, that you’re eating a chimp face—you might enjoy it. But then you’re eating the shoulder of a pig…what are YOU complaining about? Plus, it’s also cross-eyed; so it can’t exactly look deeply into your eyes and promise you eternity.

J

Here it is –pork shoulder steak, roasted onion-and-carrot gravy with garlic, cream and pepper, roasted potatoes with rosemary and paprika and almost-boiled, goggle-eyed eggs.

Other than a carnivore’s cruel heart, you will need:

Pork shoulder steak – 3 small, thin pieces (there’s this great Korean place in South Point Mall, DLF 5, Gurgaon – they sell all kinds of cuts, or of course you have your INA market if you’re not too lazy)

One oversized onion, cut into chunky rings

Carrots –thick roundels – umm take 2 large ones

Garlic –whole, bruised a bit like Daniel Craig in Skyfall (now now, focus please; we’re still making food here)

Green chilli– as many as you like – slit up the middle

Pepper –salt, a dash of sugar

Rosemary

Milk –no-fat, low-fat, full-fat – whatever you like, oh about a cup

Garam masala– a pinch

Potatoes –two large, cut into big chunks

Score the pork and marinate it in salt, pepper and olive oil, dump it in the fridge overnight.

Spray some olive oil on a biggish baking tray, add a sprig of rosemary, line the entire dish with the chunky onion rings, wrap the bruised whole garlic in foil with olive oil and dunk it in the middle of the dish. Sprinkle with sugar. Now place the marinated steak on the bed of onions and surround the meat pieces with carrots. No, don’t add a picket fence.

Douse it with olive oil, salt and pepper, cover the dish with aluminium foil (pierce it here and there with your fork).

Preheat the oven at 200 degree C, then turn the temp down to a 150 and bake it for about an hour. Then for another 15mins with the foil off. The carrots should be nicely done, the onion caramelized, the meat done to your liking.

Wrap the meat in aluminium foil and set aside.

Now take the rest of it and place in a deep saucepan, squeeze out the now-soft garlic, add water/milk and cook on very low heat until all soft and fragrant, add the garam masala and it’s done. Now blitz into a thick gravy.

Roast the potatoes with olive oil, paprika and rosemary – first covered till almost done and then uncovered to get a nice crispy skin.

I use Simon Hopkinson’s egg-making magic to boil the eggs (to add excerpt from the book).

Now you have all the bits ready. Try not to plate it up so it looks like a confused chimp with a focal length problem.
 

Interview With The Vampire

He came, wandered around on the kitchen counter and left little footprints EVERYWHERE. What can I say, he was tiny.

Beetroot soup for you – the cooking of it may have you screaming bloody murder, but it tastes wonderful, simple and wholesome (even if exsanguination isn’t your thing).

Beetroot – 3 medium, cubed

1 onion – medium, chopped

Garlic – bashed up and chopped – as many as you like/ or if you’re feeling especially lazy, use vinegar-free garlic paste – 2 teaspoons (I turn around and ask the one and only husband if garlic had something to do with vampires. He says it does).

Provence herbs (comes in one of those herb mills – you get it at Le Marche - http://www.marcheretail.com/aboutus.html)

Olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

In a deep saucepan (I use my pretty blue ceramic one), add a dash of olive oil (pomace, not extra virgin), sauté the onion and garlic till soft and translucent, add the cubed beetroot, stir constantly for about 5mins, add water to cover all the solid bits, put the lid on and cook on medium-to-low heat till cubes soft.

If you have more sense than I do, of course you will use a pressure cooker, but I seem to think the flavours are more pronounced if they cook for longer. I’ve always been more of a slow burn kinda gal.

Ok, right, back on track. When done, blitz into a fine smooth thick liquid, more creamy than watery.

Pour into soup bowls – do a little art with a can of cream (on the surface of the soup,  that’s all I meant).

Et voila! You have your no-longer-bloody-but-pretty-puce soup ready.

How It Began

Leonard Cohen’s bass orchestral voice thrummed through my veins – Wednesday morning, 3 AM, 1964, he said, voice full of gravel and promise. It was night with just a very light fragrance of the morning to come, the silence like a held breath, waiting, waiting.

So the other day when it was a Wednesday, or it may have been a Monday…or a Sunday…never mind. It was 3 AM, 2013, and my eyes popped open like a bottle of Perrier-Jouët. I could feel a little smile on my face. I was 16 again, and this was the smile that would get Pointy-eared Crush #2 to fall madly in love with me. I must have been having a nice dream because my first thought was Len Cohen, which is always a good thing. And then I remembered. That was when I found my life’s one true love.

A portion of belly. Cubed. Tender. Soy-sauced, palm-sugared and green-chillied. Sprung with spring onions.

Melting.

In.

My.

Mouth.

Thus the smile that would have had me living happily ever after with Pointy-eared Crush #2 instead of Husband #1 (and only).

No offence to Mr Cohen or Mr. Simon (I love you both, I promise). But The Pig <insert lachrymose ellipses here> it makes me HAPPY.

So Wednesday/Monday/Sunday morning, 3 AM, 2013, I knew I had to do it.

So here it is.