Foodies in a Lockdown

 Most of us would have learnt to cook by now, if not learnt how home-cooked food tastes. Thanks to the virus going around the world. Here are a few good eats, made right at home, not necessarily by me. Pics are always better than words, esp. when related to food. Drinks have been kept out, so imagine those..

Sabudana vada.

Rava dosa with onion, home-made.

Stuffed brinjal, with roti.

Spiced rice, or masalebhaat.

Sabudana khichadi (above), Pasta in red sauce (below)

Chat, above, and a rounded meal with baingan bhaja..

Taadgola, or Ice apple -above, and Thalipeeth, below.

Rice paper rolls with hot sauce.

Mallu favourite- veg stew, above, and Chinese stir fry, below.

Potato gravy above, a humble omelette below.

Restaurants- My Michelin Rated ones

Hilton- at Osmania campus, Hyderabad- Irani chai, biscuits, bun-omelette. At that age and in those golden days, the best of the best. There were several similar joints in Hyderabad at the time. Kohinoor on MG Road in Pune is another one with similar things on offer.

Raj Bhavan in Davangere, Karnataka. We spent many evenings there with family, dining at leisure. It was a garden restaurant, which meant that the kids (small then) could roam around and we could hold a conversation or admire the garden.

Taj Mahal at Abids, Hyderabad. A simple veg. platter (thali) which was tasty, filling and within budget. Kamat's at Koti next to Women's College was another.

Lucknow chat place, the name of which I forget. Great chat and mithai. I think it was in Aliganj. Also, the gilawati/Tunde kababs and biryani in Hazratganj and beyond-the film Dawat-e-ishq rekindled some of those memories.

Alpha restaurant, Garden restaurant in Secunderabad area were among the best for biryanis when I lived there. Paradise, too.

Bharwan da Dhaba, Amritsar. Makke di roti, and Sarson da saag.

MTR and Maiyya's, and lots of darshinis in Bangalore.

Savji restaurants in Nagpur for fiery stuff.

Nanking, an old Chinese restaurant in Secunderabad.

The Bong Adda in Belapur, new Bombay.

and of course, food eaten anywhere in good company, accompanied by nostalgia, laughter...

Random Diwali Thoughts 2013

The small plane is more fun to fly in than the big one. The Wright brothers had the most fun.

The Chinese are better at making Diwali stuff for the masses than India- fact of life. And a few other things, like furniture that guys want to buy.

There is no whiskey like the single malts- some of them, at least. My list would include most Islay malts, and Glenfiddich.

Food tastes divine when you are hungry. This is akin to the words of the great Confucius ( a man with a misleading name) who apparently said, "When hungry, eat. When sleepy, sleep." I agree.

What makes for a great movie is the edit. Mostly, it has to do with removing the unnecessary.

There is no greater happiness than friends, family  and nature. Everything else is a burden which we carry.

Farewell My Concubine

This is the title of a classic Chinese film made in 1993. I had heard about it somewhere long ago, and got a chance to view it today. It is stupendous, and unlike many of today's films that can't keep you interested for even an hour and a half, it leaves you wanting more after 170 minutes! That's real art, in my view.

Like Dr. Zhivago does for Russia, it also takes in a lot of the history of China from the Japan-China war to the Chiang Kai Shek era, to the communist takeover and the Cultural Revolution. But all this is in the backdrop. The story is of two boys who become stage partners in an opera company and perform the role of the King and his concubine who remains loyal to him through thick and thin, finally laying down her life for him when his kingdom is about to be lost to a rival. The name of the opera they perform successfully is Farewell, My Concubine. This itself is mesmerising, and holds one spellbound when it is on, a few times in the movie.

As they turn successful, there enters a woman, a prostitute, whom one of them marries, and this drives a schism in the relationship of the 'stage brothers'. How they all get through the years of political turmoil and persecution, sometimes lucky and other times not, is the rest of the plot.

A must see, for any movie buff interested in good cinema One of the classics, reminds you of the Kurosawa films from Japan.