Gluttony as charged !

Normally, I don't like taking pictures of food. I prefer to bring it to its right place asap i.e. stomach. But a few weeks back, me and biwi prepared manchurian with noodles and it came out pretty good. Biwi forced me to take pictures and they came out good as well. Thought of sharing on my blog for a change to the lighter but fulfilling side of life.

I love cooking and feel that it is the best stress buster in the whole world. No matter what mood I am in, whether it is anger, depression, tension or anything else, it tends to mellow it down to pure pleasure. If there is anything I would like to do in my life at some point of time is to open my own Restaurant.

Another big fat punjabi wedding ... (contd.)

.... contd.

The Cook: How can there be a wedding without a cook. In my opinion, food is one of the most important ingredient of a Punjabi wedding. You can let Ambrika add another digit to their debt clock but you cannot and I mean absolutely not serve mediocre food at home to the guests. To hell with the bride and groom, if the food is not good, it was not a good wedding. So, my parents called a special cook all the way from Ludhiana on someone's recommendation. And I think it was my favorite part of the wedding. They were a team of 3 with one being the head cook, one helper and one server. It was top quality food with minimum spices and oil yet high on taste and nutrition. To my amazement the cook one evening even made Pakoras with Tomato!! I consider myself a big foodie and critique but I had never heard, seen or eaten Tomato Pakoras in my life. And trust me, they were out of the world!! I could not even resist the Ghiya (Bottle gourd) dish he made on the reception night for himself and his team. So, instead of having dinner with everyone at the Reception hall, I already had it before leaving home.

The Guests: Discussing anything about a Desi wedding is incomplete without talking about the guests and their peculiarities. I felt that the arrival/departure plan of the guests change more often than the weather in England. Arriving unannounced or cancelling plans to come without informing to make the person standing at the airport/train-station go mad after hearing the cancellation news is I guess normal practices at weddings. One peculiar case was that of a relative coming unannounced by car from Shimla at 2 a.m. in the night before the wedding day. It was unbelievable to see my parents standing outside the house at 3 a.m. in the morning with temperature around 2-3 degrees to receive them and to arrange for their bed while the Baraat was to leave at 9 a.m. the same morning !! Atithi Devo Bhava, I guess !!

 The Ending: As the famous saying goes, all is well that ends well. And so was the wedding !! Everything went well, the guests left with their share of sweets and gifts and no major disaster happened which my mom was worrying about all through the wedding. Now, my mom is a person who goes to bed early and gets up early. It is hard for her to stay awake after 9:30 in the night. My father has Arthritis problem in his legs and was very close to getting operated before the wedding but avoided it. Even in such condition, I could not believe the energy and enthusiasm my parents showed during the wedding. It seemed like they were a someone else during those days. No matter what the work was, it was done. They did everything. I felt a little ashamed of myself that I can never imagine myself working so hard for my kids wedding. My sister was nothing less than an Event Manager herself and contributed all her energy and time for the wedding. Everything from selecting the cards to preparing the itinerary to checking the decoration to selecting the wedding dress for me was done by her. I feel humbled seeing my family work so hard to make my wedding a success. No matter what words I say or what gifts I give them or whatever I do for them, there is nothing and absolutely nothing with which I can thank them. I wish and pray that God continue to shower His grace on them with a long and healthy life.

Although, I am a very simple person and wanted a simple wedding for myself with just few and selected members of our family and friends to attend it, I could not say no to the desires of my parents who wanted it to be a grand event. I am not a person in favor of extravagance or things like that but it was just to show respect to my parents that I agreed to do it their way.


P.S: I am sure many of you must have experienced such thing before but for me, it was the first wedding I attended in the last 8 years. And it happened to be my own wedding :) 

Another big fat punjabi wedding ...

Writing anything about a Punjabi wedding would sound cliche´d. Doing everything over-the-top from food to dresses to dancing, to the overall madness. I am sure anyone reading this post would have experienced at least one Punjabi wedding in his/her life or at least read/heard about it. So, let me not bore you with the general stuff. I will try to stick only to the specific event around my D-Day. Although I have always tried to follow the rule of not writing anything from my personal life here but then I have to also respect what George Bernard Shaw once said, "The golden rule is that there are no golden rules". So, let me pen down some incidents which might bring back memories when I read them here 10-20 years from now.

The Prelude: I reached India many days before my religious marriage ceremony so that I could do a court marriage to apply for my wife's visa in advance. There is not much twist in the story as there was in my back. A couple of weeks before leaving for India, I had a slip-disc problem. So, I reached India with pain in my back and my leg. I went to the doctor the next day after landing and he advised me not to bend and sit crossed leg on the floor. As soon as I heard that, I chuckled. And there was an "Yeah right !!" expression in my head. Imagine a wedding without bending to touch the feet of the million of uncle and aunties who would come to greet the newly wed. And a religious wedding without sitting crossed leg? Are you kidding me? Asking the priest to change that part would be like asking Mr. Ahmadinejad to close down his nuclear program. The doctor advised to take precautions.

The Invitations: The preparations started with the distribution of invitation cards. I personally feel that this is the toughest part among all preparations. Making the list, not forgetting anyone, to personally go and invite everyone even though you have not met them for ages and even though they live in the remotest part of your city. A personal visit is a MUST! One night, during the card distribution phase, lying in the bed with a bottle of hot water under my back to ease my back pain, I felt so amused comparing the contrast of life and culture between India and Germany. To visit anyone at his place in Germany would require an appointment to be made well in advance and not just banging into their house at any time of the day as in India. Even after invitation lists being made well in advance, sorted out according to the various regions of the city, according to preference in delivery, it took like forever to distribute them.

The Dresses: One of the things with which I am most amazed in my life is that why my dad has a single cupboard of clothes compared to the three which my mom has, not to mention. An almost similar experience I had with women during wedding. My mom, aunts, sisters, cousins all had a different dress for each meal at least for the last 2 days of the wedding! I am pretty okay with that but even though all of them knew 3 months in advance about the wedding, still most of them were still going for trials till the last moment.On top of that there was enough drama with the tailors. Some of the dresses were not made up to the expectations of the women. There was a lot of crying and moaning. New dresses were then ordered 3 days before the wedding. Aunt from Ambrika calling my Mom at 2 a.m. IST 4 days before the wedding and giving her measurements to order dresses for her, Cousin from Ambrika coming hours before the Shagan ceremony and 5 people going with him to sort out all his dresses for each event of the wedding. I mean, it was complete madness on the dresses front!    

More to come in the next post .....

Desi Fast Food

I read an interesting article last week in the news. I read it first here and then the same article appeared here and finally I saw it appearing on DesiPundit. After reading the same article at so many places, I thought of writing my own experience here. I have never been to Bombay Bowl but tried a similar one called Merzi also mentioned in the article.

I was in Washington DC last year and I also wrote a post on it here. After reading the news about Indian fast food entering US mainstream business, I remembered my encounter with one in DC. I was there for about two weeks and staying at a hotel in the downtown area. Chinatown was walking distance from my hotel. Often in the night after dinner, I used to take a walk there since it was a lively place. I also used to pass by an eating joint called Merzi. It seemed like an Indian/Pakistani place but I never paid any special attention to it. I thought it was just like any other Desi Restaurant.

After about a week eating American food, my taste buds were longing for something tangy and spicy. Moreover, I was missing Indian food. I did not wanted to go to any random Indian Restaurant. The reason being, I am a big critique when it comes to Desi food at a restaurant. When I know that I am paying for Indian food then I don't like to make compromises. And usually I find many Indian Restaurants outside India serving pretty bland food. So, I don't like to take such risks and go to one without a good review.

One night while looking for a place to eat, I thought of checking out, what was this Merzi thing. The place looked pretty decent with the flashy interiors. I came to know that it was not like a typical Indian Restaurant but more like a fast food center for the Desi tongue. On further probing I found it was based on the famous Mexican fast food chain in the US called Chipotle. It's a place quite famous for its Burritos, where the customer can make their own by selecting the base, fillings and toppings more like in an assembly line. Here are some similarities and differences between the two:

	Chipotle	Merzi
Select the base	Roll or Rice	Naan or Rice or Roti
Select the filling	Beans, Meat, Vegetables etc	Chick Peas, Meat, Vegetables etc
Select the topping	Sauce	Sauce/Chutney

I remember as a kid, I used to go to this street vendor near my house selling spicy chick peas on top of normal bread with a sour sauce on top. So, I liked the idea with Naan bread as a base at Merzi. Being a vegetarian, I had a lot of chick peas on top of it with all the available vegetables and finally the Chutnies on the top. The best thing was that they tasted really like the desi ones with flavors of tamarind, mint etc. I was quite satisfied with what I got for the price I paid. Of course I took an additional Samosa (also available) as a starter :)

So, my comments: decent quantity, healthy & fresh food, reasonable price, spicy/tangy taste, not heavy after eating, desi touch. I should mention here that it is not the typical Indian cuisine but that is the whole point. It is fast food with the Indian touch. It should be treated as a break from the everyday daal, roti, rice and nothing more.

There were two things which I found a pretty amusing. I observed that I was the only Indian sitting inside that place which was almost full. Maybe because it was a weekday when I was there. I am not a racist or anything but I found it amusing that a Mexican guy and a Black woman were serving me Indian food.

I am sure that for people living in the US it might not be a big deal but for a foreigner like me, I liked the whole idea and I feel that there is a big market out there for this concept. I hope to see something like that soon in Germany as well :) I had another good experience at Maoz in NY but its a different cuisine and a complete different story.