Of Curries and Croquembouches...

So here it starts. I've been wanting to write about food since long. Though I am not the best cook myself, nor do I write professionally about food. I still love to try out new delicacies and watch food related shows. Indian television does offer some cooking and food reality shows, but they come across as a bit bland and boring after one has had a taste of the western cookery shows. Well we can't blame only 'Westernization' for that. For decades we had only Sanjeev Kapoor's 'Khana Khazana' as a cooking show, and only one celebrity chef, Sanjeev Kapoor himself. Along with Khana Khazana there also aired a show with chef Tarla Dalal. English language cooking shows and food related shows were virtually nowhere on the list.

The tables have turned now. We have far more English language cookery and food reality shows ever, across various lifestyle and entertainment channels. Be it Star World's MasterChef series or Zee Cafe's Hell's Kitchen or even Fox Traveller's Eat Street, Indian audiences are opening up to newer avenues, and are welcoming foreign cuisine with open arms into their living rooms,err..well kitchens.

While the fate of cooking shows is restricted to simple 'nutritious' dishes, by housewives and for houseviwes, we have only one celebrity chef. Doesn't this seem quite ironical for a country obsessed with food, being such a culturally diverse country offering hundreds of different cuisines which are nowhere similar to each other?

What must be the reason? Why do we not have young and dynamic celebrity chefs, like the Australian hearthrob of kitchen, Matt Moran or the recent Masterchef winner Andy Allen, Or the ever gorgeous Rachel Allen and of course the most beautiful celebrity chef, yeah you guessed that right, Nigella Lawson.

Nigella Lawson with her Spaghetti

Many of our very own chefs have pursued a successful career overseas, simply because of a lack of opportunities and exposure in India. Vikas Khanna, the Michelin starred chef based in New York City, or Vineet Bhatia, the successful chef of 'Rasoi' based in London who also hosts 'Twist Of Taste' on Fox Traveller, are some of the very talented chefs and are among the most respected in the culinary world.

New York based Indian chef Vikas Khanna

Efforts are being made to encourage taking up cooking as a profession. With MasterChef India: Kitchen Ke Superstars already in its second season, it has provided with the much needed adrenaline to cooking reality shows rather than the plain old 'Poushtik Cutlet' recipes which our traditional shows focused on. Series like MasterChef have given a sense of competition and have made even cooking something very exciting. It has also encouraged people to break free from their daily monotonous lives and try their hand at cooking.

But then again, the question remains, why we do not have any more shows like them, whereas it is clearly evident that people love to watch them. 

Probably cooking is kind of looked down upon,  is not given much heed, and is considered to be a woman's job (another stereotype of a predominantly patriarchal society) and so that's what Indian Television does, caters to its viewers what they want. And that's the reason we don't have any food icons, to look up to while cooking in itself is looked down upon. And with all this hullabaloo going around, one does not simply become a celebrity chef when all the viewers wanted was, a simple recipe to attract kids to karela and baingans! 

India is a diverse country, we have the richest of the richest and poorest of the poor, so while most of the housewives are busy jotting down '2 chammach cheeni, aur namak swaadansuar' the younger lot is busy guffawing when Gordon Ramsay (host of Hell's Kitchen) yells "Pack up your knives and go!" or absolutely melting inside when Adriano Zumbo cuts a slice of his famous V8 Vanilla Cake. 

 Patissiere Adriano Zumbo with his signature dessert Macaron Tower.

'Why do you watch MasterChef Australia?' I ask Srushti, a regular 16 year old girl, who fits perfectly in the target audience of English language channels like Star World India, Zee Cafe and Fox Traveller, and pat comes the reply "because it exposes me to the cuisines of the world, and I can have an understanding of what people like to eat, outside India". Another 17 year old student, Kumar replies that he just watches the show for the fun element of it, the races, pressure tests, the team challenges and of course the food. 'Dessert rounds are my favorite' he remarks with a twinkle in the eye.


With chefs like Adriano Zumbo who is regarded as the Dark Lord of Desserts and The Patissiere of Pain who dishes out famous signature desserts like the Macaron Tower, the croquembouche or his V8 Vanilla Cake, the audience can't seem to get enough of it. With chocolate cakes oozing with hot chocolate ganache, sprinkled with castor sugar or the perfectly wobbly chocolate mousse with a dash of orange zest and praline look so tasty on TV that people have started calling it 'foodporn'!                          
They say the food looks so tasty that it's almost orgasmic. Seriously, who doesn't love themselves a little foodporn, its indulging in food, with zero guilt. So go on, switch on the idiot box and Droooool...

Movie Review: Kai Po Che

'Kai Po Che' is yet another film based on the works of noted youth writer Chetan Bhagat. While the book was a hit with the youth, so is the movie. Directed by Abhishek Kapoor of 'Rock On!!' fame, it was overall a good watch.

It started off with Govind (Raj Kumar) giving a presentation about his company 'Sabarmati Sports' supplying sports equipment to various institutions across India. And then suddenly we are taken to the lanes of Ahmedabad, Gujarat in the year 1999. It comes across as a simpler time without the recent innovations of high tech cellphones, and tablets.

The story, set in the old parts of the culturally rich city of Gujarat, 'Amdavad' comes across as a breath of fresh air among today's cinema. The element of authenticity on the part of the director and the cast was simply amazing. Before going into the theater I thought to myself, this was going to be another one of those bollywood movies set in Gujarat, but somewhere are not very real to life, the humble gujju way of life, lives of people that slyly turn in Amdavad's 'pols'.

Having spent the formative years of my childhood in Baroda, Gujarat, I could very well understand the grappling situations which the three of the protagonists were facing. The direction is fantastic, with each frame with its unique touch of Gujarat, be it the actors hurling Gujarati abuses, giving speeches in Gujarati or coyly calling each other 'bakaa'. The filmmakers have truly captured the essence of Gujarat which is rare for a Bollywood production. 

I was naturally impressed with the whole cinematography and the screenplay which reeked of Gujarat, but the moment the earthquake of January 26th, 2001, shook up the characters on screen, suddenly I was taken to my childhood, and remembered those days of utter confusion and chaos and of course fear as I had never experienced an earthquake, leave away experience, I had never even known what an earthquake is. The intricacies of the difficult situations, and the friction between various groups for the proper rehabilitation in different camps was just perfect. You cannot be the judge of the authenticity of such an arduous situation without actually experiencing it first hand, yet the grapple between one of the story's protagonist Ishaan (Sushant Singh Rajput) and a member of the Omi's (Amit Sadh) party was something very real to life. 

A lot of attention was paid to the minute details of each frame, and the film was actually able to transport the audience to Amdavad. The aftermath of the earthquake, the rehabilitation camps, the Godhra kaand, the aftermath of the Godhra kaand were all peculiarly portrayed without any fine detail going amiss. The complex situations that had arisen after the incident at Godhra were so perfectly shown, be it Govind telling his buddy Ishaan over the phone in hushed tones that its not safe outside, or the scene in which Omi forces his way through Ishaan's student Ali's home, it was all so believable. 

The whole cast, even though was particularly new to the audience, yet they played the characters well.  All characters seemed closer to life. The plot was well written and the screenplay was clever. The background score too was good, in complete sync with the emotions and intricacies of the situations. The only thing which was not quite authentic, and hence up to the mark, was the navratri sequence. The so called 'garba' was a total bollywood song 'Pari Hoon Main', which looks somewhat out of place in a traditional Gujarati setting, as hindi songs being played at Garbas is not the trend in Gujarat. Melodies like 'Indhana Veenva' or 'Tara Vina Shyam Mane' could have done much more justice to it.

So all in all, its a good watch, will give you a quick trip and insight into the humble Gujju life. It will surely give you goosebumps if you have actually suffered those traumatic experiences. I'm no certified film critic, but as they say "Audience is the biggest critic", so I award this movie 3.5 stars.

End of an era...

'This is the end.' crooned Adele at the Academy Awards, on 25th February. It was an end indeed, the end of my school life, the last day totally summed up this magnificent journey of 12 years. Though I've changed 5 schools in my life, they all were tied together by a common string, of a home like feeling, comfort and humility, especially high school. So here's a little poem, which is somewhat like an ode to the end of my school life, moreover high school life, and wishing us all luck for our future...

End of an era

‘High School!’

Those two words which made me lose my cool.

Huge books, alien teachers, and hostility,

Were all going to replace fun, laughter,and humility.

A few months passed quickly,

And this hostile environment became a sort of family slowly.

As I got a hang of it after a while,

Strangers became more than just a smile.

Forged new friendships,

Cherished old relationships.

Cherishing them, on each passing day,

Realized that we were never this way.

Some of the friendships didn’t last long,

As some people drifted apart, and never came along.

Days, weeks, months passed with some highs and some lows.

Peppered with laughter and giggles, at each blow.

All this time passed so fast,

Not a minute, to think of the past,

Let alone planning the future,

‘Cause it’s tedious, picking a career!

We are each at crossroads, in our own lives,

Waiting for our turn to dive,

Into the real world,

Out of this very secure mold.

This is the end of an era,

As my high school life is ending.

Which had a very bittersweet beginning.

These two years passed away swiftly,

Hope the coming ones to go as smoothly.

..But this is the end of an era,

…The end of a remarkable era.