Chhavi Noticed This!

So, you know the potato crisps you get at the old-time movie theatres? Not the branded ones shilled by film stars – the ones that look like hey, they could have been fried and packaged in a cottage industry around the corner? Well, turns out that they kinda are! This was the glimpse I got into a wafer-ki-dukaan in Kotachiwadi one afternoon. Behind the posh, clean counter with the sealed bags of all kinds of fried farsaan was this massive man with an even more massive set of utensils. Look at the size of that ‘pateela’ and the fryer he’s using to literally paddle the crinkle-cut potato wafers in the scalding oil! Don’t miss the salli (as in salli-boti) and the already fried chips in the forefront.
P.S. Kotachiwadi was beautiful; really a small glimpse of Mumbai’s colonial past with the Portuguese architecture and the brightly painted cottages

Once in a while, I see something that takes me back to my childhood with such an intensity that I have to stop and take a breath. Remember these Phantom cigs? I’d lick their pink tips and pretend to smoke them (back when I thought smoking was ‘cool’.) I seem to remember competing with my friend Rima to see who could make the end most pointy before it broke.
Maybe these have always been around and I haven’t been paying too much attention. Some candies I adored as a kid have disappeared, but others, like Parle’s Melody Chocolate Toff, have been resurrected, with shiny new 21st-century packaging. Harnik, here’s blowing phantom smoke rings at ya!

Uh, so this post’s title ran away from me …but never mind. What you see in close up is a Japani Samosa. We read about this in the paper – this store run by a Sikh has been selling Japanese samosas for the last 60 years, so 4 days before I packed up my life in Delhi, we went scouring the streets of Chandni Chowk and Chawdi Bazaar for all the old-world treats. (we also bought jewelry on Dariba Kalan, the silversmith street, but the food really was the biggest draw). Here, across Moti Cinema, is Manohar’s Japani Samosa stall. The samosa is shaped like an accordion fan (think deep fried, stuffed, fanned phyllo.) The chhole, though, were to die for. (And after two helpings each, we were close.)

Sigh. I don’t even feel like writing anything. There’s nothing to say. The mango season is ending. These shops are gone! Now, instead of heaps of orange, even red beauties twinkling in store fronts, you’re lucky to see a single basket heaped with green langdas at the fruit vendor’s.
The store fronts are super smart though: they’re let to the vendors seasonally. This one is a paper mart for the rest of the year, I guess.
This was the second year that South Asian alphonsos were available in the U.S. I anticipated hearing more vocal rejoicing, given how gross that fibrous tasteless mess that passes for a mango in the US is.   Lucky me to be home in desh!

So there are people out there who claim to be Gujarati and never heard of dabeli – also given the nomenclature of “fun in a bun” by my foodie friend Sheetal. Dabeli is the past participle of ‘press’ – so, in a word: pressed!
Forget vada-pav, that’s done with. Dabeli is a potato thing with raw onions (crunchy), peanuts and pomegranate kernels. And right before serving it, the vendor will sprinkle sev on it… Hot, spicy, sweet, crunchy, chewy — good stuff! At a street corner near you, but only in the evenings. And the best one ever is around the corner from my house! Yay

We used to know a pair of lhasa apsos called Samosa and Moongphali Anyway, this is not about them. This is about where your samosas come from Behind the halwai, in a dingy, cavernous room is where the raw samosas – still tender in their doughy skins – await their flash in the pan. So, I’m romanticizing Sue me. But the contrast was too stark to not post. Enjoy your next samosa… Oh and the post’s title? I knew a kid who couldn’t say “samosa”

When my brother and I were little, my mother decided we were using too much ‘bad language’ — we were calling each other ‘stupid’ and ‘moron’ – and to curb our tongues, she instituted a fine. We were to drop 25 paise into a gulak for adjectives like that, 50 paise for using sh!#. These colorful gulaks in Mazjid Moth, Dilli, reminded me of that failed behavioural modification experiment
Were this gulak thing instituted in our house again, all of us would be contributing quite a bit — parents included! Hmm, maybe we could use the spoils to get some good PG-13 DVD’s …

Tiny kiosks selling “American Corns” have become both cottage industry and franchise opp nearly everywhere in metropolitan India. I see them in every market and every mall and movie theatre.
The other day, near a stall that sell the steamed “corns” (in masala - yum, Chinese - too salty, Italian - too much oregano, and American – absolutely bland flavors) I found the discarded packaging of the frozen kernels.
It gives me the absolute heebie-jeebies every time I see it written down as corns (plural).
I always, always get a mental visual that grosses me out. In fact, a simple google search will show you exactly what I mean.
Ick, ick, ick, ick.

No one at home likes this stuff, but I am turning into a shakarkandhi chaat fiend. I could live on this stuff. Well, all winter long, when it’s available, anyway…
It’s basically a sweet potato that’s been slow cooked over a coal fire and then peeled, diced, and shaken in a few spicy masalas and lemon juice. So yum! And hey, it’s cheap, easily available, low in calories and has a low glycemic index. Who could ask for a better snack?

Last month, Ma and I traveled by train to Amritsar — my first train ride since last January, when V and I went to Agra (and I left a trail of vomit all over the city and station.) I did get a headache on the way back, but was still charmed by the fact that while the colors have changed, we still get served tea in thermoses on the Shatabdi. And a ‘tea kit’ with sugar, dairy creamer, a tiny stirrer and lots of sugar.