“If Yan can cook”, he used to say, ’so can you.”

I took that seriously. I even tried the no-look coriander chopping trick that he used to perform to much applause. All I got was a bloody (painful) pinkie and a swift bottom-paddling. It was a pity meat was never allowed at home, for I was pretty darned sure I could cook the finest Mongolian Hot Pot in all of northern Chennai. By the tender age of twelve I could distinguish a cucumber from a courgette, an orange from a kumquat and a de-glaze from a demi-glace. I even baked a magnificent upside-down chocolate marble cake (it wasn’t meant to be ‘upside-down’ – the blasted tray slipped) with half a bottle of my Dad’s finest sherry.

My grand-uncle once spent two hours trying to get me to apply to Culinary School (“that’s where the money is. Oh, and your wife will be a lucky woman. Nudgenudgewinkwink.”). For my thirteenth birthday, the kind Mrs. Choudhary gave me a book called ‘The Ultimate Guide to Cooking, Baking and Grilling’; I still have it around here somewhere. Very soon, in addition to Yan Can Cook!, I was watching cooking shows starring a French guy called Pierre, a balding British chap called Floyd and a strange lady from nowhere called Madhur Jaffrey. I even took notes. I was barely into my teens and I was already a middle-aged woman.

 All this came to a screeching halt, of course, when I landed up at Stephen’s. I used to make Maggi occasionally, but that takes as much skill as removing lint from your belly-button. For six years (with the exception of brief holidays spent at home) I didn’t think about cooking.

And then this happened.

Every Monday evening, I find myself watching Nigella Express with the gusto of a hormonal teenager chancing upon his first episode of Baywatch. It’s not just that the lady is phenomenally good looking and that she refuses to dress in the vapid white overalls that make artists look unsuccessfully like scientists. (They stain easily too!) It’s her approach to cooking that is so refreshing. It can be easy, fun, quick and yet, magically, very stylish. Her desserts (which are what I rate chefs on) are fabulous. And she doesn’t skimp on the butter (or chocolate sauce, olive oil, parmesan, marshmallows, bourbon biscuits, m&ms). Mmmm.

In college, I saw a BBC Documentary called “In Search of Perfection: Heston Blumenthal”. This Heston chap is part of the elite group of fancy-schmancy chefs who call themselves Molecular Gastronomists. Forget what I just said about the buxom Ms. Lawson above, this really is magic. If only I had known about this while I was grappling with Solid State Physics problems in Delhi.

Blumenthal’s 3 (Michelin) starred restaurant in England is called The Fat Duck. Their £125 tasting menu has long been considered the finest, most plebian-friendly introduction to the science to-date. The key, apparently, is to focus not so much on taste or smell, but on the memories associated with food. Hence the Nitro-scrambled bacon and eggs ice-cream with sour tomato and red pepper ‘jam’ and caramelized French Toast. And then, there’s the Hot & Cold Tea – a Willy Wonka creation with two fluid gels that don’t coalesce immediately.

Which brings me to this morning: I burnt my toast, put too much sugar in my coffee and spilt some orange juice into a just-boiled pot of milk.

Maybe I should just stick to selling unsellable hotel rooms!

This post was written on the flight to Shanghai. I meant to upload it earlier, but the random censorship of websites in China meant that I could not access any blog site. Till now. Sheer persistence got me into WordPress! If this chokes, I might, God forbid, have to start blogging on Rediff!

This was intended to be a travel journal of sorts. You know, the kind of stuff Ibn Batuta used to do! Ibn, old chap, clearly didn’t have to deal with the Internet Policy of PRC, though! This might, therefore, end up being merely a sporadic reporting of events.

If it does, well, shucks.

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Oolong, and thanks for all the pancakes

Oolong, long time ago, it used to be pretty good tea. Not quite green, certainly not black, and with what Wiki calls a ‘nuanced flavor (sic) profile”. What that means is that it should, if brewed right, be strong and slightly bitter, with an extremely subtle light and sweet after-taste.

Sic is right! Yesterday, I tasted what was claimed to be a blend of some of the finest oolongs from the Fujian province. Oolong and ooshort of it was that it tasted like cough mixture. It was bitter and proud of it; it had the arrogance of a fresh MBA – naïve and ready to change the world, yet unable to make a sandwich without a process flowchart. Marketing will say it has enough anti-oxidants to put out a fire. Quite possible, but I’d much rather eat a bucketful of sand.

Not soolong ago, however, there was a bunny called Oolong that became famous (in and Internetty sort of way) for being able to balance pancakes on her head. Her owner was this Japanese guy who was accused of being cruel to poor, defenseless (and inordinately cute) furry creatures. His argument that nobody complains when poor, defenseless (and inordinately cute) models are made to do the same thing, was dismissed as being frivolous, sexist and generally quite crap. The rabbit died sometime ago and people refused to East’er.

So, as Kurt Vonnegut would have it, it goes.

Wuxi-Washy (wu:shi-wa:shi)

I will be spending much of the next three months in a town called Wuxi. I have never been to China before, and, despite all that I have read, have no idea what to expect. I am deeply curious, though. Is this industrialization without a soul, detached from their wonderful culture, spreading like a cantankerous canker? Or is there a harmonious blend of old and new, a purposeful march towards a better living? More importantly, are all Chinese born with table-tennis bats in their little hands, and if so, where do they get it from?

Equally fascinating is how the Capitalist West perceives China. Is it a James Bond villain or a market to be exploited, a threat or an opportunity? ‘SWOT is it? The truth is, it might be neither – both views are probably obsolete. As consumers, for instance, we have reason to rejoice: we will never have it so good. We will gradually come to expect the unmatched quality (Mattel was an aberration, these guys can manufacture!) and price that China can provide. Many of China’s consumers, however, will be cunningly reserved for its own domestic industries. It’s a wonderful little game of cat-and-mouse, and the Chinese own all the pest-control agencies.

My views on Philosophy

I recently got into an argument about philosophy. I’m normally not that stupid, it was a moment of weakness. I mentioned on Yohan’s blog that I was scared of philosophers and the universe they live in. It was a brave confession, not one that I am usually prone to. Anyway, that got me thinking.

This is what I really think about philosophy. It’s on many levels, and therefore, appropriately, is a knock-knock joke:

Knock! Knock!
Who’s there?
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida who?
Precisely.