Gabfest: And Thereby Hangs A Tail

@Iravati she mentions they are air fried in her plate description.. the lunch thread..

 

I will pay attention to such modifiers next time in satchi's plate.

Thanks for bringing it to my notice.

 

Thanks @Shanvy

 

There you go! I will check out that thread.

I flip-flop in dining. Once in a while, I announce that I am a reformed vegetarian henceforth on watching some documentary on animal rights, only to relapse in few days on the sight of a grilled meat. And all my cleansed vegetarian friends peck at my meal so I am more annoyed that I have seduced them into biting my plate of prawn crackers. I do understand what you are saying. Most of my Indian friends are vegetarians and I am a happy daal makhni eater as well. Though they persuade, please order your chicken tikka, I feel slightly uneasy lynching and poking my fork into chicken in front of them.

Eating is a communal thing so I feel uneasy eating non-vegetarian food with a vegetarian crowd.

 

I hear you loud, very loud! That Bharatiya naari takes over us with no wilful submission. I go out dining with a veggie friend who insists, please please please don't compromise on your food. I smirk and say, “That's fine I can eat non-veg later.” I feel much better not to project like a cannibal sucking marrow in front of quizzical brows. It is also the case of ordering too many plates (veg and non-veg) that is left over when food is not shared. I stuff myself so much because I am the only one supposed to mop it off. There are hassles with mixed food habits when hanging out in a group with predominantly veggie friends.

What I do: I eat veg and pack home non-veg. When I hang out, and the other person insists, eat eat eat your non-veg, I would lash out. You are asking me to eat so that you don't feel guilty that you have deprived me of something but I feel uneasy to fulfil your wish. So you rot in your dietary guilt rather than I conquer my etiquette scruples. He would see the logic and pack home my kebabs.

Wah chef! We should share our Sunday brunches back at home. Our stock is similar but for South Indian mutton gravy with chicken biryani and fish in tamarind juice. I would subsist on that biryani even the following day. No wonder I weighed like a baby jumbo elephant back then. And my mom felt I should put on more weight and feed me fried and crunchy meat samosas on the side with the biryani. I wonder how I even transitioned into a strapped adulthood from that bloated teenage. If I hadn't left for the hostel, I would have been in the television coverage: apartment wall broken and men rushed in to airlift an obese lady plied with meat samosas, and my mom would still confound those men by stating how malnourished I looked.

 

I was born in a veg family and raised as veg. However, when I moved over to stay in a hostel for my collegiate education, experimenting to eat meat was a pride. When I started my practice as a Chartered Accountant, my business partner and his family enjoyed feeding me all kind of non-veg, I was looking forward to my weekend visits to their house. When I migrated to the US and when I started exploring spiritual reading, I came across a book that told me how vegetarianism helps control certain behavior. The book also said why human being, the highest in the food chain should survive with the lowest form of the food chain in order not to take much from the world but give more to the world. Eating grain, vegetables and fruits is considered as the first step in non-violence, according to that book. Therefore, I stayed vegetarian for good 20 years plus.

But even now, when I have to accompany a client for dinner and the client chooses to go to Steak House, I make an extraordinary step to find veg options in the Steak House. If I come to the conclusion that they won't be able to provide a healthy veg option, I decide to simple eat Salmon fish and get on with my life. So far, those fishes never came on my dream and told me what punishment awaits me when I die.

Viswa

 

Since Viswa has also joined the food and cooking conversation, let’s shift this discussion from veg and non-veg to men and cooking.

Do men cook?

Yes, they do. But they also do a Subodh-styled (in Dil Chahtha Hai) stuck up after that. “Do you remember that August 23rd 364 BCE I cooked daal and caulifower.” That cauliflower had been metabolised into manure and a new generation of legumes and beans grew out of it which you are eating now. But the man fondly recollects such enterprise more often than not or every time he caresses a cauliflower in the supermarket.

However, there is an exception to the aforesaid. After a big fight, you know who is tinkering with the pots the following day. Bigger the fight, more the variety, a kheer or something that manifests in burnt milk. This time there is no such parroting of accomplishment , never again, because it would evoke the fight which he is trying to cast eternal sunshine in a spotless kitchen. No beep ever of this particular cooking scrape.

Any other men and cooking recollections?

 

As a man, my approach to my spouse is very simple:

1) If she is sick, offer to cook food that I am comfortable cooking so that she can relax.

2) If I notice her in the morning tired after not sleeping so well in the night, I offer to cut vegetables and if I see her tired in the evening, I offer to wash the dishes.

3) After she finishes eating, gently ask how was the food instead of bragging about how I jumped to help her or how well I learned to cook.

4) I never say how I prepare a specific food as advice to her. She is an expert and I am just a filler in the absence of the stalwart.

5) I never cook after a fight because she would refuse to eat. Instead I buy food so that there is no need for her to cook nor she needs to eat the food I prepared.

Viswa