Read Cook & Eat

This dish is pure nostalgia. I've craved it throughout my travels, in countries that have never heard of it; I've been angry, sad, lonely over wanting-and-not getting it; over getting it but it wasn't the right one. Glad to say I've finally realised I no longer need to depend on restaurants to make this. I have made this and I've fallen in love with it all over again.  Growing up in the gastronomical city of Kolkata, where the food options are simply mind-boggling at times, for both vegetarian and non-vegetarian fare connoisseurs, street-style food is what rules this city. As Bengalis, we love our chingri malai curry and kosha mangsho, channar dalna and alu posto, cooked to perfection at home. But we also love our rastar-stall'r (roadside stall) chilli chicken and chowmein. There's something exciting about watching food being cooked right in front of you; the same fascination that leads to the major craze behind Shwarma and Kathi Rolls. These stall are mostl...

Dear Pizza,  I start off by saying Sorry. Sorry I never took our relationship seriously. Sorry I checked out burgers and became attracted to them. I'm sorry I lusted over the double-patties and extra cheese slices, though they gave me heartburn in the end. I'm sorry I never fully appreciated your simplicity of 'the fewer the toppings, the better the pizza' mantra, your thin crust base, your triangles. I'm sorry I lost my way. My non-existening italian family will me spitting on me because of this.  Ever since I lost you, I've been a different person altogether. Rice has been trying to patch-up with me ever since the lockdown began. At first, my love, I sinned. I believed the lies Rice presented before me in the delicious and mouth-watering forms of Pulao, Biriyani, Fried Rice, Rice Pudding. It was good initially but somehow Rice couldn't satisfy me. Rice just kept on bloating me up and though I demanded space from it, literally and also in my digestive tract...

Definitely a hit!  So you know how instragram keeps on showing un-related videos in your feed. That's how I came across this dark beauty. Gennifer Goodwin has been a favourite of mine for years. She is underrated and unfortunately its always her haircuts that grab more limelight than her acting. You may remember her in movies like 'He's Not That Into You' and 'Monalisa Smile' or as Mary Margaret from 'Once Upon A Time'.  And then we have Lucy Liu from yester-years 'Ally McBeal' which seemed like a romantic show when I was a teen only to later on realise it was actually crap when I grew up. She was also seen in 'Elementary' in AXN, a watered down version of Sherlock which was also crap. But Charlie's Angels was good. So yeah, seeing that instagram feed was interesting and being a content snob, I kept on thinking how don't I recognise this scene?  Here's where my favourite word comes in : Research. I say that more ti...

With the lockdown due to Covid19, OTT platforms have been releasing substantially good content for the past two months. Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney Hotstar, MUBI, ALT Balaji...the options are limitless. Viewers are just a click away from their favourite shows, movies, docuseries. You are simply spoilt for choice.  But as the availability of content surges, does its quality diminish? As an avid content consumer, I,for one, believe so. In the last two months, I really haven't found anything that could keep me hooked. I took screenshots of recommendations and stayed up nights watching shows, series, binge-watching my weekends away in the hope that at least one movies or show will be worth the effort. But nothing clicked till Patal Lok.  Now, there's already so much being said about this series, I'm not going to go into the details of it. You will get to listen to all versions of it on YouTube and other platforms, where industry and content experts will be reviewi...

Street style Egg-Chicken Noodles with scrambled eggs  Extended weekend during quarantine got me feeling like an old bum. To beat the hassle of cooking something from scratch, threw in some leftover marinated boneless chicken chunks, onion chunks, roughly chopped garlic, and sauteed everything over high flame till done. Added 1 finely sliced green pepper, 1/2 cup button mushrooms sliced, all-dente noodles, 2 tbsp of tomato-chilli-sweet chilli sauce, 4 chopped green chillies (i like the heat), 1 tsp of soy sauce, fried some more and served with lime wedges n scrambled eggs on top.  Gone within 60 seconds' happened in front of me. Quarantine got everyone in my home feeling hungry 24*7