Swades- Episode II

The food

As always, the food was great. This time I had a chance to show off my culinary skills to the rest of the family. It is true that I cannot cook any traditional dishes really well but give me some fancy stuff and I'll be fine! The secret is that if you cook some exotic dish it will generally be a success since the victims don't know what it is supposed to taste like! A true test of a great cook is how well he/she cooks the really ordinary stuff. I tried really hard to keep running in the mornings to make up for excesses later in the day. As the weeks progressed - the running mileage dropped and the girthage increased. I mean the whole point of torturing yourself through 18 hours in economy class is to simply enjoy this! Right? Then why hold back?

I have been told that there are tons of new places to eat. But given the limited time of time that I had (less than 3 weeks), I simply wanted to visit the old favorites. The pork chop sizzler at Zamu's, the paneer satay at Boat Club, the thin crust pizza at La Pizzeria, the world's best wada pav at J.J. Garden, the mouth-watering Death by Chocolate at Just Baked, the Irani naans with paneer and mint from Radio Hotel, dahi-puri at Vaishali and other Pune classics. Who wants to risk trying new stuff after suffering the horrible, overpriced Indian restaurants in the US? (Not one in Ann Arbor is worth it, trust me!) Mainland China was the only one of the newer restaurants that I tried and the stuff is good though the restaurant is slightly overrated.

Of course Mom's food is always the best and all you want from her is the simplest of all dishes. Thanks to digital technology I was able to take movies of my mom making parathas and I am still amazed at how her chapatis are perfectly round and even.

Half-Hitch(ed)

I lied. The chief purpose of the visit was not food. Sumedha and I got engaged. If something like karma exists then I must done a great deal of things right in my past life to be fated to meet such a fantastic person like her. It could not have more perfect. Thanks!