Equality & A Dinner Plate!!

Equality is a difficult thing to achieve in life. I almost always feel it’s utopian in nature. This month the new government celebrated #SaalEkShuruaatAnek on social media. I personally got 2 messages from our tech savvy Prime Minister’s office. Won’t lie, it did feel nice to see my name and his signature on a virtual piece of paper. But between all this shuruaat, have we got the basics right? Basics of equality, have we even got it in our heads right. I am not talking about the villages here. I am a hard-core urban girl, born and brought up in big capital cities. My family comes from a background of scientific research and education; and yet I don’t see an iota of equality anywhere I look around. Its saddening when I see a new age, educated couple not celebrating their first born girl child’s rice ceremony, but goes all out ga ga in celebrating their 2^nd born son’s special day, with gifts of silver showered on guests. It’s saddening to see an MNC employee trying for a 3^rd child after 2 daughters. It’s saddening to see a family break down over ego clashes where a wrongdoer doesn’t want to accept his mistake, as he is the first born son who wasn’t taught to be humble to his baby sister. These are the problems that plague the Indian society of today. Somewhere our education system has failed miserably, and there is no two ways about it.  When I look at my toddler, I see a new generation coming up. They need to know the truth, the bad and the ugly; so that in future they understand the “Right”.

Being equal is a right. And a right that has to be applied well. I can’t help but be saddened at whatever is happening to the girls around me. But, I can and I will preach and try to drill into you the importance of equality in your daily diet.

“When equality is found between food intake (calories taken in to the body) and physical exercise (caloric expenditure) a maintaining of body weight occurs.” Sourced

Equality doesn’t have to be socio-political in nature. In fact at times we need to be more open to the word than not. It’s a balance that we seek between all aspects of life. And food stands first on the order as that is what makes or breaks your health. Remember, we were taught health is your greatest wealth in life!

Personally I believe in keeping an equal balance between all nutritional content of my family's intake- carbohydrates, protein and fibres. But I know, at times it’s a difficult thing to achieve and that’s why I have a few pointers to help you out with. When you are out travelling on work for a month or so, or when you are constantly too busy to cook a healthy meal for yourself, it is these times of constraints when you need to practice the following points. Trust me, I write with experience. Recently I stayed 3.5 months in a hotel, and it was then that I came up with this plan for myself. I did not gain any weight, in fact lost some. But that didn’t mean I didn’t have calorie rich spaghetti in cream sauce with extra bacon on the side. Or my favorite biryani with a rich gravy. And I even got the chefs to make bong style cocktail samosa/shingara. I devoured it all with many glasses of wine, vodka and even some scotch. So you get the picture. I ate a lot, but intelligently so. And I want you to do the same as well.

1. The first on your list is to make sure u eat every 2 hours without fail, equally dividing your food intake throughout the day. Get a small jar full of walnuts, almonds and raisins. Munch on a handful of these once every day. I used to get the hotel staff to send in some nuts right in the morning with breakfast. It was the best way to ensure my family gets a handful of nutrition every now and then.
2. Soups are your best friend. Experiment with new kinds every now and then. Try to stay away from the cream soups. But if you absolutely have to have it, then have it as a full meal. I used to order a clear soup every evening at 8pm. It was to fill me up enough so that by 10 pm, when I sit for dinner I don’t over indulge.
3. Make sure that one of your meal is light and steamed at least in 2 days. Idly is my first choice, but a Chinese style steamed fish is great too.
4. Now comes the balance part of it. All your meals have to have equality in it. For a grown up sedentary life, you don’t really need a lot of carbohydrates, especially if you like to indulge in sweets now and then. So equality doesn’t mean equal amounts of every category, but that you need a good balance which should equal to your capability of spending it all. If you sit for longish periods of time, then all you need is food that burns down itself. A salad with a light vinaigrette or sprouts salad with every meal would do it. As a tip always have the salad first. When you are hungry, even the most tasteless of the lot will look as delectable as biryani. Tricking your mind into believing this would lead to a thankful body. And if you are too lazy in making a salad, then have 2 heaped spoon full of Isabgol- Fibre supplement. It would help as well, though it’s not as tasty as a salad maybe, but it would keep u at the right track.
5. Instead of rice or brown rice which is quite tasteless to me, have daliya no 4. Its long grain broken wheat, which goes wonderfully well with any curry of your choice. Some hotels give out the option to customize menus, especially when they know you are giving them revenue for a month. Use that to let them get a pack for you to have for the stay. And do the same in your house too. Replace rice from your daily diet, and have the healthier whole version of grains instead. This small step will lead you to a long step towards healthy balanced eating.
6. Now let’s tackle the bar. Here the equality is of the utmost importance. Equality between the liquor consumed and water taken during a period of time is really the key to be sane while drunk, and especially if you are prone to severe hangover. No one really likes to drink water midway having a drink. And I hear you, I myself don’t like it much. But, before you start drinking, have 2 glasses straight of water. Hear me out, hear me out. I am telling you it works! Have 2 glasses of water just before you start to have your drinks. And then there is no stopping you. To have more flavor as well as more water, take a lot of ice along with your drinks. Trust me that helps too. I at times have wine on rocks. I love it because it keeps my drink really cold and mellow at the same time. But it’s my taste and a lot of you might not even like to try it. So don’t! But have that couple of glasses of water before you start. You will definitely thank me the next morning.
7. Make your breakfast the biggest meal of your day. It should start with a bowl full of fruits but can end with anything really. Even a pc of cake had in breakfast would be much easily digested than a chapatti in dinner. So indulge as much as you want in the breakfast. Pancakes are my favourite indulgence. What’s yours?
8. Don’t get overly bitten by the WHOLEWHEAT bug. Trust me if the packet of your cookie or pasta tell you it’s whole-wheat, doesn’t mean it really is. It might just be 30% and rest be gluten rich all purpose flour mixed with many other preservatives and stabilizers and other artificial stuff. Instead eat your pasta at times but eat the real stuff. And have a big portion of salad with it. Trust me tats the only thing that will work.

Being equal in your perspective towards life is a good thing. A practice that will lead you up in your life. Socio politically, I really can’t do much. I can’t go up to those guys on the erring side and make them understand their deed. They are pretty much incorrigible in nature, and feel no guilt as they have absolved themselves off the wrong they committed. But I am more concerned about your plate of food instead. Maintaining an equality in what you eat and don’t, will really go a long way in keeping you away from health disorders. Even if one person feels and practices these little pointers mentioned up on the note, I will deem this article to be extremely successful.

Do let me know in a comment below how you keep your family healthy. Its always a pleasure to read your thoughts! Cheers!! 

Attitudes of Tastes- Kaema Sutra Vs Masala Library

#Comparison Series Kickstarts....

A few days back, while browsing through foodie groups on social media, a post caught my attention. It was asking the patrons of the group as to what do you do when a restaurant serve great food but their service is below any limits to be called good, and goes on to be a bit more of an attitude problem of the restaurant itself. An innocent question that can spark off arguments of many sorts. Do you go back to the erring restaurant for the love of food or not?

Or does an act of kindness get you a loyal customer of life, even when the food does not reach up to that standard. 

Where does a restaurateur stand in this argument? Everyone has a bad day in kitchen. Fair enough, but what if that bad day just ruined some important celebration of the diner. Recently I went through 2 scenarios of opposite effects. And hence today I sit down to rant review both these meals, and the restaurateur; and talk about how both chose to address these situations.

Darshana Munidasa vs Zorawar Kalra

Modernizing an age old cuisine is undoubtedly the most recent food revolution. And when you talk about culturally rich tropical countries like Sri Lanka and India, there is a lot to modernise. Throw in the fact that both are primary countries, boasting of vast bounty of fresh and flavourful produce; and your experiments become even bolder. And truly, both these iconic restaurateurs along with their teams produced some really good gems in their menu, unarguably the best I have tasted so far.

For all those who don’t know these names, a brief background. Darshana Munidasa (DM) is a Sri Lankan cook and TV host who owns and co-owns three of the most successful restaurants in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has smartly collaborated with cricketers (Mahela Jayawardane and Kumar Sangakara) and an actress (Jaqueline Fernandez) of international fame, to maximise the restaurant’s touristic attraction. Zorawar Kalra (ZK) is the son of the Famous chef/newspaper columnist- Jiggs Kalra; who heads the Massive Restaurants Pvt. Ltd, which owns busy and successful restaurants like Masala Library and Farzi café. Both these distinguished businesses are built on the concept of modernizing their respective cuisines. And to go by the taste, their teams have done an excellent job that cannot be denied from any aspect.

Sri Lanka

Ministry of Crabs was my first when I tasted DM’s creations. This restaurant has achieved immense international acclaim and is run on just one food philosophy- ‘The only use we've found for freezers is to store our food refuse for disposal.’ The island is the best place to get the freshest of the fresh seafood, and the restaurant does justice to these majestic crabs. It’s juicy, delicious and needs to be devoured with hands rather than a fork and knife. I had half a dozen oysters as a starter, followed by the Pepper Garlic Medium Crab with traditional Sri Lankan wood fired bread- Kade. We drank a beautiful French garage wine along with it and finished off the dinner with a spoon full of coffee jelly! Fresh clean flavours, that blew my mind off in every gastronomic directions possible. It’s a moderately priced menu, where it came up to 5900 INR for a couple’s dinner with a bottle of wine. I would recommend it to one and all. It’s an experience that should not be missed by any seafood lover. Complete Value for the money Paid as well.

The very next day, I headed to Kaema Sutra, a restaurant jointly owned by actress Jaquelin Fernandez and Chef Munidasa. It serves contemporary Sri Lankan cuisine, with chic presentation. It sounded too good to pass, and hence I couldn’t stop my foodie steps towards the restaurant. I ordered for the famed Hot Chilli Wings with classic cocktail of gin and tonic. Wings were hard, difficult to eat as the hot sauce that coated it had too much of vinegar, which over cooked the chicken further. The wingettes were a bit better than the drums and spice levels were out of the world hot. We progressed into a simple Sri Lankan lunch of Black Goat curry and fresh hot hoppers (appams). And this is where the inevitable happened. Twice I found goat hair in the meat. Uncleansed meat is not an appetising thought. In fact, it’s a very serious issue which can lead unto food poisoning. Once was forgiven, but when I found a hair again, it was the time to raise an alarm. The restaurant manager quickly made his way up to our table and apologised. He served fresh food, where obviously we chose not to order goat or chicken, and settled on fish. Upon knowing we were Indians, the manager served us a baby jackfruit curry, made in the exact same manner as the goat. He refilled our drinks, and went onto serve us a French inspired hopper with strawberries and cream, which came as a surprise with ‘Happy Anniversary’ etched on it. It was our anniversary lunch, which could have been really rudely ruined. If you analyse, it was just a bad day for one of the kitchen staff who was responsible for cleaning meats. It could have been dealt in a chalta hai attitude, as done in India. But the management decided to come forth to apologise, and did not let us pay anything for the lunch.

India

Cut to my birthday dinner last year in Masala Library, about which you can read here- http://antaras-zouqh.blogspot.in/2014/11/masala-library-expensive-yet-not-quite.html

The callousness shown in the service was echoed in the call from the marketing team of Massive Restaurants. I was reduced to using the term attitude even during the call, where I didn’t feel the call was made to apologise but just as a customary duty to inform that the plates are changed. India apparently is the hub of hospitality, but an Indian found it better in the Lankan Island. The plates were chipped which is unacceptable; but the sommelier leaving in the middle of the dinner, followed with no wine service; to the screaming shouting kitchen staff were as unacceptable as the plate. And moreover, when you notice your patron upset, don’t you take immediate steps to put it right? Doesn’t this fall under basic courtesy of a restaurant of that stature? Now I leave it unto you to decide and tell me which situation was right and wrong and why. There can never be a straight answer to this. To each his/her own. Cheers!

P.S. I think I should stop going to restaurants to celebrate special days. They almost always end up being rather difficult! Anyway, I leave you with my Anniversary shopping of lovely Noritake Porcelain tea sets.

C