My experiments with food

It was a Friday..

The last day of the working week and I expected some crackers and a hell good of a mood today. But then do things really happen the way we want?

My cook, who generally appears on the battleground (my kitchen) at about 6:30 am called me to say that she would be coming in the evening as she has to shift to the new house. So, I did not have any opportunity to take home cooked breakfast and lunch to the office today! It would have been too late to cook myself as I have to leave home by 7:45 am.

What a big deal I thought!

I would have breakfast and lunch in the office today, for a change.

So happily I went to the canteen and checked out the items for breakfast. There wasn't anything exciting and so I settled for a semiya upma (a mixture of semolina). Once it sat proudly in my plate, I realized that the mustard seeds were swarming in number, looking very outrageously at me. Generally it is a tendency to put little mustard seeds in the oil along with the other spices while preparing any Indian dish. But here I was wondering if it was mustard seeds upma or semiya upma. I am brave to face this, I thought. I smiled to myself and put the first spoon with the food in my mouth. The salt attack was such tremendous in the semiya upma that I got sick at the first bite. I thought the entire salt supplies have been explicity made available to the vendor who was selling the semiya upma and the cook, who had prepared it was too generous in putting only salt and nothing else in semiya upma.

I choked, drank water, tried eating it with the chutney, nothing helped. I got up and went to the vendor and broke him the news of his out-of the-world semiya upma. He asked his fellow to taste and realized that it was really out of this world. He immediately stopped serving it to others and came with a sheepish smile to me and requested me to take anything else of my choice. I refused (have no idea why!!!!). My mood and taste had already become salty and I left from the scene asking him to be careful next time!

Lunch time was quite uneventful. I shared the food with Teju, my best friend and then also had a dosa amongst us.

Something more was waiting for me in the evening at tea time!

There is a new pop corn counter which has come up in the canteen and the smell of it was there is the feuer, on the floors, everywhere. So much that I couldn't prevent myself from buying it! And yet again, my excitement died with the first pop corn which I popped in my mouth. It was sweet and had caramel in it and that made me sick.. again! I said to myself, it is ok, matter of only 10 Rupees. I let those ten rupees and the pop corn go away in the air and proceeded to the counter for buying chaat.

Bhel is my favorite chaat and I have it only when the person who is pro in preparing it is around. I saw him after many days and hence was happy at the prospect of at least eating a good chaat (bhel). And there plopped my enthusiasm and happiness when I had the first bite of it. There was less of chutneys and salt in it, was dry and had no taste at all. I cursed myself for having succummbed to temptation yet again. But what was I supposed to do? paapi pet ka sawaal tha :)

I left the popcorn and the chaat and returned to my desk with a heavy heart and an empty stomach and dampened mood. Why did this happen? Was it because of the raging summer heat that anything I ate did not taste good enough or was the food really so bad, which is served in the canteen? I see so much of food wasted daily in the canteen during lunch. Now, have the people lost their appetite and taste or is the food really not edible at all is a question of research.

I came home, a bit down and saddened and was wondering all the way if I can at least have something decent in the evening? My husband opened the door for me with his usual charming smile and broke the good news to me that the cook has come. I jumped when I heard it (in my mind of course or else the landlady would have come up asking us, if something heavy has struck the ground!). I quickly asked him what has he told the cook to prepare for dinner.

His words came slowly and deliberately. He said that the menu for dinner is onion uttapam, sambar and curd rice!!! This sounded heaven to me and I couldn't wait any longer.

As soon as the cook left, I grabbed the plate and the onion uttapam and ate it as if I was famished for years, but I tell you, that one morsel of home made mood wiped all the gloominess of the entire day and washed away all the bad luck I had with food in the canteen today!

My husband was wondering, what is wrong with her!

O dear! What to tell you about my experiments with the food?

I smiled to him, said nothing and ate well and got up with a big smile and a satisfied and happy stomach and mind! I watched my favorite programme on the Zee Marathi channel and called it a day!

The gloomy day finally ended with ghar ka khaana and a long week end awaited my presence and so I dozed off to the world of dreams.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz