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Showing posts with label cuisine.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cuisine.. Show all posts

Monday 7 February 2011

Kalaghoda workshop 'Eat, Write, love'

“Eat, write, love” conducted by Rushina Ghildiya during Kalaghoda festival was interesting and promising workshop that I wouldn’t want to miss. Having a wedding in the family had kind of tied me up with shopping and visit to tailors, but somehow I excused myself from other important things, (postponing it to some other day) and I managed to attend two-day workshop on food-writing during the morning hours from 11am to 4pm.







And I was glad that I did.

During the two day workshop I learnt about the different literature/cookbooks that are available in the market and how I could make my contribution to new frontiers of food writing.

Food writing is basically an art of writing in such a way that it creates enough desire in the person to go out and taste the food. It could be by reporting, writing memoirs, history or review, but all food articles place importance on preparation, consumption, nutritional values and recipes.

Rushina spoke about her experience as a published food writer, giving us great tips on the type of articles that find their way into print, giving us pointers which could be expressed through food news, travel stories, trends, essays, product review, restaurant review or interviews. She suggested that we maintain a diary of taste which could list the flavor of particular food with defining words that could make our writings interesting.

What was fascinating about this workshop was that we actually got to eat some of the food stuff and the painful part of this workshop was the assignment after tasting the food. After a delicious meal, instead of stirring myself with food writing, I would rather sleep, er...well.... at least for some time... till all the juices have melted completely through my gullet into my tummy. no?

On the day one, she brought food stuff like kafir leaves, Kafier lime, heart of palm and yellow and pink dragon fruits.

I picked up the dark green, round fruit, probably a close cousin to our Indian lime but with rough body and distinct nipple at the stem end. As I dug my nails into the Kafier lime, there was high concentration of aromatic oil, whose fragrance seeped through my nostril reeling me to heady nostalgia about my Bangkok trip where almost all the traditional food have this flavor, in soups, in fish recipes and in red/green curry. Unlike our Indian lime, this kafier lime was dry and had no juice at all, but its rind could be used in most of the recipes.

There was another plate of ‘heart of palm’ an ivory round slab which she had cut into small pieces for us to taste. It was delicate in flavor, had a kind of sweet and nutty taste. The plate was kept close to where I was sitting and I picked up quite a few pieces, savoring it during next one hour of the session.

Dragon fruit which I would never buy from any market since I would never know what I would find inside was a pleasant surprise. It turned out to be a relative of our Kiwi fruit that I have enjoyed so many times, but while Kiwi is sourer, this one was sweeter and tastier. There was pink and yellow dragon fruit but I liked the pink one which was much sweeter than the yellow bland one.

Rushina made a salad from all these three ingredients adding salt, red chilly powder and lime juice. Our assignment was to write a small paragraph on these ingredients.

Some of those present did complete the assignment, writing about the food stuff and whatever it inspired them to write and they read it for every one’s benefit. Great talent there!

At the end of the session we got to try some pastries and macaroon which we had to write again, but like I said earlier, I digest everything……hahaha!

The day two of this workshop was on serious writing. Rushina gave us more information of different cuisine books available online and the kind of style and content on food writing that one could use and how one could benefit from this literature to augment our-day-to-day writing.

The interesting part again.. what else?? ..yeah eating


Godrej Nature Basket, my favorite super store where I normally do my weekly food shopping, has generously shared a variety of chilly (my favorite ingredient that I cannot do without) products from around the world for us to try.

And thus began our tasting session…

Nori Japanese seaweeds coated with chilly flavor were wafer thin dark greenish strips with a fishy smell. It had a crisp texture and a sweet, slightly salty and pungent taste, I have tasted these seaweed strips wounded over Shushi but having them as a snack was good too.

Next was the mayonnaise with Mexican jalapenos ‘La Costena Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce’. This made the beautiful combination with mayonnaise with crunchy smoked, red peppers and the sour taste of vinegar and tomato sauce.

Harissa (Morrocan chili sauce)The sweet chilli paste with aniseeds and ginger tasted like the Indian version of sweet chutney which reminded me of the sauce that mom would make during my growing up years. It had Indian spices and could be enjoyed best with Indian rotis or puri. We could also use it for stir fries for rich flavors. (pssss! on my next visit, I might buy one)

Lemnos Sweet Chili Cream Cheese had a crunchy taste of capsicum and I was mentally making a notes of must-do-shopping-of-this-product-for-quick-food-snack-days

Lindt dark chocolate had a chilly flavor for a change. It has unique and sophisticated taste. At first it was just sweet but the chilly flavor creeps in as soon as the chocolate has melted in your mouth giving it warm and chilled finish to your palette.

It was a fiery afternoon with so many varieties of chillies from all over the world, most of them I had tried during my travels but had never heard of chilly chocolate…have you?

Sniff! Sniff!

I needed a tissue.

And then it was time to write an assignment…tough part but some of the writers in the group surprised us with their most descriptive memoirs that they were inspired to write after eating so many chillies.

Me, I collected lots of ideas by just listening to their ranting…thinking of becoming a food writer…maybe I should try……some day.

Friday 22 May 2009

Tangy Taste

My friend, Aanchal Adukia, send me a SMS inviting me for demonstration of dips, dressing and salads. Naturally I was interested and decided to go and it was really worth it. My niece and I travelled for nearly an hour to reach her Malad residence. Her table was laden with all kinds of sauces and chopped veggies. On our arrival she served us a chilled drink made from ice tea, which had chopped apples, strawberries and squashed mint leaves. This was very refreshing. We sat on the dinning table and watched as she started demonstrating each dish. One tip she gave was that for mixing of salad, dips or dressing, it should be done in glass containers and it should be chilled before serving. She made three types of dips namely mango creamer, garlic and dill delite and parsley and parmesan dips These dips can be had with wafers, or vegetables like cucumber, carrots, radish, etc. Interesting way of serving these dishes are to keep the veggies strips in stripes along the long plate and insert a small cups of dips in between. Sounds interesting? hmmn! Then she went on to make three different types of dressings like Italian extravaganza, Miami blues and Island Myst. Of the three I enjoyed Italian extravaganza the most and loved the mustard flavor in it. In any dressing the common things that are used are olive oil, vinegar, salt, sugar and pepper. We can make the dressing or dips and store it in glass containers for more than one week…so that is good news for a lazy person like me, hahahaha, (pss.. actually I am not lazy at all) The salads were the most important part of this demonstration, and it just involves chopping and mixing. What is most important is the correct combination to get its rich taste. Some had walnuts in it and some had chestnuts, some had apples and some pomegranate…..the trick is the combination……. The next best part arrived when we sat down to taste…well I didn’t just taste, I ate and ate, till I was sure that I would not require any more helping….. And of course I skipped dinner……

Monday 20 April 2009

Hottie Companions

I have tried many different types of chilies during my globe trotting although I cannot remember their names… The hottest variety of chilies that I have ever had is orange habanero which has a heat unit of 210,000, its heat much, much higher as compared to other variety such as: tabasco: 120,000 jalapeno M: 25,000 Long Slim cayenne: 23,000 pasilla: 5,500 serrano: 4,000 bell: 0 Chilies are quite useful especially as thug-repelling pepper spray and there is also an ointment that contains the active ingredient in chili peppers is used to soothe sore muscles. Another good use: Chili powder is fed to captive flamingoes to keep their feathers pink. But the most popular reason that I love them is for their flavor and my food is never complete without chilies. While in Suriname, we would get orange habanero (which were yellowish in color and had peculiar taste) so hot, that it would burn the fingers that held it, my mom would use gloves to cut it but I used to eat it raw, till I started developing painful infection in my ears. (may be, its’ fumes were developing the fungus in my ears) My favorite meal was Surinamese style ‘Chicken Roti’, which was white flour roti, stuffed with chicken, string beans and lots of red chutney made from these hot peppers…hmmn…I m still drooling….. But when I migrated to Canary Island, I was surprised with the bland food…the hottest sauce that one can get in Tenerife is Tabasco….I found food so tasteless that I would carry a small bottle of home-made chilly paste in my hang-bag all the time…. I also enjoy the food in Bangkok, which is not only hot and spicy but very, very delicious. Now that I am back home in Mumbai, I enjoy the wicket chilies, which are mild and yet so tasty to eat. I am so popular for my inventive chillie cutney recipes that many times, I may meet an acquaintance on the road and she will immediately ask me the recipe of the chutney that she had tasted in my house. Cannot write more about chilies on empty stomach, You.know what I mean?

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