Bengali Food
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Food, Love And Good Memories Travelling in My Suitcase!
Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity. ∼ Robert Morgan And maybe packets dripping with sugar syrup and home made sauces, fried fish and random biscuits – all stuffed in a suitcase while flying back to Dubai from Kolkata… rephrasing it… flying back to my adopted home from my childhood home. Expats have an amazing way of converting wherever they are living into various folds of manifestation of their roots – bringing back food memories via cans and jars and sealed packets and digging out pockets in the city they are living, which sell them. Sally Prosser, author of My Custard Pie caught me red handed with…
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Moong Daaler Payesh or Yellow Lentil Pudding | Autumnal Sunshine Of The Eternal Mind!
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ∼ George Eliot Images of Durga Pujo (the annual autumn festival for Bengalis worldwide when Goddess Durga descends upon earth and photobombs peoples’ selfies!) have started to flood across Facebook and its drilled in my head thousand times over which new dress or saree that my Bengali friends would be wearing on each of the days of the Pujo. That translates into 5 days of Pujo, 5×2 *belas* or times (mornings and afternoons) that they would be changing/wearing new clothes (that makes 10 new dresses…
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Where Will You Eat Bengali Food In Kolkata? | From Traditional to Bohemian
Food is a central activity of mankind and one of the single most significant trademarks of a culture. ∼ Mark Kurlansky There was a time when finding a Bengali restaurant in Kolkata was difficult. It was limited to either the ‘no-frill canteen’ Suruchi or the ‘hotel restaurant’ Aaheli in Peerless Inn. And much later an inclusion of few Bengali dishes in the menu of Sonargaon in the 5-star ambiance of Taj Bengal. Suruchi is Kolkata’s first Bengali restaurant established in 1969 by the All Bengal Women’s Union and has been frequented by stalwart guests like Satyajit Ray. But it was, and still is, a no-frill joint serving good home-style Bengali food…
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Payesh or Rice Pudding For My Birthday | Power of Gratitude Messages
It is just 3 days past my birthday – and belated birthday wishes are still pouring in on Facebook. And I ain’t any celebrity. Social media makes you feel like one though – of course, if you choose it that way and keep your birth date visible in the settings. I chose to – because, face it… which other day would friends (as in all who are in the Facebook Friend list – close friends, good friends, foodie friends, family, school friends, college friends, ex-colleagues and casual acquaintances included) from all corners of the world, and from all walks of life, write to you. The first wishes started pouring in from…
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Bhapa Mishti Doi and A Food Safari of Bengal | BBC GoodFood ME
Eid Mubarak and Shubho Bijoya to all of you! Born a Hindu and brought up embracing all faiths, I am always amazed to find how different festivals from different faiths almost always coincide with each other – as if, underlining my belief that we are ultimately bound by only one faith… that of humanity. This year, the pujo bumper came via a feature on me and Bengal in GoodFood Middle East’s 7th Anniversary Bumper issue in Food Safari: Bengal. The article chalks out my childhood, my food and travel memories and Bengali cuisine, followed by the recipes of Bhapa Mishti Doi and Shorshe Bata Salmon or Mustard Salmon (here’s another version of Mustard…
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Opening Up My Bengali Kitchen For Dima Sharif
Ramadan Kareem! As I leave Dubai for the summers and settle down in Kolkata for almost two months (my summer hibernation as I like to call it, and probably for a lot of Dubai expats as well), I am overcome with tremendous guilt. Guilt for leaving my adopted home for far too long and also the guilt for feeling excited and longing to update my nerves and soul on what I might have missed out in Kolkata in the last two years… and in effect cheating my beloved Dubai! Although, I have left the shores of Bengal for long, Bengal hasn’t left me. The more I have tried to be…
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How Did I Fare In Showcasing My Bengali Cuisine? | On Zee TV Middle East
The Bengali Gourmet evening at BookMunch was very important and special to me. This was the first time I had attempted to showcase Bengali Cuisine in a bit more elaborate way – a modern menu that had been created with all the nuances of traditional Bengali cuisine. It was for the ‘Cook The Books’ in BookMunch, an unique monthly event where the host Chef talked about his/her cookbook or some recipes from their favourite cookbooks, followed by a dinner where the menu had been created by the host Chef. I wanted to create a dining experience where Bengali puritans would nod their heads in agreement – ‘yes, the food had…
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Book Munch | Join Me For A Bengali Gourmet Meal On The 4th June
I don’t think that I have left any stone unturned in telling the world about my roots, where I come from and how delicious Bengali food is. Often I am inundated with mails from readers – Where can we have a Bengali Meal in Dubai? Is there any good Bengali Restaurant in Dubai? I don’t have any answers. I try to showcase Bengali cuisine at every little opportunity that I get (I’ve cooked the Kolkata Biryani in Lafayette Gourmet, I’ve written about the Phulko Luchi In Ahlan! Gourmet, written an encyclopaedic blogpost on Bengali cuisine – I can go on! But this would perhaps be the first time that I…
