Day 14: Reward and recognition

Today was a working Sunday, and I could not have been happier about it.

We publish a quarterly magazine for this club in Andheri, which is a newsletter of sorts for its members. The club’s pan-Asian restaurant recently revamped its menu and wants to add a page about it in the upcoming issue. So they had a brainwave, and decided to make it a personal experience—they invited a member family and a writer to sample and review the food. Guess who the writer was.

Though I had planned to dust the house today, after I was asked if I’d like to help with this story, I made peace with the fact that plans don’t always work out.

The family I lunched with was the cutest. We started with the customary connection-making conversation and realised that we did have some things in common. I vaguely remember one of their nieces as a senior from my school in Kuwait. The food was super, my favourite being the fish. We bid goodbye and hoped to meet again.

I came home and dozed off for a bit. Later in the evening, I decided to go vegetable shopping. The bhendi was really fresh making it the obvious choice. I decided it was time to upgrade to a tougher main course and mentally calculated the numerous possibilities with this one.

After I’d chopped up the bhendi along with a few tomatoes, I put it in a pan with a little oil. Then I added everything on the kitchen counter to it, with a sprinkle of fried onions. It sat on a slow flame doing its stuff for the longest time, but looked pretty presentable after it was done. I hesitantly tasted a little and actually liked it. It was on the right side of soft and didn’t even smell funny!  (I’d nudge some towards you, for sure.) 

Here’s a peek:

You’d like it, really

The time to sleep in peace is now.

So what I’m really trying to say is: 

1) Safe experimentation in the kitchen is fun. It pays not to be overambitious, at least in the beginning.