Adhi Potoba

Pune being the educational capital of India, everyone had in their friend’s circle a group of out station students who had come to for a better education, especially during their college years. Of course choosing my group of friends to hang out with proved that no amount of education can improve poor judgment. Most of my out station friends were as good in the kitchen as Maninder Singh in his early years with the bat. On the positive side, you’d always have a group ready to go on a culinary adventure. Although, these kids mostly had their list of staples they’d visit and order the same thing day after day. On Deccan Gymnkhana , behind Karachi Sweet Mart and a few waves short of being immersed in the Mutha river , there was restaurant by the name on Purab . A basically non-descript restaurant that served Punjabi as well as South Indian foods. Purab was a favourite of one of my friends and he had a standard order—Paneer Bhurji with 3 rotis. I remember sitting across the table and wat...

I grew up on Prabhat Road in nicer times; when the air SPM index was way below 100. Breathing was easier, washing hands didn’t make the sink muddy and Deccan Gymnkhana was the shopping area for fresh fruit and vegetables in addition to sundries. Vegetable shops ranged from huge fruit and vegetable stalls to small ones, like women sitting on a damp jute rag with small portions of cilantro or pieces of young coconut for 25 Paise each. The most interesting shops were on the side where Karve Rd met Prabhat Rd. There were 3 levels of shops / vendors on this street. The concrete shops starting with the Oil Depot at the apex, Vrindavan which was once a tea house, the school (Shishu Vihar) in the middle of nowhere, followed again by some oil depots, grain shops and then the Central Book House which never sold a book you actually could use. After the concrete shops was a layer of semi-permanent low-level shops that sold anything from bangles to brooms to poorly made plastic items. On the next l...

Schools in Pune organized “Fancy Fetes” as a means of raising much needed funds. My alma mater would raise more money in 3 days with a fete than it could with the meager alms received through ZP funding in a year. The maths for this was simple. Host a huge fair on the school grounds by asking students to contribute as well as sell raffle tickets and massive corporate sponsorships would fill the void. Parents would be asked to volunteer their services in supervising the student run stalls of games or refreshments. For a college student, the most important part of going to a school fete was the large collection of young women and supporting schools was as far from anyone’s mind as could be. Besides the games including the large central hoopla and the obvious collection of pretty girls, my favourite part of these fetes were the stalls of home made foods run by parents. Delicious home ‘ishtyle’ food was presented in paper plates that were inevitably covered with grass or sand. One year, I ...

My wife grew up in San Diego very close to the Mexican border; a place blessed with the best rice and beans North of the border and something she misses dearly. I would never attempt to cook rice and beans (as it would inevitably taste like an amateur hack job) especially for someone who has grown up eating it. As I thought about the Mexican rice and beans, I couldn’t help but think about the Maharashrtian khichidi. Cheap and downright delicious comfort foodthat never fails to transport me back to Pune. I have fond memories of being fed soft khichidis topped with ample ghee whenever I was feeling a bit under the weather. On one such occasion I introduced my wife to this humble food with spectacular results. Although, a lentil khichidi can never replace rice and beans as my wife’s favourite food, I think it is pretty high up on the list based on the requests I get to cook it. Ingredients 2 tbsp cooking oil 1 cup uncooked Basmati Rice, washed 1 cup Pigeon Peas, washed (or Moong Dal) 1 On...

After growing up in a land where every menu includes Chicken Manchurian, Sweet Corn-Chicken soup and Chopsuey, the Chinese food here in the US was a little bit of a let down. Sitting in my sad little student apartment in Syracuse, I could only dream about having a piping hot bowl of sweet corn chicken at the Pune University fountain or a spicy plate of Chicken Manchurian at the Oriental Room on Karve Road. I did find some relief in form of Chinese food in the most unlikely of places, the Carousel Mall . A seven-floored eyesore with a footprint of a ceiling fan that contained pretty much every store that could ever come from America’s flyover zones. You could buy a Macbook, a Midor Saw and some sexy lingerie, all under one roof. The food court stood on second floor of the mall with an gigantic old carousel, thus the name. The food court included all of America’s greatest names in generic mall food. Not to mention that fine family restaurant of silicone fitted spandex dolls, Hooters . On...

Besides vacation, summer in Pune meant the mushrooming of Mango stalls pretty much everywhere there was space available. If one had a sky view, the entire city would look like it had a case of saffron coloured chicken pox with the abundance of mangoes everywhere. The Alphonso mango is the greatest fruit on the surface of this planet and the naysayers who pooh-pooh the notion just haven’t had one from Ratnagiri. Mango, the Alphonso Mango, especially remains by far my favourite food and I have tried to come up with recipes that use mango, even where it is not needed. We have recently embarked on a heart-friendly diet trying to cut a lot of the fat and sodium from our diet leaving me to find new ways of make food interesting and edible. The mango never fails to come to the rescue of such ambition and I have managed to forge a couple of good heart-friendly recipes. Here's one such triumph. Ingredients : For Rice 3 cups cooked Brown Rice 3 tbsp Rice Vinegar 2 tsp sugar Pinch of salt Nor...