Forking Tasty

Biriyani Redemption

There has been something bothering me for a long time now. Months to be exact. I have been around the world eating. I have ate in the dirtiest, weirdest, darkest, hottest, slowest, fastest, spiciest, freshest, coldest, strangest places I could find. I have ate on the street everywhere. Everywhere except, India. India frightened me. To be more accurate my friends, the locals and the restaurant proprietors all warned me of the horrible sickness I would suffer with just a nibble of the street food I so desperately craved.

I left India having NOT touched one morsel from a cart, stall or street peddler. The defeat sat dormant in me for a month after returning home. I thought I had forgotten about my disappointment when one day that defeat roared back to life. I felt it suddenly coursing through my body the same way I was told the gastro-intestinal hell raising bacteria would if I did not heed the words of the, presumably, smarter. It grew stronger, itchier and madder each day. It attacked my brain, my nervous system and my appetite, flooding my body with tasty thoughts of goodness reaped only from a hot street cart down a dusty ally.

I couldn’t take it any more. I had to do something. I was not heading back to India anytime soon so, I did the next best thing for a shot of redemption. The above video was my shot to stifle and kill this now uncontrollable feeling inside me that I MISSED something wonderful.

Want to make this yourself? Make the jump to see the a How-To-Video and recipe.

India Speed Round

I have finally caught up on all the India posts. Just in time too, I have so much to share from my Santa Barbera and Austin trips. To close off India I played a sort of “blank” meal game. The four stories below are the outcome of the questions I asked myself about eating in India. I think these questions cover the spiritual, fearful, gastronomical and monumental aspects of my journey.

I asked myself these four questions. I hope you all enjoyed the India fun. Next time you take a trip perhaps you can ask yourself these four questions and let me know your answers. I’d love to hear from you.

1. What’s the memorable meal you had?
2. What’s the calmest meal you had?
3. What’s the riskiest meal you had?
4. What’s the best meal you had?

Ohh…btw… The above pic is of my breakfast teh morning I woke up in Munnar. Fresh idlis with a curry sauce and a coconut chutney. Par for the course by day 12 in India.

Calmest Meal in India

People say India is completely crazy and that it fries your nerves. They are right to an extent. As a New yorker and avid traveler i think I was able to deal with the constant horns, movement, shuffling of people, spitting, cow crossing and blazing sun. But from time to time even I needed a refuge…

Riskiest Meal in India

Munnar is a town that sits high in the mountains surrounded by tea plantations. It had taken me 6 hours to reach it by car. In those 6 hours I had been to an elephant bath, waterfalls and a spice farm. Now I was about to roll the dice…

Milestone Meal in India

You only turn 35 once, so I decided to do it in a palace. I woke up on my 35th birthday on a rice boat in Kerela. By dinner time I had finished a 1 hour boat ride, 2 hour car ride, 1 hour flight and another 4 hour drive to get myself to Mysore. Mysore is in Karnataka and just happens to be Preethi’s Dad’s home town. I came to Mysore mostly because of the market but this added bit of legacy made it even more special…

Best Meal In India

Choosing one “best” meal is very tough, as you could imagine. As we always say on this blog, meals are just as much about where you are and who you’re with than what you are eating. For this post I am going to suppress that thinking just a touch and focus heavily on the food.

Needless to say I ate a lot in India. But, as I recounted the many meals I consumed, one stood out among the rest. Well, three stood out actually. Did you really think I was going to be able to choose just one? My saving grace is…

P.I.E. WITH Mike and Mark

It had been a long two months leading up to this meal. Mike and Mark were instrumental in helping me pull off the yodel studio project. They were even more valuable on the ground with me in Mumbai. We had finally just finished the whole project and caught our breath and it was time to celebrate. For our celebratory meal we headed down to Leopold’s in Colaba for a good ex-Pat Indian meal.

Mike is a SO CAL guy, bringing that calm and chill behavior to the crazy world of Mumbai. Mark is a NO CAL guy, also a calm person, but in a different way than SO CAL. If you have ever lived in California you know the difference. My relationship with these guys has only been a short 2 months but in that time we talked a lot about the project details. Mark and Mike thanks for all the help with the studio. Ohh, and Mark, I will be out to take you up on that kayak offer one day.

What we ate:

Chicken Tikka Masala
Tandoori chicken
Lamb Rogan Josh
Garlic naan
Plain Naan

Market Madness

This video captures the extensive stands and stalls that make up the ubber colorful Mysore Market. I spent 2 days in Mysore sucking up the history, landmarks, architecture and food. The market was the best I found in all of India. By day two I had my chai guy, chalk guy and kitchen utensil vendors calling me by name. A good food market is always at the heart of any great town and this definitely exceeded my expectations.

P.I.E. WITH Shaa’ir

When I first met Shaa’ir I was stuffed in the back of a van in India, cars were wizzing by on my right and a gaggle of kids were grouping up on the right. She poked her head in the passenger door to say a quick hello before we headed out to our next video shoot location. Shaa’ir(Monica) is one half of the Mumbai based electro, funk duo Shaa’ir + Func.

A few days later the shoot was completed and Shaa’ir, my video director/producers and I headed out for some Diwali partying.(Func had to run off to a gig in Australia) But, before that we hit some grub. A chinese restaurant in Bandrha would do the trick. Shaa’ir ordered up a bunch of dishes and we all dug in.

Shaa’ir has a beautiful voice and a welcoming energy about her. She has an interesting story in that she grew up in the United States (did her time in NYC) but then moved to Mumbai because she felt the creative energy there was what she needed. Over the few days I hung out with her I could sense these two sides to her. On October 25th I realized why I had such a strong feeling of her character so quickly. We both celebrate that day as our day of birth. Although almost a decade apart scorpios know scorpios. Rather than me try and explain all this more, here is the final documentary we were filming of both Shaa’ir + Func. It will fill in their story much better than I could.

What we ate:

Spicy prawns
Chili chicken
Vegetable fried rice
Chicken kebabs
Fried Cabbage

The Filthy Cook Shack

On the tails of my post from yesterday comes this meal I ate my second day in Cochin. I can safely say this is where I strayed from the path. This was the biggest food risk I had taken up to this point on the trip BUT it had to be done. Because Cochin is a big fishing and trading port, they have a lot of fresh fish on hand. Being the industrious and persistent Indians that they are, the locals set up a series of make shift kitchens along the side of one of the roads near the fish market. The deal is this…