Forking Tasty

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…

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…

Kerela Kitchen

After Goa I headed down to Kerela. Cochin to be exact.Yes, yes, where I made the chai. But before I made that Chai I got into some real cooking with those two chefs. The night I arrived in Cochin I was picked up by Babu, a driver sent for me, and brought to the homestay I was sleeping at for the next 2 days. By the time I arrived it was late but I was hungry. Leslie, the homestay owner, told me the guys were in the kitchen and I should head down once settled into my room.

A few minutes later I headed down the steps and out through the front sitting area to the kitchen/restaurant. I sat at one of the tables and waited for one of the chef’s. I was the only person around and so I asked if I could come into the kitchen and watch them cook. They saw no problem with this and so the two of us headed back into the kitchen so I could see what was going on. The video above shows, in detail, my appetizer and kingfish appetizer being created. What I stripped out of this video was the original audio. The jumpcuts required this but during almost the entire entree preparation I was engaged in a conversation about marriage. I was being questioned about why I got divorced, how i got divorced and why I was not married again. In India, getting married is a big deal that ALWAYS happens. Being 35 and NOT married is a mystery and intrigue to most. Perhaps one day I will post the audio because it contains some interesting nuggets of perspective from the two young chefs questioning me. For now we can just leave it alone by saying, if they had it their way I would be getting married again very soon.