Usually, when you go to wish a 36 year old Happy Birthday, you have to utter a number of platitudes. You have to say things like “Darling, how young you look. Err this IS your 28th isn’t it?” and much more in the same vein. In fact, if the 36 year old is a lady,…
Many years ago, when Aharnish Mishra and Manideep Chhokra chucked up lucrative jobs in a software company, their plan was simple: they were going to set up a coffee roasting facility. Common enough in the south, it’s virtually unheard of in Delhi. Today, Finca Specialty Coffee supplies freshly roasted beans in a choice of five…
Roast turkey, plum pudding, mince pies and Christmas carols may be a part of Christmas in England. And closer home, hotels that advertise their Christmas dinners stick to the traditional roast. But who do they target? In a nutshell, those who don’t celebrate the 25th of December as a religious belief, but want to participate…
Few things are as pleasant as sitting out under the sun on a Sunday afternoon in winter, sipping champagne and going through the one meal of the week that doesn’t have to be hurried. It’s what residents of other metros like best about Delhi – winter, and our determination to enjoy it to the fullest.…
A decade ago, a publisher had contacted me. He wanted to do a book of recipes from a sprinkling of royal households. I raided my address book and those of my friends, to come up with names of princely states and small heritage homes who would part with a few recipes. Or, at the very least,…
There’s a branch of desi food that has never received attention. Actually, it isn’t so surprising when you consider how much leg-work the research would involve: How Indian food has traveled beyond our shores. So if you go to Trinidad and Tobago, you’ll find buss up shut; go to Malaysia and every last food court…
The first time I ever saw a saffron field, was in the autumn of 1987. It was a moonlit night and I was being driven back to Srinagar from Pahalgam. I had finished the last of my slide film in Pahalgam, and I sat back in the ageing Ambassador, smug that I had done a…
Travel down the west coast of peninsular India, eating fish curries all the while, and it is a fair bet that every last one of them will have coconut in them. Some will have ground coconut, others will have only the milk of ground coconuts, while still others will have no red chillies. All fish…
Once upon a time there lived a king and his prime minister. Each had a slew of palaces in the city where they lived, one more fairytale than the other. Cars, retinues of helpers, suitcases of fabulous gems – they had them all. Even when the privy purses were abolished, they lived happily ever after.…
