The only Telugu word I know (Apart from the bad ones): Bhojanam.

There used to be this misconception about continental food. For instance, if your date says continental cuisine is his favourite, you were dealing with either a poser or rich-dude-with-a-cultured palate. Source: Cosmopolitan India, early 2000s.

Right.

What is so cultured about eating a piece of cheese is beyond me. I'll stop with the puns.

I'm a big fan of Middle-Eastern/Mediterranean food myself and I don't know how that comes off; asking me to choose my favourite cuisine is synonymous with asking what my favourite body organ is. Would you rather make do without your spleen or kidney?! Hmm. Debatable.

 It keeps changing from year to year, season to season (the favourite cuisine bit). Before the hummus/baba ghanoush/pita bug bit me, it was Thai. Phad thai, Tom Yum soup, Thai Green Curry with steamed rice. Mmm. OK, I can't make up my mind.

And whilst I love Tamilian food (soul food, childhood memories, similar weepy metaphors), other parts of South India, not so much. Can't stand coconut oil (it reminds me of shiny heads, the smell of which gets compounded by the humidity, in the Ladies Compartment of the local train). Gah. Mangalorean, yum, but most of it I consider Tamilian.

Andhra food. Have you ever felt that your Telugu friends are laughing at you at the table? A friend of my brother's would make this joke every Eid: "Aunty, unga biryani sweet romba nalla iruku." Lunch at their house would consist of their family laughing while we cough-choked-sputtered over the spiciness of the food. If the spice had been toned down, I'd have enjoyed it very, very much, presumably. Never got to find out.

We took an old employee of ours out for lunch the other day; she's getting married in a month, and she decided that after seven years of "dead food" ("seththa sapaadu") at our house, she would love it if we went to a Chettinad restaurant. I left the room before I let my face slump. I could grow up enough to face furiously red gravy hiding beneath three inches of oil. I could, and I would.

That's how I found myself at Amaravathi, at Cathedral Road, on Sunday afternoon. I ate a lot of yummy food, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I ate my pompous spiel on Andhra food as well.

The ambience is flamboyantly Andhra Pradesh, staking out on a little bit of Madras. You can spot things made of brass, a wide-screen TV playing Gemini TV and the smell the aroma and hear the sounds of chillies being fried in oil.

We got there at around one and thereby unintentionally-but-fortunately avoided the mad rush for tables.

 The tables already had banana leaves on them, and I helped myself to the gongura pickle even before our menus reached the table. The menu is such a relief, I tell you. It's hardly two pages long. There isn't any clutter with "Chinese" or "Tandoor". And there are no scary things like rabbit or pheasant. Here's where I ask vegetarians and vegans to skip this post.

Mango pickle, gongura, gun powder and salt.

Between the seven of us, we each had the Vindhu Bhojanam (except my sister, who had an Andhra style paratha), two orders of the Mutton Chukka, a plate of fried fish and a plate of brains masala.

Vindhu Bhojanam is the Andhra version of our humble Ela Sappadu. The head-waiter appeared two minutes after we placed the order, with little eversilver buckets that had our pappu keerai (some spinach-like keera cooked with lentils), a chutney and potato-poriyal. Next, he brought around a hotbox of huge proportions and shovelled rice onto our leaves; I had to hurriedly put out an arm so he couldn't build a mountain of steaming rice on my banana leaf, like he had done with the others. Little containers of sambar, rasam and thick curd were doled out next. A bucket of fish and chicken curry (minus the meat) were left at the table.

The waiter is like an old uncle at his daughter's wedding; a gracious host admonishing us to eat more, and appearing magically each time any one of us ran low on any of the individual components. On Dad's request, he gave a short instruction on how to approach the food.

First, a portion of rice had to be mixed with the gunpowder (a crazy-delicious mix of powdered dal and chillies) and ghee. Yes, I know how many calories are in half a teaspoon of ghee. Worth it, easily. I could have just had the rice-gunpowder-ghee combo and walked out a happy, satiated camper.

I separated my rice into eight little portions. One I mixed with the gongura. One, with the sambar. One with the chutney, one with the chicken curry, one with the fish curry, and so on. The spice is in the food complements it wonderfully. Enough to open up your eyes and hit every taste bud, but not so much that you start coughing and rush for the water (rookie mistake, by the way. Water worsens the burn, always reach for plain rice).

The chicken curry was fantastic; the spice in it toned down by the coconut milk. Fish curry, spicy and oily, but not too much of either. The pappu keerai, I loved, because I can be a weirdo who loves healthy, light food that do wonderful things for my body. Even the sambar had a little bit of a kick to it!

My concentration was wholly occupied only by smelling and eating the bhojanam, only to be broken when the "side-dishes" were brought. I have got to stop saying things like kick and side dish, but memories of the gongura and ETv muddle my brain even as I'm typing.

The mutton sukka. I'm not a fan, but that's because mutton as such is not something I enjoy. Yes, you can be muslim and not like mutton. It's allowed. I checked. The gravy in which it was chukka'd (baked/roasted/broiled) was tasty, though!

The murrel fish was batter-fried and delicious. Fish I love in most of its avatars, and this one was gorgeously cooked and had practically no spice, but good flavour. If I'm going to be a grouch, I'd say the portion was too little.

I don't have a picture of the Andhra paratha or the brains masala. My sister says the paratha was "yummy-licious!" in a tone she tries copying from Nigella (we're all big fans). You can take her word for it. She's six-and-three-quarters.

Brains masala was finished by the time I could click a photo. Order it if you're daring (not Fear Factor-daring, don't be a dramatic wuss. Planet Food-daring, may be).

The meal I finally ended with rice mixed with curd, scooped up by vadams and appalams. I only accepted more rice because I didn't want to offend the hospitable staff, but, damn, that was a good decision. Finished all of it!

Dessert consists of a sweet/banana/paan plate, but I gave it a miss and helped myself to a handful of the candied fennel instead. The family didn't though. It ended on a sweet note any way, as Mum didn't crib/cringe when the bill arrived (as swiftly as the food and the clearing up) and that almost trumps dessert.

Pizza en su Casa.

Have any of you had great pizza at Madras? Yes, Tuscana is pretty good, but too pricey and thin crust does nothing for me. I'm a thick crust/deep dish girl all the way; I actually enjoy the ends people discard more than the pizza itself.

The places we've thronged for our pizza fix! Those multi-national chains (you know the ones) that churn out pizzas made from stale crusts, dabbed with insipid sauce and flecked with week-old (hopefully, just one week) bits of toppings? Yes, flecked is the verb of choice; you need a good pair of hand-lens to find the toppings.
Breaking News. I realized a few years back that, that isn't pizza. Not one worth drawing money out of the ATM for. An epiphany of sorts.

Casa Piccola makes pizza between the ranges of Rs. 120 to 180. They've got enough toppings, plenty of cheese and will fill up all the crevices of your stomach. And it's open all day long. I find it to be greasy though... it's the kind of pizza that has to be eaten with a fork and a knife because it's an amorphous mass of dough/cheese/chicken. Some people like it. Some don't. Latter category, I'm in.

So if I'm going to be picky, I'm left with no choice but to make the pizza at home.

The crust, I pick up at French Loaf. It's dense, brown, has loads of whole grains embedded in the dough, and is the right thickness. The rest of the family prefer the white, fluffy bun-like pizza base, which works out way cheaper. *Cough* Country frutes *Cough*

The sauce, I learnt to make in the eleventh standard, the Year of The Sleepovers. Nachos with cheese sauce, Mint-Chocolate Chip Ice-cream with Chocolate Cake chunks, movies with Meg Ryan in them, Makeovers, Prank Calls (before the advent of widespread caller ID). Sigh.

Reminiscing aside, take a look at the things you'd need for the pizza. Told you I make it at home because I'm picky and not because I'm cheap! And this is only for the toppings.



Mushrooms, olives, paneer, onions, poached chicken, mozzarella, peppers,
sweet corn, pineapple, so on and so forth.

I'll post the recipe for the treasured pizza sauce alone, for now. Maybe I'll be inspired enough to make the crust someday. You can also achieve a great pizza and the flattery that comes with it if you buy the crust and a bottle of Pizza Sauce. They might even taste better than your misshapen pizzas, but they won't have soul, though. American Garden and Prego are acceptable. Fun Foods is cheaper, but if you're into cost-cutting, skip this recipe.

Pizza Sauce:

Ingredients:

Tomatoes: 8 ripe, large tomatoes.
Garlic: 1 whole head, chopped.
Onion: 2 large onions, diced (1x1 cm).
Capsicum: 1, diced (2x2 cm).
Olive oil: 3 tablespoons.
Tomato ketchup: 3 tablespoons.
Fresh basil, if available: a handful.
Cumin: 1 tsp.
Dried herbs: 2 tsps (I use Oregano/Basil).
Salt and pepper, to taste.
Sugar: 1/2 tsp.
Chilli flakes-to taste (toss in a couple of dried red chill-vaathal-into the mixie and voila).
Method:

1)Wash the tomatoes. Make an X-shaped cut on each tomato and drop into a pan of boiling water. After a couple of minutes, take them out and shock them (by transferring them to a pan of iced water).

A cheat's way out would be to poke the tomatoes all over with a fork and microwave them for a couple of minutes. No need for ice water here.



Don't use aluminium pans for cooking with tomatoes. Don't even ask why
I have.

2) Let the tomatoes cool. Chop them into rough chunks. Put them, in batches, seeds and all, into a food processor/mixie. The end product will multiply in volume and if you put too much into a small jar, the froth will hit your face. You can also use a hand blender if you're a patient soul. A few chunks of tomatoes in the puree is actually a good thing.

3) In a large non-stick saucepan, heat the olive oil. When it gets warm (not smoking hot), throw in the chopped onions. When the onions turn pinkish, add the garlic and the cumin.

I know, wrong order. I'm incompetent when it comes to not burning things/myself, so this works.

4) When the garlic gets golden, onions get translucent, cumin starts popping: add the capsicum. Give it all a good mix with a spatula. Inhale. Gor-ge-ous.

5)Add salt and pepper. Start with a teaspoon confidently. You can add the rest after the sauce is done.

6)Pour in the tomato puree and set the stove to Sim. Here comes the boring part. It needs to go from the consistency of soup to thick sauce. It takes at least an hour to simmer down. I use this hour to work on my toppings. Keep an eye on sauce, and keep stirring from time to time.

7) After 1/2 an hour, add in the tomato ketchup, sugar, dried chilli flakes and herbs. Taste it. I never get it right at this stage, so don't worry. The wonderful garlicky-tomato-ey smell of the kitchen won't allow too much worry, at any rate.

8)In about an hour, when it's of spreadable consistency, switch off the stove. Taste, season accordingly. Taste. Season. Sprinkle some salt, throw in some more herbs, be careful with the chilli flakes. Make it work.

Those are the toppings I used.

Sweet corn: Sauteed with butter and salt.
Paneer: cut into chunks.
Green olives: De seeded and chopped.
Chicken: the boneless meat chopped into chunks and poached with salt and pepper.
Mushrooms: Chopped, sauteed in olive oil, with salt and pepper.
Bell-peppers: Cut into rings, uncooked, so they taste crunchy.

To Assemble the pizza:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Spread foil on the baking tray. Grease the pizza with either olive oil or butter (I do neither, but it's recommended).
Spread a couple of tablespoons of the prepared pizza sauce on each base.
Call in the troops and ask them to put whichever topping they like on their pizza!
Bake for 15 minutes, just as the mozzarella gets all gooey, and the base turns golden brown.
Sprinkle some more herbs and chilli flakes before serving.



Whilst the pizza bakes, I treat myself to toothpick skewers of my favourite
toppings. Perks of being the cook.



I'm sorry I don't have decent pictures of the final pizza. I got caught up in the feeding frenzy and ate half my share before I realized I haven't clicked any picture!

That photo doesn't do it justice. But that's all I could salvage within 15 minutes of baking and setting it out on the table. Go figure.

Bruschetta. Cake? Bruschetta. Aw, hell. Both.

A huge chunk of the people who've come to me for medical advice lately greet me with a balled-up tissue and a cough (in case I don't believe them). From a runny nose to full-blown pneumonia, there's been a respiratory virus around (eventually turning bacterial).

Why did I choose to share this irrelevant epithet with you guys? I've sadly fallen prey to the bug as well and that means having to forgo my weekly dose of ice-cream. I'm still pinning my hopes on getting fully back to normal by the end of the month so I can go buy a freezer full of ice-cream at 31% discount at Baskin-Robbins. Mint chocolate chip equals Happiness!

Things like these keep me going.

Since ice-cream was ruled out, the family and I ended up having pastry for dessert last Sunday. La Chocolat Patisserie on Casa Major Road is a hop, skip and jump away from my house. Pastry is definitely not my favourite dessert (cost/benefit ratio, proportional calorific rate, etc), but I took one for the team and trudged along.

What can I say about it? The ambience was repetitive; air-conditioned, spacious and clean. Not complaining. Instead of just pastry, the place also makes everything from wraps and tortillas to Manchurian-type-things, none of which we tried. No beating around the bush for us.

The pastry? Since I tend to bake stuff with chocolate in it a lot, I can't be unbiased about pastry. It has to be beyond-excellent for me to gasp out.

I chose the most expensive one of them all. The Mississippi Mud Cake. It was excellent, obviously, but paying Rs. 120 for a slice of cake(a slice, mind you, not a big wedge, which would have been semi-justifiable)? But since I bake, I know how much these things cost, throw in 1)food inflation, 2)the store being owned by one of Dad's friends, 3)excessive chocolate and you have a pacified Rabia. The sister-in-law and I shared it. With the rest of the family (especially my brother).




Mississippi Mud Cake



The kids were displaying their ill-kept ways by wrecking general havoc and earning us the wrath of all the customers who just-wanted-to-eat-their-expensive-cake-damn-it. We tried silencing them with a Truffle Pop each, but bribery only works the 30 bucks we paid for it. The Truffle Pop at Rs. 30 might seem pricey, but Kinder Joy (Indian) costs that much and when you dissect it down, Kinder Joy is just a plastic shell of crap.

Truffle Pop!

Mum and Dad shared an Eggless Milk Chocolate Truffle Cake. It costs Rs. 60 per slice, and they couldn't finish it. I don't know if it's because the portion was huge or the taste didn't encourage another bite. Fruit excites them more than chocolate does.

My brother finished it for them.

Eggless Milk Chocolate Truffle

My brother had trouble selecting the pastry(ies) he was going to have, but finally settled on the Four-Chocolate Mousse. Wiped the plate clean all by himself. Priced at Rs. 90, I'd suggest you get it if you want something light with chocolate in it, as opposed to most other pastry which can be dense and cloying (such a good thing in my book. Correction. Blog).



Four Chocolate Mousse Cake



To round up the bill, I picked up a small loaf of french bread. Something virtuous we were having for breakfast, the morning-after of the Chocolate Explosion! that our "bit of dessert" turned into.

Bruschetta

Ingredients:

Tomatoes: 3, diced and deseeded.

Garlic: 5 cloves, grated or brunoised.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil: a glug.

Dried basil: 2 tbsps.

Salt and pepper: to taste.

Baguette: 1/2 a loaf.

Method:

Toss all the ingredients together in a bowl. Taste it. Make adjustments according to your taste. Let it marinate in the refrigerator overnight, so the tomatoes take in all of the olive oil and salt and taste vaguely like sun-dried tomatoes.

Slice the baguette diagonally. Toast or bake each slice, spread a little of the tomato on it, and garnish with some more herbs!

If you want, you could put sauteed mushrooms or cheese or olives and bake it like a mini-pizza for 5 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Especially if you find raw garlic to be too acrid for your palate.



Serve them hot off the grill. Gobble down a couple. Brush your teeth AND have a breath-mint. Good to go.

Trysts in the rain.

I know I haven't blogged in a while. My day job is famous for its crappy hours, pitiful pay and hard work the likes of which will only make us sicker than the patients we treat. And to get there, you have a fun (!) obstacle course in the form of the Post-Graduate Entrance Exams. Think TNPCEE times 100. IIT-JEE times 20. USMLE times 10. The only thing I can say about it is that it's a joke, and it's over. Whee.

I've hit the kitchen with the vengeance (how I wish I could say the same about my EFX). The backlog of places I've eaten at keeps growing. It's going to be an interesting week here. Get ready for plenty of Mmms.

I must be out of my mind for posting this on a Tuesday. ECR is reserved for the weekends (for most people), no? Before you get to your destination, ECR can be a little 80's looking; more rural than suburban. And the rain might force you to stop driving. Worse, you may not have eaten in two whole hours. Somewhere I'd recommend you to stop is at Tryst Cafe at Neelankarai.

A Gatsby iniative, Tryst Cafe is tucked away at a nook behind the store. Walking in (running in, actually, seeking refuge from the rain), I couldn't help letting out a little self-pleased "Oooh!" I love discovering new places that are good; how rare those instances are.

The cafe is lit up softly, furnished classy-without-being-posh-ly (they also sell furniture in another cranny of Gatsbyland) and has a couple of counter-tops with amazing, AMAZING looking pastry. Cakes, macarons (macarons at Madras!), mille-feuille, baguettes, all of them French and formidable, lest you call them a bakery. This is a patisserie if there could be such a thing at Madras.

And while being surrounded by pastry is the best possible (and sometimes the only) way to be, we chose to sit out in the rain. Rain, in Madras, sometimes even trumps chocolate. At least, it did before the Freakish Astonishing Winter/Monsoon of 2010. See for yourself.

That's the view from where we sat. Omar Sait, a part of the Gatsby family, happened to be at the cafe that day, and he very kindly obliged, setting up a little sidewalk-style table. "You can't expect everybody to pander to your whims," W complained. Well, it was my birthday weekend. Enough said.

Birthday weekend it being, I'd overindulged in cake(tiramisu!); cake instead of breakfast, cake at 3:00 AM, and plenty of times in between. The rain demanded hearty, hot food with the obligatory mug of coffee.

The burger we had was called the Nawabi burger; an amazing concoction of galouti-type lamb kebab, with a side of THE best wedges I've had here. When you have lamb mince instead of a cutlet as a burger patty, you thank God for small mercies. Especially when they're served with wedges that are chunky, have a crisp skin outside and are tossed in grains of salt. It cost either 120 or 140 bucks. I would have paid more, sans complaints.

The baguette sandwich was a chicken Caesar salad stuffed between an in-house baked loaf of french bread. Chunks of tender chicken and the lettuce I loved, the crusty bread worth becoming fat for, but the mayonnaise overload, eh. Mayo-fiends would give it a double thumbs-up I'm sure, but it's not easy to convert a buttermilk-ranch girl.

And the coffee. I'm from Madras. We don't serve bad coffee even to our 'til-death enemies. We are who we are, and all that.

The coffee I had there, I'd gladly serve to all the lovely people who visit and say the nicest things about the blog (and I didn't even have to pay them in food!). It did all the things a good brew does on a rainy evening. Strong, scalding, the bitterness cut with a little swirl of chocolate sauce. I only said I was tired of cake.

I haven't been to the Gatsby patisserie opposite Citi Centre, on R.K.Salai, but a visit is in order; those Parisian macarons look divine. But if it's a tryst that needs to work in your favour, summon the rain gods and drive down the East Coast.

Strawberry Scones forever.

Strawberries. Extremely hard to find a box that isn't expensive, fungus-ridden or rotten. All three simultaneously, if you're lucky like that.

When Mum managed to procure a box of gorgeous strawberries (Rs. 110 at Kovai Pazhamudir Chozhai), I was excited. I imagined dunking them into my oatmeal, blizting a couple into a banana smoothie or simply eaten with a whipped yoghurt and honey dip.

And then I tasted one. Sour. Did I tell you that no strawberry bought in Chennai is perfect all around? Feeling a bit deflated, I stowed it at the back of the refrigerator and promptly forgot all about it.

A couple of days later, I had one of my baking urges. The ones that won't go away until I whip my hand mixer out and melt butter. Mum grumpily asked me to try making something that isn't "chocolate-loaded bitterness" (I guess that is what happens when you get older; your tastebuds die). Mmm. Chocolate-loaded bitterness.

Anyway.

Pastry can be very tricky and I didn't have the time for it. Strawberries, baking, not fussy?

 The answer came to me whilst I was reading Enid Blyton on one of those rainy days. Scones, of course! Scones are one of those things I craved, reading Enid Blyton. (Her characters are always eating English breakfasts and packing picnic lunches consisting of the likes of tomato sandwiches, salted eggs and scones with clotted cream!)

 And I've never come across a place that retails decent scones in Madras and therefore, resort to baking them at home.

Incidentally, I like British cuisine. Selectively. Tea and Digestive biscuits. Fish and chips. Shepherd's pie (meat, potato AND pastry. Jackpot), Chicken Tikka Masala. And yes. Scones.

I turned to the lovely Annie of Annie's Eats for a recipe. And modified it a little to suit the imported strawberries, lack of baking tools and my overall clumsiness.

Strawberry Scones

Ingredients:

1 egg (2 if they're small)
¼ cup thick yoghurt
½ cup milk
1 tsp. lime zest
2¼ cups all-purpose flour (maida), plus as required for kneading
¼ cup sugar, powdered
3 tsps granulated sugar for sprinkling
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold cooking (unsalted) butter, cut into small pieces
1 cup strawberries, diced

Method:

1) Chop the strawberries into chunks. Sprinkle sugar, toss them through, and let them sit.

2) In a small bowl, combine yoghurt, milk, lime zest and egg. Whisk with a fork until completely blended.

3)In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir to mix, briefly with a hand mixer (egg beater). Add in the butter and keep mixing it in until only tiny clumps are left behind (you want it to look like wet sand).

The butter has to be cold-cold-cold when you're making any pastry. In a Madras kitchen, that gets difficult, so keep it in the chiller of the refrigerator until you need it. Sometimes, the hand mixer does not get rid of all the clumps. I just broke those bits up with my fingertips. I'm sure that's not the right way to do it, but it worked for me.

4)Toss the strawberries in the above flour mix to coat.

5) Stir in the egg mix into the strawberry-maida mix with a fork or a wooden spoon. Do not use the hand mixer, it would make a weird berry shake/dough. Try to shape it into a sticky dough ball with your hands, sprinkling in some maida if necessary.



6)Line a baking tray with foil. Sprinkle some more flour on it. Drop the dough ball. Flatten with your knuckles into a disc-shaped mass (20 cm diameter, or the thickness of a deep-dish pizza)

7) Slice into 8 triangles, sprinkle granulated sugar on top and transfer the tray to a freezer for 60 minutes. If your dough won't behave, try getting eight balls out of the dough, flatten into little discs, sprinkle sugar on them and freeze for 30 minutes to an hour.

8) Bake in a pre-heated oven (220˚C) for 15-20 minutes, until it looks brown and crispy on top. Don't let it crisp up too much, because it will burn on the bottom! Also, grease the foil a little bit with butter.

9)Take them out, serve them IMMEDIATELY. Glaze them with strawberry jam, or serve with a little cup of cream.

They come with just one stipulation: Please serve them fresh out of the oven. They taste like soggy, sad dough balls otherwise. Since I didn't need them immediately, I dropped the unbaked dough balls into a Ziploc bag and froze them for a couple of days. Took them out an hour before, thawed and reshaped them. They might need 5 or 10 minutes extra, but actually tastes better. Maybe it's because I learnt to share; served them for family brunch with tea and Spanish omelettes.

Perfect time to ask for that asymmetrical cardigan from Guess. If you can make scones in Madras, so can you rock winter wear. We have ways, we do.

Panini. And then some.

You know how Shoppers Stop and Lifestyle Home have a section devoted to kitchen appliances? I behave like a kid set free in a candy store there. Actually, I behave like me-post-diet in a candy store there.

After much grovelling, I made Mum buy us a panini-maker (Morphy Richards). Ever since it made its appearance, the humble triangle-sandwich maker has been hibernating in the dark recesses of the store cupboard. You can grill vegetables and meat, toast bread, cook a burger patty... I don't know if the warranty will be valid after the first couple of crazy tries, but there's a tasty way to find out!

I made this panini on one of those days I had to fend for myself. And since I've got a lousy exam in ten days, I have to pretend I've mugged 100 Multiple-Choice-Questions instead of cooking up a storm. Plus, I was hungry and I needed food. Fast.

There's no set recipe as such. We've all made a version of this sandwich on that hungry day. Open your refrigerator. Find the most appealing thing there. Make a sandwich out of it. Think peanut butter, mustard, tuna, apples, eggs, anything.

My eyes fell on a can of black olives (un-pitted and un-fun). When I pulled it out, I discovered. the holy grail. A nice block of Feta cheese. Feta cheese is difficult to find. Even Nilgris, to whom I'm eternally loyal to, does not steadily retail it. And when it is, you can go home knowing that you spent 125 bucks on a small bar of cheese, but it is money well-spent.

Salty, crumbly cheese; half-a-handful spins the humble sandwich and churns out a Grilled Mediterranean Panini, one that you pay close to 200 bucks for at French Loaf.

Grilled Mediterranean Panini

Ingredients:

Bread-8 slices

1 yellow pepper, cut into strips

1 red pepper, cut into strips

1 small onion, diced

5 cloves of garlic, peeled

2 tomatoes, deseeded and chopped

Spinach- 1 cup, washed very carefully and shredded

Feta cheese- 3/4th of a cup

Olive Oil-1 tbsp

Dried Herbs (Basil, Oregano, Thyme)

Black Pepper, crushed or Chilli Flakes- to taste.

Extra ingredients of your choice- not authentic, but your palate won't complain, will it?

I add olives and jalapenos. You can add mozzarella cheese, capers, an omelette or maybe even sneak in leftover grilled chicken.

Method:

Prep the vegetables. You can substitute the peppers with zucchini or plain old capsicum if that's what you find at the grocer's. Do not use raw eggplant in a quest to get Greek-y. That needs the eggplant to be sliced thin, salted, rested, drained and pan-fried. Try keeping the proportions even though.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Put all of the vegetables except the spinach on a foil-lined tray (Yes, I know spinach isn't a vegetable... either way, don't add it here). Toss them with the Olive Oil. Extra-virgin would be a treat. OK. I'm lying. Extra-virgin is a necessity.

You'll notice how salt isn't added here. Feta cheese is naturally very salty so a forgotten addition would lead to a Sodium OverDose. Experience is the best albeit an expensive teacher.

Throw them into the oven and let it roast away for 20 minutes. Make sure the oven setting is on Bake or Broil. You'll know when it's done; the kitchen will smell heavenly.   

When the veggies look blistered and caramelized, take them out. Chop up the garlic in it.

They don't have much of a taste right now. Stay cool.

 Add in the feta, spinach (yes, raw spinach), herbs, pepper, and the aforementioned Additions-of-your-choice. Toss it all again. Taste it. Add extra olive oil, salt (if you need it), chilli flakes (if it's not hot enough).

Place a scoop of it between two slices of bread (butter it if you're lucky enough to be able to afford to). If you're serving it to company, try ciabatta or a honey-mustard bread. I used Modern Multi-grain bread; that'll do nicely for my face for weekday brunch.

 The pre-heated panini maker would do the rest. If you don't have one, any normal griddle greased with a little olive oil would do. As long as it doesn't smell of Masala Dosa.

When it's steaming inside and gorgeously crisp on the outside, it's ready!

You can also stuff the mixture into a roti and call it a wrap. You could place it on top of sliced baguettes and stick them in the oven, and they come out as bruschetta. You can stuff it into Pita bread with Tzatziki. You can make Quesadillas, heck, even triangle-sandwiches, with them. Puristas will cry. But you'll thank me for it.

Never Trust a Skinny Anybody!

The first time I visited Sparky’s Diner was a couple of weeks after it set shop, back in 2005. And since then, I’ve been back there more times than I can remember, but the record for most visits was probably set during my internship. That final year of medical college was largely spent at the portals of the hospital (rite of passage, I called it; you’re not a good intern without a vigorous twelvemonth stint there). Any socializing, if at all, was largely limited to Sparky’s Diner.

Two simple reasons why: 1) it served hot food all day long. A rarity, that. The timings of a lowly intern are limited to non-existent. And here you find food that fills your stomach (medical students won’t sneer at that), sticks to your ribs (the un-fun part) and tastes pretty-darn-good, most of the time. 2) Bottomless iced tea and the southern-style biscuits that comes with your pasta!

The place is conveniently located on Spurtank Road and would have almost gone unnoticed due to its basement location if not for a gorgeously garish sign that yells “Never Trust a Skinny Chef” in shades of neon pink and neon green. A loud, supersized American Diner? Sign me up!

And in case you don’t believe it, three facts get ingrained into you as you walk down the steps and into the diner: 1) it is All-American. Get it? Look some more. Get it? 2) The chef (Thom Petty) ain’t skinny. He will also do anything to ensure that you won’t remain skinny, either. 3) The portions of food are big (I’m saying that). Ask for your favourite booth (this poses a problem during their Barbeque buffet Fridays) and a menu, throw away any residual guilt about the gargantuan consumption of calories and get started!

I’ve tried experimenting there (on the days I’m not on post-duty and hence not raging with hunger) and I’ve stuck to re-ordering my favourites. What I’d suggest is to keep visiting the place and experimenting until you have favourites you could fall back on.

The iced tea makes its appearance along with your friendly waiter five minutes into your arrival. Until that time, you’d keep yourself entertained checking out various American memorabilia (licence plates, baseball cards, pennants ), personalized state-wise at your table or if you don’t mind looking sidey (do people still say that?), you could crane your neck around and gawk at Louis Armstrong, an old-fashioned telephone  and a Native American chieftain occupying places of pride on Sparky’s walls.

 The iced tea is like a moody teenager: tangy and cold on some days, diluted or too sweet on others. The waiters are apologetic when you bring it to their notice and rectify it, though. The chef and his staff are pretty chatty, people complain. Fear not, you do get privacy and laid-back-ness as part of the bargain. And the restroom is usable. Two up.

I’m going to review the things I’ve eaten the most.



Didn't have a photo of the taco salad, but these South-of-the-border Nachos are pretty close!



The taco salad: Tender, well seasoned minced chicken or beef, drenched with cheese sauce and refried beans, adorned with lettuce and tomatoes and encased in a deep-fried taco shell; ranch dressing on the side. This salad isn’t going to feature on any nutritionists’ books any time soon, but it is DELICIOUS. I’ve dreamt about it. Actual, Random-Eye-Movement (REM) sleep stage dream.

Chicken Parmesan: Enough chicken to feed a family for dinner is served in this dish. And yet, I can finish it all (with the help of W). Crumb-fried Chicken breast, sitting pretty on a bed of garlic spaghetti, and drenched with marinara sauce and melted mozzarella that scalds the roof of your palate. Salad (he always asks for the honey mustard dressing) and the biscuit (which plays the role of a bread roll so you don’t miss out on the remains of the marinara) come on the side. Mama Rita’s Lasagne, Pasta Napoli are all must-tries. They are more from the house of The Sopranos/Joey Tribbiani (read Italian-American) than what you’d find at Tuscana or Prego.

The wraps: On the days we want to pretend we’re eating healthy, we order these. The Hippie Special (vegetarians rejoice- breaded zucchini, herbed paneer, Italian dressing are stuffed into a soft tortilla) and The Breaded Chicken wrap are the top picks here. A side of fries are given, but ask for wedges. Those wedges alone can make my lunch. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. They do what they’re advertised for.  Or the mashed potatoes. You won’t regret this. 45 minutes on the treadmill is a fair exchange for a scoop of the mashed potatoes.

I’ve had things that have turned out mildly disastrous as well. Double deep-fried dishes. Oily pasta. Insipid rice. Especially on the days I’ve been on a health kick. But they are spaced far, far apart, and you can’t afford to be that picky, dining at places in Chennai, not at this price.

I will be posting on the Friday Barbeque Buffet another time, just so this blog doesn’t become a non-detailed story. If there’s one thing I will say about it is to MAKE RESERVATIONS. It doesn’t matter if you’ve given regular attendance there over the last five years. Make reservations.

Sparky’s Diner is one of the places I’m proud to say I’ve discovered and made my own.  It remains pretty special to me over the years (my 23-year-old palate and 18-year-old palate are poles apart), because this is where the aforementioned partner in Food Crime and I had our first date. And our fifth anniversary celebration (well, one of the five places we went).

P.S.  Oh, and split The New York Style cheesecake, even if you don’t have any space left. You can take the rest of it home, and eat it over the course of the night, a la Nigella Lawson. Mmm.