On Olfactory Obituaries

Gee! That took quite a bit, didnt it? Well anyway I have some good news and bad news. The quest that almost inspired a copy-cat tome by your truly familiarly title " A Suitable Boot" has been completed. To an exalted Vikram Seth, there shall not be any further need for legal recourse in Boy vs Boot. And thats just the bad news.

After weeks, no months, of idle surfing and contemplation I have finally settled on a pair of boots. Well I had to if I didnt want to be held under the Patriot Act (I dont think Canada has one! But knowing the States and my old Nike shoes the borders would have been blurred.)on charges for conspiring to suffocate innocent civilians and causing havoc. Those damn Air Max 360s got so stinky that after a day of wearing them in the library I had to choose between braving the cold winds from the open windows or suffering the stench. The cold won and gladly so.

So a week ago, with renewed resolve after an self-degrading introspective bitch fest with Tharan on how stupid each of us were, I set out to the Bay as a last resort to find anything that could relieve the suffering of the genteel Torontonians. The store was pretty busy with no salesperson ready to help me right away. Looking around I chanced upon those cursed Timbaerland Chelsea boots. Damn it! $170. Screw that shite. I didnt think I was ready to shell out $200 for a pair of boots. Torontonians arent that dear to me. SO moving on I found a pair of Rockport boots that looked interesting and asked the Joan for a size 10.5 which ofcourse they didnt have. See thats the course of being an average joe. Everyone's got the same size. Not of everything though! You know what I am sayin'. Well anyway the lady had me try a size 10 wide and well they fit alright.

Joan was this nice lady with a crisp British accent, I'd say in her late sixties probably fighting obsolescence and dementia in the shoe store. I just love it how oldies here never settle down and always keep themselves busy. Makes me sad though, to think of the irepparable damage I might have inflicted on her already atrophying brain when she caught a whiff of soggy fungus laden shoes while trying to put down a new pair of the Rockports I'd asked for. See first rule, never buy the piece on display and second rule, never buy shoes if they dont match. Well anyway even the other pair had some minor faults that my OCD brain found. But under intense pressure from the helpless citizens I settled for them.
Ups: Boots, Waterproof(tear! yes they truly are!, Casual look(definitely dont look like them 6" timbas you know, 1 day break-in period

Downs: Not Chelseas, take longer to wear, $170!!!! Damn!

See the funny thing was I have wanted to buy waterproof chelsea boots for a long time now. Just couldnt find them in India. And when I finally can (they were even available at the bay, well only one style, the timberland earthkeepers)in the last minute I applied the stupid logic that the elastic gores on the sides may eventually loosen and the shoe may not fit so well. Stupid I know!

Well anyway after months of research and debate with everyone including Mark, Murali's Russian roommate, I am now the owner of a proud pair, and cause of the celebration of hundreds of relieved snouts.


Obituary: The Hudson's Bay Co. lost a valuable pair of senile olfactory lobes in a show a true commitment to the nation. Joan is a proud grandmother and continues to proudly serve the Canadian people.

(Rajma Mere Aona) "Waise Sharmao Na"

(My Rajma Come to Me, Dont Be Shy Like That)

So its 1 30 am in the morning. Waise Sharmao Na - Shankar Mahadevan crooning to the troubles of Anushka Shankar and Karsh Kale. Fantastic album I must tell you. Anyway couldnt think of a title for the post. So whatever. Anyway just saw this movie called The Life Before Her Eyes. Uma Thurman sees something all the time and I have to tell you though, the intention seems to be there yet one more time execution leaves something missing. I think someone else could have come up with a better direction on the subject. This, as it was, wasnt very impressive. 

Anyway in the humdrum of living in Toronto, I am for the first time truly putting my culinary inclinations to work. And well believe it or not I am surprising myself. See when I cook, I dont have a set recipe or a procedure. I start with a picture in my head. This picture will be of something I know I really want to eat. Like say today it was rajma. I had bought a can of kidney beans a week ago and they were just sitting there while I was working my way with the lentils and other things. Well anyway at Metro the other day I managed to find a can opener like the one we had back home and thankfully I hadnt had to rob a bank. Man sometimes I wonder when such a simple thing as opening a can got so painful that it needed motorized hands-free systems and all. Anyway so here I was with a can of beans and a picture of rajma in my head. 

The other day fooling around youtube, I found this guy's channel. Vah re Vah.com. So its some desi guy with a 'bet your left nut' southie accent making a very genuine effort at rajma made easy. Honestly though, it is a good idea. Most vids are about 5 or 6 minutes long and he gives you the essentials. So this time like never before I decided to follow VrV bhayya or should I say anna. Armed with an allegedly seven star chef's advice, I head right into it. I had it all. I picked up some italian strained tomatoes on the way back with one onion, whipping cream and other essentials. One onion? These damned leaves here are so big. Like a small pumpkin or something. Believe it or not by the time I got cooking more than half the pot was this one onion, and they are spicy too. 

Moving on, I started like a good student of my anna with some oil in the pot. Got to tell you though I washing up afterwards thinking to me my Black & Decker rice cooker and that Betty Crocker pot are like godsend, couldnt do anything without them. Best $50 bucks I spent in this country so far. So with the oil heating up I dumped some jeera and the chopped onion in there. Wait for them to turn golden and then add some garam masala. Well sabji masal was my substitute. Havent managed to go by little India down on Gerrard St so far. Anyway this does it for my buds. Then it was the turn of the ginger garlic paste and the tomato puree. Added some water and set it to gather a boil. Anna said to add some water strained from cooking the rajma beans. I was using canned beans and I wasnt ready to poison myself with all that preservative BS. So tap water it was. 

See around the kitchen I am almost can look like a star. Sometimes I think that everytime I cooked if I had a girl watching, I could do everything right to get her going. You know what I'm sayin'? So while the masalas gathered some steam I washed up the rice and set my B&D to the task. I washed up some corriander and chopped it up. Garnish man! Presentation is the strength of a good chef. By the way, I didnt know it was called cilantro as well. Or maybe I knew it but who cares to remember these things. So the corriander was ready. And so were the beans. Had washed them clean of all that slimy canned goo and made VrV da happy dumping them exactly how he showed me. And then you see things started to unfold. Everything till now was perfect. Alright agreed I hadnt chopped the onion so finely or that most of the jeera had been burnt by the time i saved their behinds with the onion but hey what the hell so far so good. Only problem was it wasnt really looking it.

Once I make up my mind, I tend to be in it for good. I dont know why I was thinking this in the middle of everything but it surely wasnt doing anything for my satiety centre. Well I think hunger being the basic instinct that it is got me thinking about other things and then it wasnt too hard to drift for a bit there before the jumping lid got me. Little Betty had too much steam building inside and the lid didnt have one of those little vents. So checking on my dinner, according to the international renowned Sanju(I baptised my chef, I dont think thats his name but he looks like a Sanju) I was ready to eat. Well definitely didnt look like it. 

See there wasnt the right consistency, the righ colour or even the right smell. When I cook, inexperienced as I am, I use all my senses to guide me. So you will see me peep, sniff, feel and taste all the time. I was talking about my food. And it seems now I feel convinced that I often do hear it right as well. But today none of these agreed. Well VrV beta now take a hike, Culti mar! This wasnt going to be my dinner. Not tonight and definitely not for the next two. Rule #434 in the Bachelor Handbook : If you take the pains to cook today, dont forget tomorrow. And the days after. 

I knew what I had to do. Some whipping cream will change it all. See I know thats what mom used to do. She would add some KDD thick cream into any of her culinary adventures to improve their consistency. Added to the taste as well, made them really rich. So in a hurry I fetched the carton of whipping cream I just bought, shook it up and opened the seal, held over the bubbling cauldron and tilted it. Pour, pour and pour. Damn!

See now thats another thing. In all the energy that a kitchen brings in, I forgot my amateur skill and go straight for it. That is, I rarely measure up anything. I just add as much as I feel I should. Thats it. And trust me, going by today that isnt very good. By the time I mixed in the cream, the rajma went from a cinnabar red to a light citrus. Not very heartening. And as if that werent enough it started to smell of cooking cream, you know that wierd unmarinated paneer smell. Shifting into damage control, I dumped some more tomato puree hoping to bring the colour back. The smell changed again. Damn!! So added some more subji masala. It did little. To the smell or the colour. If this were a cartoon, a little cloud over my head would show a bulb light up. 

Pataks Madras Curry paste. Another great product of modern day technology and market. So I scooped some of it mixed in some water and in it went. The colour had slightly improved now. It looked more like a kind of rajma I remembered eating at a dhaba once. So finally as I almost gave up, I went in for the kill. A taste didnt do too much. See my dad always did this, if you ever gave him something to taste, once wasnt going to enough. So go armed with half a bowl. The taste wasnt horrible but it surely wasnt what I was hoping for. It was initially bland, had a spicy aftertaste and then left you breathing like a dragon as it went down. I was missing something.

Salt. Now that is something that definitely increased the palatability of this mess I made. Still there was the dragon breath to be handled. I mean its one thing when it burns on the way out, but I honestly feel good food should never burn on the way in. So two big chunks of garlic butter it was going to be. Atleast all that butter would numb down the buds. Sadly there wasnt going to be much I could do for the behind, that fella was going to burn and I dont think I am ready to try two big chunks of garlic butter down there. 

Finally, it came to an agreeable odour, clour and consistency. And as for the taste. Well I have to tell you, before today I had my doubts but now I think we can make it official. I can work wonders in the kitchen. As all the ingredients settled down, everything fell right into place. Rajma it was. See I am one greedy, gluttunous SOB when it comes to food I like but I was so amazed myself that I dropped some of it off at a friends place upstairs before settling down to enjoy my work.

And as for the hallmark of a good cook. It all comes down to the presentation, even if it is for yourself. Eating begins with the Eyes.

Its not Over. Still!

Well here is an update for all those of you not reading, the climax over a pair of shoes runs on. The story rivalling many network saas-bahus is now nearing completion of its third month. But soon all the twists and turns will come to an end. I have decided to abruptly end the first and hopefully the only season. Today I will be going out to the Bay, probably as soon as it opens and will take one last look for a pair of decent shoes. If all else fails, Hush Puppies are going to save the day. Lets hope the $200 will turn out well spent. 

P.S.- Is it just me or are there no decent shoe companies other than timberland that make waterproof shoes on a regular basis? In Canada with all the snow and rain, I would expect a decent market for waterproof shoes of all kinds. By the way, to all those who didnt know and couldnt care less, here is another fact to flush. Canada has no Timberland stores. The closest one is in Buffalo, NY. Even Kuwait has Timberland. How wierd!?!

Avva Kavali Buvva Kavali!

(Have my pie and Eat it too!)

Sweat, rain, icy slush and maybe, some fungus? My shoes smell wonderful. I was sitting in the library the oher day, across from a quiet Chinese kid pracitising his ESL tests, cursing why my olfactory lobes were being assaulted. God! Someone tell this kid to clean up!!

Nike Air Max 360. Rs 10000. I bought them, umm, I dont know sometime back. I was in the Nike store with my mom getting impatient over my now famous indecisive rambling. I had been through tthe whole inventory all the while knowing that it was either the black shox or these 360s I was going to buy. After about an hour of fooling around, my mom got my game. She asked the sales guy who was fed up with this whole stupid son and patient mother scene that I bet he was hoping my mom wasnt there so that he could just throw my dignified rear out on the street. Anyway, my mom declared that she would buy me one of the two, the shox(which were the round about 9000) and the 360s. Now what was she trying to do? The whole time i spent looking was to avoid having to choose. And now my mom asks me to do what i hate the most. Choose? Are you kidding? Both My Father and my father have been very kind to me. But not so much as to entertain my idioticities. So I flipped a coin, shox won. I bought the 360s. Come on they were more expensive. Brag-worthy!

Choosing. Something I am not terribly good at. Growing up at home included lectures in Introduction to Economics, The Art of Spending and Cost-Benefit Analyses. Free! So I listened and as it happens in these cases, thanks or no thanks, I learnt something. And I think I made him proud. I have this tendency to look around so much that i surprise myself sometimes. Trust me thats not easy! Early years at surveying meant walking door to door, picking up brochures, flyers, quotes and what have you, with friday siestas lost to the post-prandial sugar surge to my cortex. Those were the days. (Mind you, being a middle/high schooler meant your surveys were for fun and what you said barely counted towards anything.)

Enter Internet. And once again I can go on about the boon/bane discussion. The internet has taken my surveys from the realm of fun to compulsion. Previously i knew only as much as the shopkeeper told me. Now the tables turned. I know more than any sales guy about the product I am going to buy. I often know already what I want and why, but the sadist in me often decides to humour the poor guy to make his pitch, offer off the record advice and persuade me. Come on, he's there for that, no one should get paid for free. Sometimes I play the ignoramus to start with asking the obvious while i slowly titrated my questions to his info levels. If he go cocky like he knew so much, Boom!! I'd take him down, lead him down the path of sales hell, cluster bomb him with all my research. Its not all fun though. Sometimes the game backfires. If I dont pick my lamb accurately I get slaughtered. It has happened more than once and it is not fun.

Anyway, so now with this whole internet thing, like so many other surveys, I have started to look for my shoes online. Surprising thing was that there were very few online stores that delivered in Canada. That hasnt stopped me though from looking for my perfect solemates. I think I have almost made up my mind on buying Timberlands. And somewhere along the line I have picked up this new fixation for waterproof shoes, which funnily are fewer and harder to find. No water resistant mind you, waterproof. There is a distinc difference. The other day made I fell for these King's Bay chukkas, goretex, waterproof, airport friendly. But just as I was about to punch those little credit card monies into the website, I found a liking for the new Earthkeepers line Timberland has launched sometime back. Suddenly I feel inclined to shell out for that boot style. Maybe its just the eco-friendly branding that seems to have taken hold of the save-planet-earth parts of my brain.

And so the forces win again. I like two different things. Budget dictates that I can have only one. I have to choose!