Food Memories

Sleep time. I am almost there in dreams and all of a sudden, I am reminded of KFC Hot Wings and I cannot go back to sleep now! Presto, here is my addiction to food and the habit to form memories associating with it.

My interest in food is so much that I can remember school friends with their usual school lunches! Like how I met my friend Sithara after 4 years and immediately craved for her mom's perfect combination of mulaga podi and sugar or the amazing Channa (and the fight for it like famished African kids) that KC used to bring. Still fresh in my mind is Shruthi's absolutely crunchy fried idlis, a recipe that I forced my mom to try as well!

As I try to sort and rank these memories in my head, I find myself closing my eyes and smacking my lips a-la Ratatouille style! Like most people, I have this treasured memory of me and my cousins seated around my grandmother watching the movie Anjali for the umpteenth time with her patiently feeding us mashed curd rice with vadagam and pickles. We used to keep eating even after we were full and once all the food hit us, we used to fall flat on her lap!

During my school, eating out was not quite uncommon and I always used to make a fuss to eat at mealtimes! There was the rarest of rare occasions, when we had relatives from US and we went pizza dining with them. The simplistic times when choosing a base did not mean saying cheese multiple times till you ran out of breath! It was a luxury to splurge your hard saved cash on the canteen sambhar and the bakery-next-to-school puffs. More often than not we spent time hanging around the bakery only as it was the most happening social spot of our school life - the one place where we could check out the senior guys without appearing like stalking juniors which we most definitely were.

One of my special moments with my dad would be cooking with him when I was 5 years old - the first and last time we did it! The most basic of all mashed potatoes with some pepper which I relished so much and aggressively demanded to be christened with a proper recipe-like name. After much debate, I agreed to the name 'Alu Kashima'. One of the good points of being a Chennaite is Saravana Bhavan - the only Sambhar I can stand is theirs! Equally beautiful was their raitha with so finely chopped onions which I started admiring all the more after having the horrible hostel raitha with onions murdered than cut properly!

College was a nightmare and joy for a glutton like me! I was not the one for 'missing home food' moods but month end always meant a compromise for hostel food or hot water soaked Maggi noodles. Still there was hope with Tango's amazing tomato pickle and Lucy's amazing beef pickle! But weekends were always the best with the value-for-money Leiden burgers, Aunty Stores' soya puff, RV's carrot halwa and my special order of CCD's chocolate fantasy with extra extra hot chocolate sauce! So much food memories with college swarm my head, so much that I wonder did I go to Coimbatore to eat or study!

I used to drag friends along on food trips on the occasional evening when classes finished early.Our trip would start with the inevitable ATM visit, a 12-rupee plate of Gobi Manchurian, ice-creams at Boomerang and then a hasty run back to hostel when we realized that we were close to the curfew time! Still we or rather I could not stop on the way to have the Hot Chocolate from the PSG hospital canteen.

The luxury of having a day-scholar friend was the unwritten right to walk in for food anytime! I used to travel 2 hours to and fro on weekends to my friend's place just to have his mom's lovely rasam and spinach. That was also the place where I started my culinary experiment with a birthday cake for my room mate Divya. A sure shot disaster averted by Ramya and converted into a cake with two floors!

How can any discussion of food not mention ice-creams and chocolate! The most amazing choco bar I have had is the one shared with my dog. Curled in a cane swing, with my dog on the lap we shared an entire ice-cream so good manneredly!

Why talk about the past when my every day in Bangalore seems to revolve around food! The standard momos at Taste of Tibet, Apollo Fish at Meghna, BJN lunch buffets(followed by chai and coffee to stay awake), Thai dinners and the icing on the cake - CORNERHOUSE and DBC(a sure way to chocolate heaven)!

Coming back to where I started, KFC Hot Wings would be the perfect thing to lull me into sleep now. My only memory of my childhood trip to Bangalore is the visit to KFC on Brigade Road. I was so fascinated by their penguin shaped sauce bottles and made my dad promise to come again on our next trip. Since at this time of the night I can have nothing out of this endless food choices - I will curse myself to sleep with Snickers and Lays! RIP all those memories!

P.S Significant memories that I missed in my hunger to sleep are the Tiramisu at the Google Hyd cafeteria, exam special night tea at hostel that perfectly helped our Pirates of Caribbean movie screening, my extra special birthday lunch at Little Italy, the health conscious sandwiches at Seasons, a-lot-can-happen-over-coffee sessions at Cafe Vallatey, special Greenland parotta, Saikrupa's sambhar and today's dinner A2B's Onion Thokku.