Mundane Musings

There have been quite a few restaurants I had visited these few months that have so thoroughly satisfied my food cravings. "Quite a few" is pretty big for me as against the ordinary number which stands pretty much at one or zero a month. First on my list of visit-again restaurants is Fromage. Not just for their great mango mojito and beef lasagna, but also to re-order a few other items which were a blur on my taste buds leaving just a tantalizing promise of flavours I could have enjoyed if not for the boisterous company. A visit to Fromage materialized when the darling husband read about it on a friend's FB post and shared it with me. I don't need much incentive to check out a restaurant...especially one serving Continental food. So up I jumped and planned a Sunday lunch with two other friends before S could get cold feet. Off we went from Kilpauk, all the way to MRC Nagar, a good 15 kms away to try a restaurant that had 'cheese' in its name. I h...

I have started zipping over Chennai city in the metro train again. It felt so comfortable and amiable like a forgotten acquaintance, that I immediately got into the groove of things. It was especially useful during the brief spell of rains we faced last week. I almost pray that it remains this way for years to come, which could happen considering the manageable crowd that commutes by it everyday. The other day, as I clattered down the long flight of steps that led to the Shenoy Nagar station, I saw a man ahead of me who had just an umbrella in his hand and looked like he was out for a stroll. Why did that observation interest me, you ask? Well for one, no one really goes out for a stroll at 3 in the afternoon, I think. Secondly, I was going out in the afternoon too and I had a huge tote bag and a water bottle nestled in my hands. The lack of any such baggage on his person stumped me a bit. Why would he pay anywhere between 35 to 45 rupees for a stroll? That was expensive. The lovely...

On Saturday we were invited for a cake mixing ceremony in ITC Grand Chola. Since it was my first, I immediately jumped in. Those who read this blog regularly would know that I get kind of high on life in the latter half of the year with a punchy culmination for New Year's. Colourful dry fruits and nuts waiting to be added A cake mixing ceremony kickstarts the cake making preparations for Christmas in many restaurants. A Christmas cake or plum cake is baked or steamed before Christmas and is packed beautifully or wrapped with love and distributed to friends and relatives just like platters of sweets and savouries are distributed for Eid or for Diwali. Dear friend Cee, hosts a lovely Christmas party every year and after Ana kutti turned two she made it a point to invite us to baking the cakes too. I was happy to help her out with baking batches of the dark, fragrant cake and licking ladles clean after all the work was completed. To date, Ana kutti makes it a point to ask me ...

I'm quite bugged by the new Swiggy ad that has swept over our TV in the past few weeks. Swiggy is a food ordering and delivery app, for the unthinkable few who haven't got a clue about it. While the previous Swiggy  ads have concentrated on no minimum order value (which is a superb idea actually) the recent ones have touched the pulse of an emerging economy with its happy to spend population. Earlier if they had looked to target the smart young generation with dispensable cash at the ready and retired people who wanted to hide their sweet cravings from well meaning Hitler-ish spouses, now they have decided to enter the haloed space of the thrifty Indian home-maker. It is no rocket science that in India, the home maker is a WOMAN. With so many opportunities to milk issues of feminism and/or women's liberation - issues that won't be recognized by an average Indian male or female even if it came up to them and smacked them right across their faces, it is no wonder tha...