ya its been a while .. but lets talk fall

between painting at mumbai chopstix (not painting walls but painting murals on walls) and trying my hand at all (yes all) possible positions in a restaurant .

I am glad am back at being a chef (more or less) .

well its about fall and its time to put the thinking caps on , hmm..

India doesnt see much of fall so indian food is either summer food or winter food .

whats surprising though is that all of the fall ingredients are like "custom made " for desi food .. really.

whats even more surprising is that no indian restaurant does a fall menu .

so lets put the thinking caps on and wait for the next post (which is definately not going to be more than a day or two .... for a fall indian menu and some spicy fall achaar recipes .

"THINKING LIKE A TRUCK " AND HIGHWAY FOOD IN PUNJAB

My last job in india was at the claridges , the indian cuisine restaurant there was "Dhaba" an icon of many sorts (literally translated a dhaba is a north Indian diner). The reason i bring that up is coz that restaurant forced me to study and appreciate indian highway food and the history of it .

The gentleman (Mr. Khanna)who owned the hotel when the restaurant opened had long and engaging conversations about how they went about starting the place and what ideas really stuck .. he said the best line that struck them was "think like a truck"

funny it did sound at first but the most common customer to any dhaba is still the indian highway truck driver . They still know which dhabas have the best food , the best lassi and the best tea (indian chai) . So Mr khanna said that all involved in the project actually paid truck drivers , sat in truck and travelled in northern india (mostly punjab ) for days to " think like a truck " . and the restaurant that was built 30 years ago still stands strong as an ode to India's punjabi highway food.

So coming back to the present ..i did my own little highway tours to discover that while its best to eat where you see the maximum number of trucks parked its foolish to expect dollops of fresh white butter on your lassi ,so whenever you are travelling to india and want to try out genuine highway food " trust the truck" .

Oh and a lot of that punjabi highway cuisine will be reflected in the menu of our new restaurant "Punjabi By Nature " because ..... you guessed it we are thinking like a truck again (damn .. i used the blog to advertise us again )