I’ve been stumbling over branches and climbing through fallen trees to get to work after cyclone Vardah hit Chennai. It’s a heart-rending sight: roads are strewn with broken branches and hacked trunks of once-mighty trees.
We’re becoming disaster pros, after dealing with last year’s rain and floods. Step one is to rush to the grocery story to stock up on provisions. For some reason, bread, milk and eggs seem to be the most popular foods to panic-buy. They always run out first: which makes you wonder just who plans to eat a full English breakfast in the middle of a cyclone. Howling winds, wavering candles, leaky roofs and a spot of Earl Grey please. Go easy on the sugar.
Maybe, it’s got to do with a Palaeolithic hankering for carbs. As the flood waters receded last year (yes, I realise how grand and biblical that sounds), I emerged cautiously, then scurried to the closest grocery store to replenish my bare larder. No bread, milk and eggs: of course. Most shelves were empty, and customers who had managed to access the store were buying practically everything in sight.
Caught up in the tense drama, I began throwing random, unconnected, things into my basket: a pack of cornflakes, a head of cauliflower that looked like it had seen better days and one coconut. As I grabbed the coconut, an elderly man stopped me. “No maa. That’s not a good one,” he said kindly.
Then, there in the middle of the chaos, he patiently went through a pile of coconuts shaking each one, till he found one that met his exacting standards. “There. Take this. And drive home carefully.”
At times like this, you develop a fresh appreciation for the essentials. Without electricity, you can’t use the microwave or blender. The fridge is off, so you need to get rid of (read eat) all perishable food. No ovens, no matter how much you’re craving brownies.
No apps that deliver pizzas straight to your door, or websites that do your grocery shopping. No phone lines for the most part. And no social media.
I quickly realise how dependent I am on Pinterest for recipes. I can’t remember the last time I wrote one down, and every time I cook, I tend to try something new, because there are so many options online. The no-brainer is toast and eggs. Aha. I answered my own question — this is why everyone makes a beeline for those. We keep it simple: boiled eggs, they’re neat, nutritious and sturdy. Easy to eat in candlelight with buttered bread, toasted to a glossy crunchiness on the tava, while balancing a book.
Which reminds me: I rediscovered reading actual print over the past few days. Beginning with an old favourite — Table Talk , a 2007 collection of legendary food critic A.A. Gill’s columns. He died last week, at the age of 62, after a brief battle with cancer. He announced his illness in a restaurant review: “I’ve got cancer. Sorry to drop that onto the breakfast table apropos of nothing at all. Apropos and cancer are rarely found in the same sentence. I wasn’t going to mention it, the way you don’t.”
Years ago, as part of the Chevening programme, organised by the British Council, I was on attachment with The Sunday Times Magazine , London, where Gill wrote his columns. He was a star even then, and since he was dyslexic, would dictate his columns over the phone to a sub-editor at the magazine. Hence, he didn’t come to the office. So, despite keeping my fingers continually crossed, I never did manage to bump into him in the office corridor.
I have, however, kept track of his ruthlessly funny restaurant reviews since. Eater recently published a collection of the most scathing ones in memoriam of Gill. Want a sample?
66 (New York City): “To say the food is repellently awful would be to credit it with a vim and vigour and attitude it simply can’t rise to. The bowls and dishes dribble and limp to the table with a yawning lassitude.”
Café Royal (London): The most depressing and uncongenial meal, in an anaemic, echoey building, made even more wrist-slashingly ghastly by the sad and silent ghosts of a century of culture and élan and bibulous brilliance.
Theo Randall (London): It looked as if all the ingredients had been fed through an office shredder with half a pint of water and kept under a hot lamp since lunchtime.
I’ll end on that note, as the electricity has gone off again. It’s a good time as any to use up the remaining milk by making a comfortingly dark hot chocolate. Meanwhile, keep your candles burning bright, and your toast generously-buttered.
In: Ginger is the flavour of the season. Try baking a gingerbread man with cinnamon, cloves and molasses.
Out: Tediously-styled food served in jars, test tubes, light bulbs, shot glasses. Do us all a favour: use a plate.
