Culinary Explosions

Another culinary disaster. Me and Anuki were invited to dinner on Thursday. I had a very late lunch but was very hungry all the same, by the time we were to set off. And Anuki’s condition too was the same. We hailed a tuk tuk but it was well over 8 p.m. when we finally got there. We were famished. We were first served drinks. Then we talked for a while with our hosts. Then came the menu.

O....K.... menu. Now, this is where I always get into trouble. Remember what happened when I ordered Tempura last time? Well this menu had Tempura too. Ha haa.... now you can’t get me. I know what Tempura is! There couldn’t possibly be anything else as confusing as Tempura right....

Remember I’m vegetarian. Not to worry there were more than enough vegetarian dishes to choose from. I was thinking may be vegetable fried rice with buttered mushrooms. Mmmm yum.... But one of my hosts pointed at another dish and suggested it tasted marvellous. Well it wasn’t nice to pass on that, now is it? I told the waiter I would have vegetable fried rice, buttered mushrooms and that thing my hostess recommended, of which I don’t even remember, the name.

We chatted a little longer until the food arrived. Then I got this call and had to excuse myself to answer it. When I came back to the table, I found a plate with a funny and gooey looking splotch squat in the middle and Arabic bread neatly cut into triangles piled around it, evidently placed there for me! I looked at Anuki the area of table in front of her was empty save for her drink. And I said “What about you?” She said something like “They are gonna let me starve.” and laughed. Could it be an appetizer? This big! Well might as well try it. I took a bit of bread and mixed it in with the gooey looking paste and experimentally put it in to my mouth.

It didn’t taste very good. Just then a terrifying thought crossed my mind - and as I learned later - simultaneously crossed Anukis. ‘This is what you ordered and you are not going to get rice. You have to go home hungry and go to sleep hungry unless you are willing to swallow your pride and tell mother that you didn’t get a stomach full.’ Oh maaaaaan why me. Just when we thought all hopes were gone, served a plate full of vegetable fried rice and buttered mushrooms!

What the hell is going on? Now there are two main dishes. But the other dish that my hostess recommended was missing. And only then did I realize - to much embarrassment and horror - that the missing dish that my hostess recommended, was in fact the MAIN dish, that was now sitting next to the fried rice, barely touched. Well how am I supposed to know that? My hostess is the one who had recommended it!

Samadhi was on a call when the first dish arrived, I knew it is going to be a culinary explosion. Too bad, she was hungry as I was too but I have no way to help her because I’m a non-veg. Only choice left was to pick up something on our way back home, ‘vegetable Kottu’, perhaps. I was talking to myself trying to find solutions for my friends hunger.

I have this serious problem when I start giggling I just can’t stop. After first seeing Samadhi’s foreign dish and then knowing that my friend makes mistakes over and over with food items, I just couldn’t control my laugh. Samadhi was actually swallowing her giggles, trying hard not to make any noise. But then the invitee asked what was so funny happening? What could I say, except that we were in deep trouble.

I didn’t know what to say except to make up a story. But once again I failed in that because the laughter took the lead before the words. The only option left was to bring up a fresh topic to discuss. For Samadhi fresh topic is always environmental stories. Trust me at work, home sweet home, over the phone or any other place in this earth she will go on and on about it. Sometimes I wonder whether she does it just to annoy me? Forget about annoying but it sure, does make me sleepy.

End of the day I’m so glad that she makes such mistakes, because all that leaves beautiful memories in our lives. The best part of it is that it all comes out down the memory lane which gives us one more chance to live with the moment and to share the little pleasures in life.