Sometimes I wonder if I find out good food or the good food finds me. Well, I am mostly indoors, the neighborhood is eerily quiet; Nair Uncle & Aunty are missed, last year sharp at 4 p.m. I used to see them walking , better call it pace up and down in the ground floor and first floor in turns; my companion for 14 months (bhabi, our former security guard’s wife) has left and reached Nepal to be reunited with her kids. As much sad as I am, I am happy for her. Last few days I did not have appetite and barely managed my food. 

However , recently I had come across this almost home kitchen like set up which operates through delivery only in my neighborhood ;it’s so close by that I don’t even have to break the lockdown rule coz I can walk down and come back. Apparently, they are in business for 3+ years. I was mildly surprised that I had not noticed all this while. It’s called Kerala Mother’s kitchen.

The chechi (I called her Aunty) and I had a wonderful conversation in a form of Creole, our impromptu necessity – a mix of hindi-english-kannada & Malayalam & we can understand each other perfectly. She had shown me her earthen pots in which she cooks, the stack of plantain leaves for the sadya like meals. She even showed me – since she gets the order online, how she times herself and makes everything right then (bisi-bisi).

So far, I have tasted her amazing sambar, beetroot vegetable and a bit of avial. The sambar is amazing and so different, it even has potatoes – the first of its kind for me. It absolutely does not taste like the runny, oily stuff we find in smaller places. So, looking forward to trying the meat and barota (that’s how she pronounces). A box of erachi roast is sitting in my fridge now, coz it tastes better with time. 

Tonight, along with what she wanted me to try, I fried fish the way we used to find in the roads of Hyderabad, and I had a happy meal 🙂