Types of waiters

We all love eating out. Good food, great ambience, the whole deal. Many a time however, just one single word makes us pooh pooh a perfectly nice looking restaurant with great food. That word is SERVICE! Oh come on admit it! We all love to be waited on hand and foot, we all love to be pampered, we all love feeling special...and many a time we are left sorely disappointed! Presenting *cue music* types of WAITERS!

1) The Stoner

Ask this waiter a question and he looks at you all zombie like. There is absolutely no reaction. It's almost like he wants you to stick your fingers down his throat and pull out the answer. They just stare at you until you go "okkk" and swallow you question whole. Then they saunter off in a stoned to the moon fashion. I mean it's not arrogance at all...it's just a complete lack of interest. I had an open mouthed staring match with a stoner and i ended up forgetting why i even entered the restaurant in the first place!

2) Clumsy clod

Most of the time, the clumsiness is not their fault. Not all people are born with a ballet spoon in their mouths! I trip and fall all over the place but when it comes to carrying food over to someone, i have my tongue sticking out, my forehead crinkled and my eyes looking constantly at the food without batting a lid. I hold the tray so tight you'd probably need a crowbar to pry my hands off!
But this waiter oh heavens alive! The way he holds delicate china full of soup makes me want to hold a mattress under him. And the way he wobbles, you know he is going to spill it, but does he pay heed to your warning gulps? No! He continues to slup soup everywhere except into the soup bowl! I've had half a bowl of tomato soup sluped down a rather nice white lace top of mine. Mr. Clumsy was too shocked to even say sorry! I was sorry enough for the both of us!

3) Rude as F

These waiters are adept at making their customers exit even quicker than their entrance. These guys are unbelievably rude. Right from blank faces to tossing the menu at your face to not bothering to answer any questions to pretending to ignore you to taking forever with your order to throwing the food on your table to not even bothering to Serve to brandishing angry glares if anyone complaints to asking you to vacate your table even before you have finished. To these waiters I have only one question. Why the hell are you a waiter?

4) Snooty booty

These waiters are not to be confused with the rude as F waiters. The snooty booties can easily be identified by their impeccable manners and signature nose-in-the-air-why-do-you-even-exist-peasant-look. Once while dining at a five-star restaurant I happened to pronounce the French name of a dish wrong. The waiter gave me such a condescending look that I wanted to drown myself in the bouillabaisse he served me with a scoff. Needless to say, the french food pronunciations dictionary was turned on that night.

5)The monica

The Monicas can almost be called my family, for i too have an innate need to clean non-stop. It is a little annoying though when cleaning happens right next to you while you are putting a piece of dosa into your mouth! This one time I had a rather enthusiastic waiter actually lift my plate up to wipe my table! I was thoroughly shocked but decided to hang my mouth open in horror lest he shove his rubber gloved hand into my mouth to clean the half masticated food! The restaurant always looked sterile enough for surgeries but unfortunately not for eating.

6) Finger in each pie

These waiters have an uncontrollable urge to touch the food they serve! A caress to the idli, a pinch to the dosa, a finger in the dipping sauce. Shuddering, i point out and i'm left with an unapologetic sorry and the very same dish. At this one hotel, when I complained about my lime juice tasting weird, The waiter had the gall to sip the drink from my glass right in front of me at my table. I spluttered my complaint to the manager and all that idiot said was "you did complain about the juice!" What? What??

7) Dr jekyll Mr hyde

These waiters as the name suggests have absolutely erratic personalities. One minute they are sweet, welcoming and courteous and the next minute you sit there with bug eyes as they slap the menus down and growl menacingly if you ask them to read out the specials. I don't even know what's up with these people. The "good cop, bad cop" routine goes on until you are not even sure which dimension you live in. I learnt to turn tail when I come across such characters, after all, i don't want to spend my dinner playing freud!

8) Bullet train

So this is the type of waiter you will regret asking to list out the days specials. "Masaladosaravaidlipooribajjivadapaav" took a while to read that yes? Imagine trying to listen and decipher? Tough! All i could muster was "eh"?? So obviously my hungry self asked him to repeat what he said. "Masaladosaravaidlipooribajjivadapaav" came out again. Alright then. I settled for a nice deep breath and some coffee!

9) Cupid interrupted

Imagine a totally romantic setting. You and your boyfriend are holding hands and gazing into each others eyes when, "GOOD EVENING! MAY I TAKE YOUR ORDER?" booms this particular waiter. Deeply annoyed faces doesn't even cause him to flinch! So somehow you manage to send him away and you get back to coziness when, "MAY I SHOW YOU OUR SELECTION OF WINES" so you grit your teeth into dust and order a wine and get back to lovey dovey mode. You reach in for a kiss when "WILL YOU BE HAVING THE DUCK OR CHICKEN TONIGHT?" So all in all the ongoing theory is that this particular breed were sent from parent heavens to act as roving eyes! How else would they so dexterously block cupid all the time?

Have you come across more interesting specimens? If so let me know and we could have types of waiters part two!!

My furiously annoying eating habits

I have to tell you a secret...when i eat...I'm a quirk machine! I have so many furiously annoying and sometimes funny quirks when i eat, i sometimes think of giving up food altogether (hey! I can say things i don't mean when i want to be dramatic!). So anyway, over the years i have developed such strange eating habits that all my relatives and friends look at me and tsk. For eg: i cannot have a chicken bone or fish bone on my plate without demolishing it to mush. I crack open the bones, suck out the marrow and chew up whatever remains.

My aunt always says that their dog keeps barking at me because i eat up the bones he is supposed to get! And i don't blame him! If anyone puts all that pulverized debris into the dog's bowl, the dog would probably have to be surgically removed from that person's butt! I mean i was so obsessed with bony chicken pieces, that while attending a wedding when i was around 8, i have sat for half an hour staring at the juicy chicken leg on the plate of the person sitting opposite. I screamed to kiingdom come until that chicken leg was surrendered to me!! Thankfully he hadn't touched it!

And this is just the tip of the iceberg people. The moment i touch my food, i HAVE to, just HAVE to have my left leg resting on something. A table, a chair, a nice furry dog...anything at all! And it has to be my left leg. Once i start eating i become the Leaning tower of Pisa and i slant slightly toward my right and enjoy my meal (left foot up of course)! And oh my god!

The number of lectures my mum gave me about being ladylike and shutting my nethers to peering eyes...I've lost count. I forcibly changed my habit when i caught myself doing the same horrid leg stance at a top notch restaurant! Nowadays my rising left foot is given a swat by left hand to put it back into place!

This next habit has to be my most OCD ridden one. I take more curry than i take rice and i tend to finish the rice with the curries i don't fancy as much. I keep all the good stuff for last. Chicken livers piled up, chicken skin piled up, praws wiped clean of gravy; piled up, chicken bones; very neatly piled up, fish eggs, tha brown bit of the fish...all piled up!

 And each morsel is enjoyed from favorite to mid favorite to all time favorite. I've had my hostel mates stare at me in utter awe! Probably like they would stare at some weird species in a zoo but hey! This is the way i eat!

I become JOEY when it comes to sharing food. I mean i can share. Kinda...sorta...
I have this uncle who loves grabbing stuff from others plates. We are a wedding and i select everything i like and pile it onto my plate and along comes grabby graberson and goes "hey! Is that chicken livers?" swipes it off my plate, stuffs it into his mouth and grins at me chawing happily! I draw the line at chicken livers people! Remember that! I shoot daggers of death at him when he goes "oh wow! Big prawns!" and swipes TWO of my jumbo shrimp!!

I scream which i swiftly turn into a squeak on account of it being a public place and all but i swear i lost my appetite! If you want something off my plate, just ask and we can go to being friends in the past tense.

My last habit must be the most annoying one. Oh not to me, but to everyone else around. I know this because several people have told me so. I still don't care. It's the way i set my plate. If i am eating chapathies, i can't stand the gravy touching my fresh chapathies and turning it into mush. Once my mum poured meat gravy all over my chapathy and i almost had a fit! I made fresh chapathies and poured the side dish into a leak proof katori, demonstrating the art of nurturing my own OCD to my mum who just gawped at me!

Gravy over the rice is fine as long as the rice is right in the centre not touching any other curry. The non veg needs to be on the right side of the plate and the veges on the left. And heaven forbid if you should put pieces of fish or chicken or any other meat on top of the rice...you don't want to see that side of me!

Time for dinner...chicken and chapthies. Mum has put the chicken curry into a katori and placed it on the right side of my plate beside some fresh and crisp chapathies. I have taught her well!

How i diet

6:00 am: (Facing the mirror whilst doing sit ups...ok ok TRYING to do sit ups) Now look here missy! Today is the day! TODAY IS THE DAY! Teenu, you have been wrecking your body with utter crap. You look like a blimp and feel like a wimp. TODAY you make a change. TODAY you are going to cleanse your body, mind and soul

6:10 am: That's it. Stir that hot water honey and lime good. One spoon of honey? This is a huge glass and it's your first day. You can have two spoons or maybe three. It's ok. Honey good.

7:00 am: Must. Crawl. Must. Find. Chair. Ok so the first day of aerobics bombed royally! Why didn't i just start at the beginners level. It's ok. It's fine. I'm sure i have lost atleast a 1000 calories! For sure!

7:15 am: Oats. Oats.OATS. Note to self: Repeating the word 30 times does not inprove taste. Maybe i'll just splash a bit of caramel sauce on top. I have to take it easy on my 1st day. Plus i lost a 1000 calories and all, so...

7:30 am: I swear i did not mean to finish half the bottle of caramel sauce. The stupid nozzle is too big and it was too runny. An idiotic crow somewhere outisde screeched to kingdom come and scared me so i accidentally poured more in...fine, fine i had oats flavoured caramel sauce for breakfast. I will compensate by having only a vegetable salad for brunch.

8:00 am: I told her a millions times about my diet. TODAY is the day i told her. I'm going to diet i told her. Good got you mole says my mum and then she goes and makes Puri and aloo curry for breakfast. I must resist. I will not be defeated by a puffed up Indian bread and some chopped up tubers. Just because the puris are fresh and crispy and the aloo is spicy and delicious i will not weaken! Ha! Iron will Teenu they call me.

9:30 am: So maybe my iron will has become a little rusty. Sure i had 3 puris and enough aloo to fill a field but ACTUALLY, i just compensated for the 1000 calories i lost so TECHNICALLY, i haven't lost calories and haven't gained any either! Ha!

9:45 am: I'm hungry

10:00 am: I totally chucked the left over pizza in the fridge and ate an apple. Pat on the back for me!

10:15 am: *Google Search* Does left over pizza have the same calories as fresh pizza? DAMN! Ok no problem. I did walk up and down the stairs THRICE while deciding whether to eat the pizza so there you go...calories lost! Yay *silently sobbing inside*

11:00 am: I'm hungry

11:30 am:  Why does time move slowly when I'm dieting. I'm going to close my eyes and calm myself down and when i open them it's going to be 12:00.

11:30 am: Bloody hell!

12:00 pm: I'm so stressed out from all this dieting, i think i'll have an early and light lunch

12:01 pm: Pork! Mum made pork for lunch! Pork! Excuse me a moment. I need to go smash my head against a wall

1:00 pm: If you look at pork as a villan, it will be a villan. I always see pork as a friend. Friends are nice to you. So all that pork i ate will be nice to me too. And i had to take that second helping of rice! I hate eating curry without any rice! I did have a vegetable salad though so you can't fault me completely so there!

2:00 pm: There is a box of limited exition Godiva in the frige. Limited. Edition. Godiva

2:30 pm: Limited edition no longer available

2:31pm: Ok in my defense, i was feeling low on sugar and so damn giddy! Plus i like having fruits after meals and these truffles had fruit fillings in them! So that's my daily dose of fruits done. And some were dark chocolate. I was helping my diet really! *cringe*

3:00 pm: *Google Search* why am i constantly hungry?

4:00 pm: I think i'll exercise for a bit. I need some peppy music

5:00 pm: *with headphones on and feet up* Everyone's watching her...but she's looking at youuuu. Perfect! This song is just...oh! Is it 5:00 already? Darn! Time for my green tea. I'll do my pre dinner work out to compensate.

6:00 pm: I hate my neighbour aunty! Just when i was gagging down my green tea she walks in with Pazham pori and chilli bajji. "Aiyo mole! You must eat" she says "i made these just for you" Just to please her i was FORCED to eat 3 of each!! But i had that cup of green tea so alls well. I hate that woman!

6:05 pm: Amma, are there any more bajjis left?

7:00 pm: Time for my pre dinner work out! I'm going to melt you away bajjis and pazham pori! You're not going to know what hit you! I can't wait to start burning off all that excess fat...I...OMG! 2 hours of Back to back F.R.I.E.N.D.S rerun! I'll watch and work out.

9:00 pm: *Google Search* how many calories does sitting on the couch and laughing like crazy burn?

9:10 pm: Why is the world against me dieting? Dad came home with a KFC bucket! He made them put my favorite pieces in he says! Thanks dad! Thanks to you i will gain back all the weight i lost with this one day of dieting. I was doing so well till now! No no! You can't take it away now! You have enticed me with it too much! Amma, where is the bottle of sauce?

10:00 pm: I will do butt and stomach clenches as i fall sleep to make up for all the KFC i ate

12:00 pm: *starts awake* Eh? what? who? Damn!

2:00 am: I'm hungry

6:00 am: Now look here missy! TODAY is the day!

Teenu Terrence

The "Are you a PROPER foodie" QUIZ!

Many of us claim to be incurable food addicts. "Hey! I'm a foodie!" is the phrase on everyones lips nowadays and why not...we all love to eat, we all love to flaunt our food knowledge and equally admirable scarfing skills. BUT! How many of us are real dyed in the wool, hard core lovers of food?

Have you ever had doubts about your level of addiction? Let's clear all doubts once and for all! Given below are 14 multiple choice questions that help you identify how proper a foodie you are! Grab a pen and paper and have a go!

1) When your friends or family go out for nosh, you:

a) Do not let them back in unless they have take away for you
b) Don't worry too much about whether they would get you something
c) Don't even realize they have left

2) The highest number of google searches on your computer/phone revolve around:

a) Food porn
b) News, fashion, gossip
c) Erm...porn?

3) You see a handsome guy/ gorgeous girl eating a perfectly medium rare steak with creamy mashed potatoes, unctuous gravy topping and a buttery mushroom duxelle. Do you:

a) Look straight at what they are eating, drool and order the same for yourself?
b) Look at both the eaten and the eatee
c) Gawp at the girl/girl shamelessly until they lose their appetite?

4) When you have chores to complete, do your parents bribe you with:

a) Food
b) Shopping
c) A nice whollop

5) When you go out, do you:

a) Always expect to eat out
b) Hardly expect to eat out
c) Never expect to eat out

6) When you order food for 2 people, do you end up ordering enough for:

a) The 2 adjoining tables
b) 2 People
C) 1/2 a person

7) Do you pepper your conversation (see what i did there? ;)) with food adjectives and puns?

- All the thyme
- Sometimes
- Never

8) Do you contantly look at opportunities to talk about food?

- Of course i do-ughnuts!
- Sometimes
- Never

9) If you had chance to meet Heston Blumenthal, would you:

a) Not sleep until D-day because of a serious case of adrenalin rush
b) Be happy
c) Stand the god of multisensory cooking up for free movie tickets

10) Can you eat anytime of day?

a) Cutlery at the ready! Bring it on!
b) Sometimes
c) Never

11) Before you eat, you simply have to, HAVE TO click a picture for your instagram:

a) #ohyeah! #foodporn #foodie #breakfast #lunch #dinner
b) Sometimes
c) Never

12) Have you ever felt like a failure if you missed one episode of Masterchef
Australia?

a) I don't deserve to live!
b) I watch the rerun
c) What's Masterchef Australia about?

13) Are some of the biggest fights you have had about food?

a) Yes. You want a piece of me?
b) Sometimes
c) Never

14) So a zombie apocalypse is underway, just around the time you get a stellar pizza with ham, bacon, sausage and a gooey party of cheese delivered to you. Do you:

a) Surrender yourself to the zombies rather than leave your pizza uneaten
b) Grab a slice and run for cover
c) Leave the pizza

All done? Now check how you've scored:

Mostly A's: Well done you! You are now officially my foodie soul mate! And i promise i will be right there beside you during the zombie apocalypse to share that pizza! Unless you don't like sharing, then I'll bring my own pizza, no judgement!

Mostly B's: You are a WIP. There is an ardent foodie hidden in there somewhere. Let's hit a few food joints and bring that side of you out shall we?

Mostly C's: Ok, what in the world are you doing a frigging food quiz and reading a food blog you hater of food!? Scram!

If i can cook...so can you!

I love cooking and off late, cooking loves me right back. But this was not always the case. As I stir a big pot of sweet corn chicken soup I think back to my first cooking attempt and cringe. In all honesty, i have to admit that my mum has a constant toothache from having ground her teeth so much at me and all my fabulous kitchen disasters! Despite all the setbacks, the cheerleader in me kept saying rah-rah-raise hell in the kitchen!

I've managed to make maggie magically stick (and )permanently to a pan, coated the entire stove top with fresh, frothy boiled over milk, heated a curry till all that was left was charcoal and the piece' de resistance? Pulling the whistle off a fully loaded pressure cooker, sending curry on a mission to mars. So yes, I wasn't a welcome sight in the kitchen. But would I give up? No way! I promised my mum I would stay off the stove and stick to "simpler", "easier" things like slicing and dicing.
Simple I said! Easy i believed! 8 sliced open fingers, both palms almost shredded on the slicer and a real bad case of garlic allergy later I was sent off packing and adviced to READ through cookbooks, enjoy the pictures, salivate and use only my imagination to cook.

I know my mum and aunts heaved sighs of utter despair wondering what levels of food poisoning I would subject my future husband to. "Would she able to even boil water?" Asked one aunt, "her Husband's salary will all be spent on takaway" quipped another, all the while my mum clucked her tongue, shook her head and vowed to brave the kitchen exploding and teach me some basics (starting with boiling water). Well she was never able to give me any proper lessons because for some reason extremely slow chopping of onions, constant dropping of the knife and spacing out amidst the chopping seemed to bother her! I wonder why?

All through college I ate my mum's food and never cast so much as a shadow in the kitchen. Then came Chennai. Right after my post graduation I was hired by a renouned media group in Chennai. Excitement was aflow which quickly ebbed when bugets and cash crimping set in. So take out every day was out of the question. That's when my roomies and I decided to cook. Our first officially home made meal? Rice and a mixed veggie curry (which took all of 5 people to make!!) And it was the most  delicious dish we ever ate! I guess the fruits of hard labor (it was to us first timers anyway!) is indeed yum!

Then the five of us split into twos and singles. My friend Jewel and I were roomies and foodies and we got along well that way! Slowly we eased ourselves into cooking. This time we were cooking for survival. Rice became less and less gloggy, curries finally shifted from the constant potato masala and dal to bindi, cauliflower, brinjal and others. In a couple of months,we entered the sacred territory of non vegetarian cooking. Needless to say I burnt my first batch of chicken curry, served up raw fish curry and made prawns so spicy I almost emptied a fire extinguisher down my throat. But yes, we got the hang of it in a while. We quickly moved to trying out various cuisines and with pachakam.com (our trusty mallu online recipe portal sidekick) it was a breeze. From mughlai to chinese, chettinad to Italian we did it all and we experimented on some of our very "lucky" colleagues. They were not disappointed or poisoned so yay! We were good to go.

Back home. I made my mum coffee. She drank it...fully! I made honey chicken and people ate it happily, I made pasta and my cousins gobbled it up. The biggest honor? My mum asking me for tastes and improvements in her curries! I think I finally arrived! (In my eyes anyway) and just when I think I am a major masterchef, I go and burn milk into a dish. Vicious cycle this!

Prawn Curry

Mixed veg and egg noodles

Honey chicken

Good ol chilly chicken

RAW Fury!

When it comes to experimenting with food, my mum is an old school extremist. According to her, a good meal consists of rice, some gravy, meats and veges. Anything that moves away from this usual norm is termed out of this world horrid. Now how does one introduce the concept of eating sushi and sashimi to such a dyed in the wool 100% cooked food worshipper? It wasn't easy.

I love Japanese food. My palette happily laps up its fresh and clean flavors. And of all the dishes I have tasted, sushi and sashimi are without a doubt my favorite. Sushi is seafood (raw or cooked) with sticky rice and nori (dried seaweed sheets). Sashimi is finely sliced seafood (raw). Both are eaten with light soy and wasabi (grated horseradish). I cannot get enough of this! I had kept this raw seafood gobbling fetish of mine secret for a while because if my mother ever came to know, she might very well disown me.
I had a little hope though because just the day before I was to confess about my sushi cravings I made my mum watch an entire hour of Andrew Zimmerns Bizarre foods and I must say after watching this man gnaw through fish eye balls and fried pregnant tarantulas, bull penis and balut (boiled fertilized duck egg), she was ready to give up on humanity. I thought considering all this, mayhaps she would think my love for sushi was as harmless as a pet budgie. Was I wrong!

One day, we were watching Jaimie Oliver on TLC. Jaimie chucks in a handful of dill straight from the garden, right into his pan of mushrooms and my mum goes "why is he throwing grass in there? He isn't even washing it! Lord knows he's going to die of diarrhoea! Big cook it seems! Mandan*!"
I should have taken that as a hint and kept my mouth shut. But you know how verbal vomit is right?  Once it rises up till your throat, it's super hard to keep it down.

"Mum, I eat sushi"
"Heh? So? You eat everything in sight!"

"Mum, this is sushi. It's kinda different from everything in sight!"
"What do you mean different?" Her tone takes on a slight edge.

"Well. It's japanese..."
Just one word and she spent about 10 mins talking about how people from the orient love eating cockroaches, monkey brains, snakes and rats.
"Just the other day they showed a chinese man eating rat which was decaying in wine!"
"Mum, it's fermenting. It's supposed to happen that way."

"I don't know why people can't have just good rice and curry and make cookery shows about rice and curry! The world would be such a nice place then! Anyway tell me about this "shoe" thing of yours"
"Mum it's sushi. And it's...um...it's seafood and rice and some seaweed"

"Seaweed? You mean what floats in the water? Oh god! You mean payal**? What is wrong with these people! Eating such dirty things! Atleast it's rice and seafood. You better throw the seaweed away when u eat this dish ok! I thought it would be something terrible! Except for the dirty payal. It sounds normal"

"Er...mum, there's more. You see...um...the seafood is...well...it's super fresh...but it's...um raw..."
"The seafood is what?" Mums voice becomes super soft death. Almost death threat like.

"Erm...raw?"
Even Niagra falls would have muted out compared to amount of noise my mum made the next second.

"Raw seafood? What is the matter with you? What is the matter with kids nowadays I just don't understand! Here I am slaving all day COOKING you delicious fish curry and prawn ularthiyathu and crab masala and you prefer eating food poisoning on a plate! Remember the time you got food poisoning from one glass of tainted water? You were shooting out both ends! You were so sick I had to wash up after you! From just water you fell so sick, just imagine what eating raw food is going to do to you?"

"But mum! It's actually nice. You should try it!" (Stupid move teenu stupid move).
"Haaa! I should try it I believe! Why? You want me to die early so you can eat raw food and live your life like a cavewoman? You show pukey faces when I ask you to clean and gut fish but you eat raw fish that is not a problem eh? When we totally run out of money at home and have to live in a tent, you have full permission to eat all the raw foods in the world but as long as we can afford gas at home all of us will eat healthy, COOKED food!"

Right then jaimie throws some fresh squid into a pan and says " now this squid are so fresh you barely need to cook them."
My mum jumps at Jaimie. "Yes! Yes! You too encourage my daughter to eat raw food! Do you know where squids live? In the ocean where our waste is dumped! Barely cook I believe! Even if you fry it to a crisp it won't be safe! If you had seen Teenu at the hospital puking and pooping you wouldn't utter the words 'barely cook'! Big cook it seems!"

"Mum. Um...no use shouting at Jaimie. I'm right here."
"Yes! I am not done with you! Next thing I know you'll be eating snails and rats like that fat, bald man on TV. Jobless people! I don't know how people watch such shows and eat such things! I can't believe you eat raw fish! I'm taking you to the doctor tomorrow and when he asks me what's wrong I'll ask him to check your brain first for eating raw food!"

Luckily I was saved by Adam Richman who was gobbling up a burger that was bigger than his head.  My mother thankfully turned her attention to his open mouth displaying masticated food.
"Ah there is another one! Teaching kids everywhere how to get heart attacks and diabetes in 3 easy steps. Open mouth. Chew. Swallow! Mandan!"

I ran for my life.

Mum and I cautiously avoid the topic of exotic foods and TLC is quickly changed to a Malayalam soap the moment she enters the room.

Peace prevails.

*Mandan: idiot
**Payal: Seaweed