The last couple of months have been the best of times and worst of times. Okay okay, I will tone down the drama. Exaggerations aside, have been on the road for work, every week, the last several weeks. Multiple trips to Colombo and Chennai culminating in a week of work combined with vacation in Maldives. All of this interspersed with food adventures at home and in restaurants, Indian and overseas. And now I have so much to blog about that I don’t know where to begin. Let me try to give you best glimpses of the last few days – food or otherwise. Please imagine soft music “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world” playing in the background while you read the following.
Cue music.
- Watching the deep-orange sun slip lazily to bed over the magnificent expanse of the Indian ocean of the Colombo harbor while the Sri Lankan flag is ceremoniously lowered for the day at Galle Face
- The equally fiery sambols of Sri Lanka, accompanied by string hoppers and hoppers with a fried egg – the perfect way to start the day
- Musk melon margaritas by the waterside, watching the Colombo skyline while a live band plays the golden oldies – the perfect way to end the day
- Hosting a long promised lunch for friends at home. Planning the menu (double tomato bruschetta with home-made sun dried tomatoes, grilled tandoori paneer, whole-wheat fusilli with roasted zucchini in béchamel sauce, oven-fresh pizza topped with bell peppers and fresh basil, and finally chocolate pudding cake with store brought honey crunch ice-cream) and building it up, component by component – it was a ‘to do’ list delight . And before you ask, the friend I had over, LOVES paneer, so a meal without it, is incomplete for him
- Date night at home. Chickpea croquettes, oven grilled (ginger/tandoori) cauliflower, roasted tomato salsa with store brought nachos and our favorite shows on TV
- Spending a Sunday with family, before catching yet another flight, over a big, lazy, lunch and tucking into freshly baked whole wheat banana bread while catching up on family gossip
- The best Thai raw papaya salad I have had, literally ever – in Sala Thai in Male, Maldives after a long and exhausting day at work
- Learning about the flora and fauna of Maldives. I believe that once I know the name of a flower or an animal, I can become friends with them. Therefore, now I know about sea hibiscus, the fig banyan, sting ray, the white tipped shark and the sergeant fish
- Discovering the wondrous pleasures of snorkeling. The Picasso fish with thousands of its aqua-cronies play peekaboo amongst the coral off our beach in Hudhuran Fushi, a little island tucked in the Indian Ocean, mere whiskers away from the Equator
- Watching flying fox bats swoop down to greet dusk, another golden-orange glorious sunset, another evening rendezvous with the Indian Ocean, feeling blessed and having a heart full of gratitude
I could go on, but I find my words neither do justice to the absolute explosion of the senses that such experiences bring on, nor can they convey even a modicum of the deep peace that comes from knowing that “right now, right at this moment, I am precisely where I was meant to be”
So coming to you, get off the chair. Plan your next travel. Plan your next meal. Plan which item you are going to knock off your bucket list. Plan which people you are going to share any or all of this with.
Yes I think to myself … what a wonderful world
the Pootler chef 