Guest Post: Live to Eat

Greetings SaltyApron readers.  I’m sneaking in for a quick guest post while Rachel is practicing how to filet a Flounder for a big week at FCI.  Wed is big test at school and she’s in focus mode.  I wonder if she’ll even notice I posted on her blog 🙂  My theme for this post is our love for food has no boundaries.  I was in Bangalore, India the past two weeks for work and even though it was a grueling schedule, we always found a way to find good food each evening.  I have realized that no matter how tough work can be, the expectation of a good meal always puts a smile on my face.  Food is partially about nutrition, but following my Grandfather’s philosophy on life… we don’t eat to live, but rather we live to eat.

  The trip started with first making sure we had a good supply of proper spirits for our two week trip.  As you can see from the picture on the left, I choose two bottles of single malt scotch as my after dinner drink of choice.  Unfortunately instead of a glass of scotch neat, it was scotch and laptop 😦

We stayed at the Matthan hotel in Bangalore and the highlight of the hotel was the morning breakfast buffet.  I believe that a solid breakfast is the best way to start a day.  Lots of protein and green veggies.  I ended up eating a variety of stuff for breakfast each day.  Sometimes it was more of a Western meal consisting of a four egg omelette (only two yolks), a plateful of steamed broccoli,  sautéed zucchini,  and boiled green beans.  I threw on a couple slices of smoked salmon and topped it all off with papaya and pineapple.

Other mornings, it was a full on Indian breakfast with Dal, Dosa, Uppadam, and an assortment of other dishes.  Yum!  Either way it was a great way to start the day as often times I would miss lunch.

In India, most people are vegetarians due to their caste.  There are deities for every animal in India except the cat from what I have been told.  The cow is sacred and many folks in my company started missing their beef steak.  Needless to say, finding a NY steak in India was nearly impossible.  As you can see from this picture, the cow is truly sacred and they basically can walk anywhere they want without regard to traffic as no cars are willing to even get near them.

Our office was in a large technology park and there was a huge lunch area that reminded me of the lunch room in the TV show Outsourced.  There were tons of local food stalls and the price was right.. barely $2 for a yummy local dish.

The great thing about food in India is that you realize there are so many regional cuisines that we are never exposed to in the States.  Most “Indian” restaurants you find tend to serve Northern Indian food it seems (Tandoori), while in SF there is a big new push of Southern Indian restaurants (Dosa).  One of my favorite meals was Goan food (mainly seafood).  The great thing about local food in India is their use of spices.. everything is so full of flavor, that you end up not eating that much as your senses become full before your stomach gets engorged.  I have been on a Paleo eating plan in the States, but I decided while in India, I would dive into the many types of Roti, Naan, and other breads.  I even ate with my right hand which seemed to make the food that much more tasty.

When walking around town, it was great to see that in order to get food, you needed to visit the source.  I saw mutton being bled (didn’t take a pic as Rachel would have hated seeing it).  Here’s a picture of where you can get your very freshly killed chicken and bring home for supper.  It would be great if more folks in America had a chance to see how their food is either grown, raised or killed.  It might make people willing to spend more on pasture raised beef, chicken or eggs.  It’s time to educated folks that chicken nuggets are NOT natural!

Finally.. food is everywhere.  It was great to see folks on the street selling cooked food, fresh vegetables, meat, most anything someone would need to make a meal.  There were very few supermarkets and those are for sure intended for the “elite” class.  India is not much different than what I saw traveling through most of Southeast Asia.  The only place I have found to even be close to this feel in the States is Mission St. here in San Francisco, where you still see the avocado guy on the corner by my office.

Anyways, long post, so I’ll wrap things up.  Living to eat makes everything else simple.  Only we can control what we put in our bodies and choosing to eat scrumptious food that makes you smile puts everything else in perspective.  So here’s to hoping that you are having a wonderful meal where you are and for some toasting a fine glass of vino.  I can smell Rachel’s founder cooking in the kitchen, so I better get ready for dinner.  Yumm. I am an lucky man.  I’m gonna eat well for a very long time 😉 Or at least until we are old and gray.

One last thing… I just ate Rachel’s Flounder that she’s practicing for tomorrow’s class.  Beurre Blanc sauce with mushrooms over Flounder, a veggie packet, and green beans.  Yum!!!

Rachel’s comment is that she needs to edit something else.  We both felt the green beans were too much, but it’s going to be in her basket tomorrow.  Hopefully she’ll get the smaller French Haricot Vert so it won’t be so overwhelming on the plate.