This week I had the honour of guest blogging for someone who has become a close friend of mine through the blogging world- Prerna of Indian Simmer. Prerna is a phenomenal cook and food writer from India who takes beautiful and poetic photos of food; some of the best in the food photography – let alone food blogging – world. You can see these photos for yourself in her post on nankhatai; eggless spiced biscuits or the one on jalebis; sweet, crackly fritters which are washed down with a cup of hot, milky tea.

Prerna is currently working on her first cookery book, the arrival of which we are all eagerly anticipating.

My post on Chicken Kebab Sliders in the Pakistani Manner is here on her lovely blog.

If you were friendly with one of the House Prefects, you were always guaranteed a thick stack of those buttery, crumbly biscuits for dipping into your milky tea. At 10am, as the bell rang, all of us would push past the Assembly Hall’s heavy doors and greedily reach for the blue and orange rectangular biscuit tins. The Prefects had control over the tins and if you weren’t on good terms with them, you’d have to ask your mates to share some of their goodies with you, which they always did, but rather reluctantly. It was all about survival of the fittest in that Assembly Hall. No one really wanted to share their elevenses with you. Not even your best friend. Everyone huddled together, with their plastic teacup of fragrant Kenyan tea in their hand, dipping the thin sliver of a biscuit with the frilled edges into the hot liquid till it turned just a tad bit soggy and melted in your mouth with each bite.

Or so I am told.

You see, I wasn’t a born tea drinker like all my classmates in Nairobi. I just stood there with them, committing social suicide by sipping on my cloyingly sweet Tree Top orange squash, injected with all those fascinating preservatives and neon colours. It was the only drink the school had to offer us non-tea-drinkers. It wasn’t a very posh drink. I suspect what saved me from total social embarrassment during elevenses was my smart navy blue uniform skirt, which our housekeeper, Anna, had lovingly hemmed for me so it reached just above my knee- just like all the other fashion-conscious-thirteen-year-olds at Hillcrest Secondary.

It wasn’t until years later, when my family and I left Nairobi that I started drinking tea with my Ami. Till today, she always warms my teacup with hot water before pouring tea into it, and then adds just a few drops of milk into the earthy, mahogany tea till it turns a creamy caramel colour. Then she pops in a cardamom pod for fragrance. I love having this tea with a sugar almond-studded biscuit; a ritual I wasn’t able to share with my mates back in secondary school.

Well, at least we all shared the butter biscuits with the ruffled edges back in school. No matter where I have these now, they just don’t taste the same as they did in that Assembly Hall back in Secondary School with all my mates.

Elaichi Chai
Take some of your favourite loose leaf tea and cardamom pod (one per person) and place it in your treasured vintage teapot. Add boiling water and cover with a teacosy. Let it steep for 10 minutes or until the colour deepens and intensifies. The tea should smell fragrant when you lift the teapot lid. Warm your teacup with hot water  as my Ami does for me- and serve with full-cream milk and a plate of  Kenyan House of Manji butter biscuits.

Kulsum of Journey Kitchen takes poetic, dreamy photographs of Indian-food-with-a-modern-twist, reminding you of that picnic you plan to have with your friends nestled under a 700-year-old olive tree, when the weather warms up and everyone starts wearing linen and flowing dresses. Your plaid blanket is laid out on the grass, and as everyone chatters, from the wicker basket emerge Kulsum’s home-cooked snackettes- slices of wobbly saffron and almond custard, savoury bites of bruschetta with her homemade paneer, crowned with sweet cherry tomatoes; and small tins of her chocolate cinnamon date truffles, which she made for her family on Eid.

These are the scrumptious treats Kulsum prepares from her kitchen in Kuwait- inspired by her Mom’s cookery style- where she lives with her husband, affectionately referred to as ‘M’ on her blog. I am always in awe of the innovative recipes she creates on her blog week after week. Over time, Kulsum and I have become close friends through Twitter – that may sound odd to many of you- but these days so many of us connect with each other through social media channels.

Kulsoom- which dish or food item reminds you of one of the women in your family; someone you love? My Mom’s Zarda, she said.

Kulsoom, please tell us more about your Mom’s dish…

Growing up I didn’t have much of a sweet tooth. This frustrated my Mom since everyone else loved her Indian sweets.

There were a selective few I did like- which included Zarda. Zarda is a sweetened rice dessert  in which the rice is cooked in sugar along with saffron, nuts, coconut and dried fruits. Zarda is the word is used by the Muslim community but meethe chawal is the name by which it is known all over North India.

Mom would spend hours thinly slicing fresh coconut, pinching the skin off the blanched almonds and chopping nuts. She wasn’t just making sweets for a family of six- she made sure to make enough for the entire neighbourhood. It was while we got ready for the feast that my sisters and I would get to wear our favorite salwar kameez and matching chudiyas (colorful bangles), which often involved fights over whose are the prettiest. I miss wearing chudiyas and now that I have developed a sweet tooth, I crave every single mithai (sweet) Mom makes.

But Zarda still tops my favourites list.

Serves 5-6

Ingredients:

*1 cup good quality basmati rice
*3/4 cup sugar
*2 generous pinches of saffron *
*2 whole cardamom pods
*2 cloves
*1 cup milk
*2 tbsp melted ghee plus 1/2 tbsp
*7-8 blanched almonds
*7-8 cashew nuts
*Handful of thinly sliced coconut strips, optional
*1/8 cup mix of dried fruits **

Note:

* Like most spices lightly dry roasting saffron brings out flavors and intensifies its color. Use good quality saffron.

** Traditionally raisins are added but I use a mix that includes cherries, raisins, black grapes, raspberries

Preparation:
*Warm the milk and add the saffron threads. Set aside.
*Wash and soak the rice in water for half an hour.
*Par boil the rice. Drain and keep aside.
*In a pan (preferably a flat pan) add 1/2 tbsp ghee and lightly roast the nuts. Separately roast the sliced coconut if using.  Remove and set aside.
*In the same pan add remaining ghee and crack cardamom and cloves in it. Add the milk mixture and sugar and let it come to a boil.
*Lightly add in the cooked rice, nuts, coconut and fruits (retain some for garnish). Cover and cook for another 10 minutes or till the rice is completely cooked.
*Garnish with remaining fruits and nuts.
*Serve at room temperature.

Aglio, olio, peperoncino. Tossed with some spaghetti and it’s a full meal for the five friends who end up at your place after a night of hearing the legendary jazz pianist Chucho Valdés perform at the Villa Celimontana. There isn’t much in your fridge or pantry, but you are all hungry, and you do have that holy trinity of garlic, olive oil and red pepper chilli flakes in your pantry. Add a bottle or two of Morellino to the late-dinner mix, even if it may be a bit too tannic for a spicy pasta dish, but it is all you have in the house that night and besides, everyone loves a good bottle from the Maremma. To cleanse the palette after the pasta course, there is a packet of rughetta; arugula- in the fridge, and some tomatoes you bought from the Testaccio market that very morning- tiny, china-red orbs, which your friend slices and tosses with the peppery leaves, adding a drop or two of musky, tart, sweet balsamic vinegar and splashes of fruity, grassy olive oil, from your favourite casale in Umbria.

For dessert, there may be a bar of Green and Black’s Maya Gold dark chocolate in your purse which you brought back from London a few weeks ago.

No ‘posh nosh’, but no one notices, because you’re all there for the chatter as Mulatu Astatke plays in the background off of your ipod.

Zarreen’s khagina is the Pakistani equivalent of the spaghetti aglio olio peperoncino- it’s that meal of spicy scrambled eggs you make for your close friends after you’ve been walking around all day together. You are in London, it is end of term and you have the freedom to be tourists in your own city. You walk towards the Edgware Road to stop at Maroush and have a shish taouk slathered with toum; that lovely Lebanese garlic aïoli- cocooned in a soft, warm pita for lunch. Then you walk up towards St. John’s Wood, making your way into Regent’s Park, where you enjoy a creamy ‘99’, impaled with Cadbury’s Flake. After a stop at Top Shop at Oxford Circus, you buy that teal blouse, the one which looks a little bit skanky, and by the time you get to Zarreen’s uni residences near Russell Square, you already have buyer’s remorse.

You all sit there with cups of dense, milky cardamom tea and Zarreen begins to prepare dinner. The kind of dinner you prepare when you don’t have much in the fridge or pantry except for some eggs, bread, potatoes and spices. Zarreen starts to mince the onions and chop the potatoes into small, perfectly rectangular pieces. Then she cracks open the eggs, one by one, adding them to the bowl. A flicker of salt, a few more flickers of chilli pepper for us chilli-heads, and she whisks it all together. The potatoes and onions sizzle as they go into the pan, and after a few minutes, the fragrance of caramelising onions begins to hit us. Zarreen pours the eggs into the pan and lowers the heat. The eggs start to look like a soft and creamy custard. She swiftly ladles scoops of the scrambled egg into our plates, which we mop up with toasted slices of bread, smothered with salty butter. We listen to Omara Portuondo’s ‘Veinte Años‘ and wonder if there will be any chocolate HobNobs for dessert.

Sometimes no truffle, foie gras or rare steak can take the place of a meal your closest friend prepares for you, even if it is made in the humble spaghetti aglio olio peperoncino manner…

Serves 4
You will need a 25cm / 10inch stainless steel frying pan. I would recommend you don’t use a non-stick frying pan as the onions and potatoes will not caramelise as nicely as they do in a stainless steel pan. For instructions on how to make scrambled eggs without a non-stick frying pan see this link.

Ingredients:
*½ small onion, minced
*2 medium-sized red potatoes (approximately 120g / each), peeled and diced into ½ cm (approximately ¼ inch)
*olive oil
*1 tbsp unsalted butter
*4 eggs
*½ tsp salt
*½ tsp red chilli pepper
*pinch turmeric *optional
*chives or herb of your choice for adornment
*slices of crusty bread, rubbed with olive oil and grilled

Preparation:
*Break the eggs into a bowl, add salt and chilli pepper and whisk lightly together, just enough so that the yolks combine with the whites.
*Heat a stainless steel frying pan for a minute or so on medium-heat, then add olive oil and butter, allowing it to melt.
*Immediately add onions and potatoes and sauté for 7-10 minutes till they are caramelised and look bronze.
*Pour in the egg mixture and let it sit, without stirring, for 20 seconds. Stir till the eggs are at the point of setting and resemble a soft custard. Make sure to keep scraping the bottom and sides of the pan.
*Serve atop crusty bread (bruschetta) immediately; while warm and creamy.
*Adorn with chives or herb of your choice.

I cannot take credit for the Sloppy Yousefs witty title, my friend MAR suggested it- many thanks to him.

My Nani Ami used to make a humble ‘meat and potatoes’ dish- fragranced with notes of spicy ginger and black cardamom, it was cooked slowly, over a low flame. It wasn’t like that posh ‘meat and potatoes’ dish you have at Sassafraz- that perfectly scarlet-from-the-inside beef tenderloin you eat alongside a rectangular tower of a crispy, butter-slicked potato galette. The dish in which you glide your knife through the galette, sweep it through that glob of Dijon mustard and then impale a slice of beef on your fork, before washing it all down with a deep, earthy Malbec.

No, this dish, aloo keema, was better than any medium-rare steak served alongside a potato galette. It was a humble preparation of mince meat with soft, butter-like potatoes served in my grandmother’s home during lunch time, eaten with feather-light chapatis prepared by my Nani Ami’s ‘sous chef’, Irfan. Irfan would prepare each chapati with his bare hands over a gas flame, till it swelled up like an inflated balloon, and then transfer each one onto a linen-lined serving plate. When you tore into it, the steam would escape, burning your fingers.

I loved scooping up aloo keema with a chapati and dipping it into the cool yoghurt Nani Ami prepared every night- tart, creamy and thick. As we ate, Nani Ami would pass around a plate of finger-thin cucumbers and moolis; Pakistani radishes, dusted with crunchy salt flakes to cleanse the palate between each bite.  When she wasnt looking, my little hands stealthily reached for that verboten jar of lime pickle, but in vain. I had to settle for the minimally spiced cucumber and mooli.

In the end, platters of fruit with individual butter knives would be brought to table, laden with sindhri mango, chausa mango, the Anwar Ratole mango, and my favourite, the parrot green langra- egg-yolk yellow from the inside. With the ceiling fan lazily slicing through the air above us, it was a typical summer meal at my grandparents’ home before the bamboo shutters came down and we all had a siesta, sheltered in our home from the scorching 40C Lahore heat.

The next morning, the aloo keema was perfect for sandwiching between a bun, slathered with a spicy garlic-chili sauce- an Aloo Keema Bun, just like an American Sloppy Joe.

Aloo keema is neatly encased in these little sliders- spicy meat, carbs and more carbs- a delicious bite to have with that bottle of Chimay.

Makes 12 Sloppy Joe sliders or serves 4 with basmati or bread

Ingredients:
*500g (approx 1 lb) mince beef (I would recommend you buy medium-lean and not 99% lean)
*1cm (approx ½ in) thick piece of ginger, minced
*2 cloves garlic
*½ a medium-large onion, roughly chopped
*250ml (approx 8oz) can tomato sauce/stewed or crushed tomatoes
*salt to taste
*½ tsp chili pepper (or more, to taste)
*¼ tsp turmeric
*1 black cardamom pod
*2 medium potatoes (preferably the red variety) diced into 1cm (approx ½ in)
*500ml water, divided into two portions (approx 2 cups)
*Finely chopped fresh cilantro (leaves and stems) or herb of your choice for garnishing
*12 slider buns, split and warmed in the oven

Preparation:
*In a heavy-bottomed pot, add meat, ginger, garlic, onion, tomato sauce, salt, chili pepper, turmeric, black cardamom pod and 250ml (1 cup) water. Stir, cover and leave to cook on a low-medium flame for one hour. *Stir/check every 20 minutes to make sure the meat is not sticking to the bottom of the pot.
*After an hour you will note that the liquid would have reduced significantly and the oil has floated to the top of the meat. Skim this oil off with a spoon.
*Turn the heat to medium-high / high. Stir the meat rigorously for 10 minutes (in Urdu, this procedure is called ‘bhun-na’) till the liquid has completely evaporated and the meat turns darker. The onions and garlic cloves will be completely soft and incorporated into the mince meat by this point. Be careful not to let the mince meat stick to the bottom of the pan, if it does, lower the heat.
*After ten minutes of stirring, add 250ml (approx 1 cup) of water and potatoes and reduce heat to medium.
*Cover and allow potatoes to cook for 15-20 minutes. Check potatoes for doneness after 10 minutes by inserting a knife. When potatoes are done, remove lid, turn heat to medium-high and allow liquid to evaporate.
*Mix in fresh chopped coriander or desired herb.
*Spoon approximately 2tbsp of mince meat onto bun, add your favourite condiment and eat immediately.
*Alternatively, enjoy with basmati rice, chapati, naan or even a baguette when that’s all you have in the house.

There is a tiny panificio on the corner of Via Galvani and Via Mastro Giorgio in Testaccio where they sell wee rose-shaped hollow bread rolls called rosette. If you’re going to pop in to buy their rosette, make sure you go on a Thursday, because on that particular day, they prepare a fresh ciambella; ring-cake, which you buy thick slices of by the gram, warm in your oven for breakfast, slather with yoghurt and wash down with a caffè latte made with your favourite Palombini coffee beans.

Those wee rosette you walk out of the bakery with in your brown paper bag are baked till each roll’s five-petals begin to rise and swell, creating that delicious, chewy crust with a down-like softness on the inside. The rosetta is the perfect vehicle for mopping up those puddles of briny, garlicky sauce from your sauté di vongole veraci; sautéed clams, made with the sweetest clams you bought from your pescivendolo at the Testaccio farmers’ market to go with that bottle of Falanghina.

And the rosette are particularly fantastic for sharing with your friends to dunk in the chana dal you make for them when there is no fresh naan from the tandoor available anywhere in Rome. Chanay ki dal is that creamy, spicy soup, laced with ginger and caramelised onions you probably love to pour over fragrant basmati, adding squirts of tart lemon juice; or perhaps you scoop it up with naan, with a side of mango pickle at your grandmother’s home. Or maybe you like to have it in a bowl with a large dollop of Greek yoghurt or crème fraîche on top.

If you are in Rome, just make sure to invite your friends over for a Thursday meal of lentil soup- so you can pick up a few slices of ciambella with your rosette. And if you’re really gracious, you’ll share some slices of ciambella with your friends after dinner with a glass of vin santo.

I am sure many of you are wondering why there is no ‘tarka’ or tempering of onions and spices poured onto this dish at the end- this is Saimaa, my darling aunt’s method- she prepares a tomato-onion base and then adds the lentils, as I have done in this post. My Ami’s method is different- she prepares the lentils (without the addition of any onions or tomatoes) and adds the ‘tarka’ at the end (golden-brown onions). Both methods are authentic; it is a matter of preference as to which method you adopt.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
*2 tbsp corn or any other neutral oil
*½ small onion sliced thinly
*3 small tomatoes, blanched, skins removed and diced
*1 tsp tomato paste (optional)
*¼ tsp turmeric powder (haldi)
*1 tsp salt (or more, to taste)
*½ tsp red chilli pepper  (to taste-or can be omitted altogether if you don’t like spicy soups)
*1½ litre of boiling water (approximately 6 cups)
*400g chana lentils (approximately 2 cups)
*2 1-cm thick slices (a little less than ½-in.) of peeled ginger
*fresh cilantro (or your favourite herb) for garnishing
*paprika or sumac for garnishing (optional)
*olive oil for drizzling
*lemon wedges

Preparation:
Note: If you soak the lentils in cold water overnight or for an hour prior to cooking, you can reduce the cooking time from 1½ to 1 hour.
*Coat bottom of a large pot with oil and place on medium-low heat.
*Add sliced onions and cook for 30 minutes; checking every 10 minutes. Cook till onions wilt and turn golden.
*Add chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, turmeric, salt and chilli pepper and turn flame to medium-high. Sauté for 2-3 minutes till tomatoes look jammy (i.e., their liquid has reduced).
*Add boiling water, lentils and ginger. Reduce heat to low. Stir and cover pot with lid.
*Simmer until lentils are tender- test a grain between your thumb and forefinger- about 1½ hour.
*Remove and discard the ginger slices.
*The proceeding steps are optional; they are for those who want a thicker, soup-like consistency. If you don’t want a soup, but a traditional Pakistani-style Chana Dal, once the lentils are tender, loosen them with a little bit of water till the desired consistency is achieved and taste for salt and red chilli pepper. Serve with fresh, chopped coriander on top.*
*When lentils have cooled, with a teacup or American measuring cup, transfer 1 cup of lentils and process in a blender till smooth and creamy. Loosen with a little bit of water. Pour back into pot. (For those of you who have an immersion blender, you can blend the soup directly in the pot.)
*Slowly add boiling water to soup till desired consistency is achieved. Taste for salt and red chilli pepper.
*Serve with fresh coriander or your favourite herb; a sprinkle of paprika or sumac (optional); a drizzle of very good olive oil and lemon wedges to add tanginess.

Dear Lovely Readers, Thank you for your readership over the past few years and for all the support.

I wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year- I hope that you had a fun and relaxing holiday.

Many of you have kindly written, asking if I have stopped blogging- oh dear, that is most definitely not the case. I am still going to blog- to cook, to write, to photograph- do all things which I adore; I hope to resume blogging again in a few weeks.

x shayma

MY COOKERY WORKSHOP- FOOD IS LOVE:

For my Canadian readers- I will be teaching a ‘cocktail party workshop’ at Evergreen Brickworks on February 9th, entitled: FOOD IS LOVE- based on my childhood memories. I’ll be teaching you how to create small Persian- and Pakistani-spiced plates, (a mix of vegetarian and non-vegetarian) influenced by the recipes I have inherited from the women in my family, while giving them a modern twist. Preparing Persian or Pakistani dishes can seem time-consuming and challenging, but they are not. Come and join us to prepare small plates using ingredients from our farmer’s market. I will also be preparing a fancy-coloured cocktail to pair with the treats.

On the cocktail menu, there will be the following, for example:

Pomegranate & Rosewater Essence Sparkling Wine Cocktail

Saffron Chicken and Roasted Red Bell Pepper Brochette with a Cucumber Yoghurt Dip

Farmer’s Cheese, Dried Cranberry, Walnut and Tarragon Tartine

This is the link to sign up for my workshop.

Lahore. The city of my birth. The city of the humble samosa. That flaky, deep-fried triangular parcel stuffed with cumin-laced, spicy potatoes you buy from the dhaba; kiosk, from that little alley behind Liberty Market, where they sell glass bangles, twirled and twisted organza scarves and sparkly rhinestone-studded sandals. Greasy and stuffed into a khaki paper bag, you bring the samosas home and eat them hot, dipping them in a red, tangy-tart chili garlic sauce which comes out of that famous Mitchell’s glass bottle. And after that first bite, you slip your finger tips into the handle of your teacup and take a sip of cardamom-fragranced milky tea, to wash it all down. With each sip, the tannins burn your mouth even more.

That is my high.

And then we have Karachi. The city where they refer to the street hawker’s ‘pappu burger‘ with a more classy name- the ‘bun kebab‘. Us Lahoris know that it is essentially the same thing- a shami kebab tucked between two soft, pillowy buns, slathered with mint chutney, tomatoes, cucumbers for textural crunch and some onions thrown in for that extra edge.

Us Lahoris are quite particular about the provenance of our dishes, but we’ll let Karachi have their ‘bun kebab‘.

As long as they don’t call it a ‘pappu burger‘.

But more importantly, Karachi is the city where they whip up the best prawn masala. Prawns are flash-fried in an orb-like steel karahi with a heady punch of ginger and garlic; then they add tomatoes, stirring it all till they become sticky and jammy and start to cling to the glossy surface of the prawns; and finally, a pinch or two or three of secret spices.

This is the prawn masala from BBQ Tonight -pardon the cheesy website, it doesn’t reflect on the ‘I-want-to-eat-my-fingers-this-is-so-good’ quality of their dishes.

I don’t think it is possible to perfectly replicate BBQ Tonight‘s prawn masala. I think it has less to do with the saltiness of the ocean near Karachi’s border which seeps into the prawns; or the tartness of the tomatoes in Pakistan and more to do with the fact that I always have this dish when I land in Karachi at my sister’s home, surrounded by my family and friends. Scooping it up with a chewy, crackly paratha, I chatter away in my jet-lagged state with my sister, brother-in-law and best friends, AJ and KH, who gather around the table to meet me upon my arrival.

My fingertips all greasy from the paratha and spicy prawns, chugging  it down with some Diet Coke, I know and feel that I am home.

Serves 2-3 with rice or bread and a side dish

Ingredients:
*2 tbsp corn oil (or any other neutral oil)
*2 garlic cloves, sliced finely width-wise
*500g raw prawns, de-veined, shells and tails removed
*¼ tsp haldi (turmeric powder)
*1 tsp zeera (cumin) powder
*1 tsp sukha dhania (ground coriander) powder
*½ tsp red chili powder (or add more, to taste)
*2 medium-sized tomatoes, de-seeded and diced (1cm)- try to find tomatoes which are a bit firm
*2 tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaves and stalks

Preparation:
*Place a medium-size wok, or a 25cm (approximately 10 in) frying pan on medium heat.
*Add oil and garlic and sauté for two minutes, till fragrant. The garlic should not darken in colour.
*Add prawns, haldi, zeera powder, sukha dhania powder, salt and red chili powder and continue to sauté for three more minutes till the prawns turn opaque.
*Turn heat to medium-high and add tomatoes. Give the prawns a whirl with your spatula, and after one minute, turn the heat off. You don’t want to overcook the tomatoes, the skin should remain almost in tact.
*Sprinkle with coriander stalks and leaves and serve with crusty bread or steamed basmati.

Honestly, I understand the sentiment, but what was the hotel thinking when they put a 20cm sparkler on my birthday cake? At midnight on Friday, my husband almost set the bed on fire, and no, I am not talking dirty on my blog. I mean literally, as in potential flames with smoke. Just back in our hotel room after a lovely bistro dinner, he lit the sparkler and it started spitting out sparks (erm, that’s what it is supposed to do, we realise that). Thankfully, Z quickly moved it to the table, averting a fire. Since we were too busy laughing our arses off, I forgot to make a wish, but the important bit is that we both ate a large chunk of that sludgy, dark chocolate cake with sweet, tart raspberry compote on the side. And that’s how our less-than-48hour-weekend began.

The weekend was full of sugary, airy, custard-rich pastries (mille feuille, a childhood fave of mine and Ami’s) with bowls of creamy café au lait and fragrant jasmine green tea for breakfast; brown butter sautéed chanterelles and fried eggs with wobbly yolks sitting atop toasted soda bread for brunch; crumpets with puddles of butter, slathered with berry jam; and rich, indulgent confit de canard and lamb sirloin with feta mousse at a local bistro for dinner.

Oh, and there was chocolate during tea-time. Lots of chocolate. Molten chocolate in brandy glasses at Juliette et Chocolate.

In between meals there were honey-licked, pillowy bagels at St. Viateur, where the gracious proprietors gifted the ‘Pakistani couple visiting Montreal from Toronto‘, a bag of bagels. The soft texture reminded me of sesame-flecked naans straight off the tandoor back home in Lahore.

All of this was interspersed with walks in the Mile-End; winter boots shopping (best waterproof boots, for those who don’t want to compromise on that sleek look); art gallery and museum hopping- don’t miss the John Currin exhibit -it was delightfully kitsch- or the Québécoise Triennale at the Contemporary Art Museum.

On our last night, we had dinner at a raucous, rustic-chic restaurant in the middle of Old Montreal. The food wasn’t as good as expected- sadly, my foie gras tasted like a slab of unsalted, tasteless butter and my medium-rare steak came out ‘well-done’ the first time, then ‘medium’ the next- (I ate it, nevertheless)- but the service was impeccable and the atmosphere truly unforgettable.

A huge thanks to my friends:  S, who writes this incredible Montreal-based blog and to Nadia, who knows everything there is to know about the bistro and cafe scene in Montreal.

But thank you most of all to my husband, Z, for organising a properly amazing trip to Montreal. After so much gluttony, it is back to egg white omelettess for weekday breakfasts.

Well, at least we have the black truffle salt and grainy bread from ACE Bakery to go with it. And on weekends, we can indulge in my husband’s farmer’s omelettes.

That coral pink sludge we used to buy from the Sainsbury’s closest to our dorm was usually scooped up with salt and vinegar crisps. Taramosalata it was called. My Greek friend MM had introduced me to it, but I am sure it was quite different than the real stuff she was eating back home in Athens. We all loved it, we thought we were the ultimate gourmandes, eating in the common room together, bitching about that Italian Econometrics professor who didn’t really know what that damn Monte Carlo algorithm test was- and neither did we.

Then there was tzatziki, a Greek yoghurt and cucumber dip, also bought at Sainsbury’s. It was probably thickened with gelatin and how they kept the cucumbers ‘fresh and crunchy’ for so many days, well, that would be thanks to the chemistry of preservatives galore. Anyway, we ate that, too. We were proper gourmandes, after all. And with the salt and vinegar crisps to go with the dips, we were really on to something new.

Ah, life in our twenties, when we were so easily pleased. A trip to London on the train to have a coffee at Cafe Nero (ultimate symbol of cool-ness), a meal at some shady Chinese restaurant in Soho where noodle dishes were ample and the stir-fried beef was questionable. Sugared melon juice at a Lebanese place on the Edgware Road and a carb-laden-oily dim sum at Poon’s. A walk through the Covent Garden and finally a film in Leicester Square before taking the train back to our uni town, whilst eating packets of Quavers (don’t judge, please) or some other delectably greasy bag of crisps.

I miss those days not because I yearn for that tzatziki or that awful packaged taramosalata, but because it took so little to make us deliriously happy.

My husband is taking me to Montreal this weekend to celebrate my birthday, and we plan to walk around the alleys of the city, visiting the Montreal bagel bakeries and lazing around at bistros sipping wine. To be deliriously happy with the simplest of pleasures in life.

For those of you who like to work in cups, my recipe is in print in Edible Toronto, here.

Serves 4-6 as an hors d’oeuvre with bread or crisps

Ingredients:
*500g full-fat yoghurt (Greek-style or Balkan-style)
*2 English cucumbers (small cucumbers), peeled and diced into small pieces
*50g chopped walnuts
*1 clove garlic, minced
*1 tbsp dried mint, plus extra for garnish
*salt of your choice to taste (I use fleur de sel or maldon)
*dried rose petals, optional, available in Persian grocery stores
*extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

Preparation:
*In a medium bowl, add yoghurt, cucumber, walnuts, garlic, mint and salt. Stir well to combine. Transfer the mixture to a serving dish. Lightly sprinkle with dried mint and dried rose petals (if using). Drizzle with your best extra virgin olive oil.

NOTE: When preparing this recipe in advance, do not add cucumbers to the yoghurt. Keep the diced cucumber and the yoghurt mixture in separate containers, covered, in the refrigerator. Drain the cucumbers in a sieve prior to stirring the solids into the yoghurt mixture.