Skip to main content

An ode to the chicken dish ...

It is a sleepy Sunday morning here in the bay area. The mrs is watching an assortment of cooking shows on HGTV that is making my mouth water for the glorious chicken. Of course, it doesn't help that next week is Thanksgiving and all the cooking shows are showing how to cook that perfect succulent bird (turkey or Cornish game hen or the regular full chicken). I had to swear off eating meat (chicken being the only meat that I would have liked to consume) as one of the preconditions for marriage with the mrs :). She feels quite strongly about this and so I have had to make the ultimate sacrifice and give up eating chicken. If I was a member of AA, I would have been given a platinum medal because it has been approximately 5 years since I last consumed a good chicken dish. Looking back through my life, I guess my infatuation with the chicken really started in boarding school when week after week, while most children enjoyed special Sunday lunch meals (which usually was different succulent (note that this is the second time I used the "s" word) chicken dishes, the vegetarian kids (like me) received the much overrated "omelet". I wonder how long you would last before you are itching to try what the other kids were obviously enjoying so much. Flash forward a couple years and I am living with my parents again and in a strict vegetarian household. I could hardly indulge my cravings when the penalty for such a deed was instant decapitation and/or a quick cremation. Flash forward a few more years and I am living in the US of A away from the constraints of a vegetarian household and on a voyage of succulent (yes, that makes it thrice) discovery. Life in graduate school meant a _lot_ of chicken soft tacos and grilled cajun chicken breast sandwiches. Flash forward a few more years and I am living in a small town in the east coast surrounded by some very good friends who were incidentally also excellent cooks. A steady diet of chicken in various forms (grilled chicken, tandoori chicken, chicken curry and who could forget the Hyderbadi biryani) soon inflamed my chicken cravings. It didn't help that the local Chinese establishments also made some delicious chicken chowmein and I had some good buddies who shared my passion for spicy chicken dishes. Ahh, those were some good times and some good eating. Flash forward a few more years and here I am reflecting on the good times. My only outlet for the chicken cravings these days are the occasional guffaws when the mrs calls me at work to ask me what I would like for dinner and I respond even without thinking, "chicken kurma please" :). But on the positive side, the idea for this blog posting was originated by the mrs and I suppose she did save me from the big "avian" scare.

Comments

Gayathri said…
Would like to comment that our German friends (for whom meat was a big part of their staple diet) have also sworn off meat with no regrets. So learn from them, my dear keyboard warrior, for it will be the vegetarians that will inherit the earth.
November 18, 2007 at 1:01 PM
josephkam said…
Very true - to be vegetarian in Germany is an NP-hard problem.

While I agree that I love a good solid chicken curry too, I like a simple dhall/rice or sambar/rice just as much. Considering being vegetarian can be healthier, I would like to give up meat. But my mrs won't hear of it. Talk about ironies in life, right, Ramana? :)
November 18, 2007 at 1:56 PM
Swati said…
Chickennn!! Yummm! That reminds me, I got the best recipe ever for Chicken 65 finally!! And I can now have it anytime I wish to. :-)))
November 26, 2007 at 6:38 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My 2024 Reading Profile

 So, I do read a lot but dont generally keep track of what I am reading. So a new goal for 2025 is to record what I read during the year. First in this series is what I read in 2024. Favorites are highlighted in bold font.  January, 2024 Fire & Blood, George R. R. Martin Hidden Systems: Water, Electricity, the Internet, and the Secrets Behind Systems We Use Every Day, Dan Nott February, 2024 Total Power, Vince Flynn, Kyle Mills The Three-body Problem, Liu, Cixin March, 2024 The Making of a Manager, Julie Zhuo Enemy at the Gates, Vince Flynn, Kyle Mills Oath of Loyalty, Vince Flynn, Kyle Mills The Lions of Lucerne, Brad Thor Blue Moon, Lee Child April, 2024 Night School, Lee Child The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell Code Red, Vince Flynn, Kyle Mills The Cradle of Ice, James Rollins May, 2024 Artemis, Andy Weir Cowboys and Aliaens, Joan D. Vinge Hell's Foundations Quiver, David Weber Winter World, A. G. Riddle Blowback, Brad Thor Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Om Shanti Om ...

Wow - It is Nov 17th already and it has been 16 days since my last post ... what hectic lives we lead - no wonder we all sooner or later succumb to some stress related disorder. But morbid thoughts aside, here is my "detailed" Om Shanti Om experience. Kutti (those on a need to know basis know who I am referring to) and wife called us to go catch the Om Shanti Om flick at my brother's deserted theater - (begin footnote) it appears some of the local mainstream cinema halls have stumbled on the fact that screening Bollywood movies is a sure way of generating copious quantities of moolah given the zillion or so well-heeled fanatic Bollywood fans in the bay area but this is a topic best left for another blog (end footnote). Anyway, the rotund and 24 weeks pregnant mrs and I made our way to the "deserted" theatre 10 minutes before the agreed upon time. Turns out that the zillion fanatic Bollywood fans also decide that this was the movie to see on a Friday night at ou...
4 comments
Read more

Here we go again ...

 It is the day after election day and curiously I am disappointed and relieved at the same time. I am disappointed that more than 50% of my fellow Americans decided to vote a convicted felon to the presidency. But I am relieved that it wasn't a close call. I am sure that the country could not have suffered through another insurrection moment like the previous Jan 6th event. For this, I am grateful and very relieved that DJT got a significant majority. Does this mean that I value democracy and that this relief comes from the fact that the democratic ideals were preserved in this victory? Maybe.  As a loyal registered Democrat, I did the dutiful thing and voted for Kamala Harris even though I wasn't entirely convinced she was the right person for the job. I guess I was also guilty of ignoring the warnings about the big shift to the left by the Democrats. It is particularly painful in California where the left-leaning Democrats have taken this to the extreme. Yet, I still gave th...
Post a Comment
Read more