Keya Sarkar: My chef's choice

My friend, who had been out of Santiniketan for sometime, texted me while still on her return journey by train. "Back in paradise," she wrote. If Santiniketan is paradise for us who stay here through the year, it becomes especially so in winter. The nip in the air, the flowers, the friends and family who visit around this time of the year - make every winter magical.

For those of us for whom food is a big part of any magic, winter scores high on that count, too. Since we grow most winter vegetables in our gardens - peas, beans, tomatoes, palak and moolis - every meal is a feast. In fact, most friends who were wary of visiting us knowing our preference for vegetarian food, have changed their minds, at least for the time they have stayed with us. Of course, the vegetarian friends have loved the taste of vegetables grown organically, and conversations at the lunch table have often ended with them asking us to look for a plot in Santiniketan that they could buy. This desire to live in a small town disappears as soon as they board the train to go back, but in that special post-meal well-fed time, they often have a wistful "what-if" moment.

Initially, our cook Paresh disapproved of our love for soup and salad meals in winter. Vegetable soups embellished with fresh herbs from the garden, salads with fresh lettuce and cherry tomatoes, accompanied by the whole wheat bread made in the wood-fired oven at the cafe that we run, were more of snacks for Paresh and less of a dinner. We, oblivious of what he thought, graduated to the dessert - pancakes generously covered in gur (jaggery), and debated over whether the gur was the best of the season in taste and flavour or not.

As Paresh observed us over the years, he must have realised that there was some serious basis for this food pleasure. One day, he surprised us by saying he was planning to cook a "similar" dinner for his colleagues at the cafe (Paresh also works there). "What do you mean by 'similar'," I asked him. "Well," he said, "I would like to make them soup, I have already taken some dill from the garden; maybe some potatoes with broccoli [pronounced borcoli] and get some bread from the cafe."

While we had learnt a lot of traditional Bengali cooking from Paresh, especially those specific to Birbhum district, it was good to know that he had learnt something from us, too. "But would that be enough," I said, "for young boys hungry after a day's work." It was then that he revealed his trump card. He said he had built an oven similar to the one in the cafe, only smaller, where he would roast a chicken!

I must admit I was rather curious to know how Paresh would pull off his party, and what the other boys would think of the dinner. The day after the dinner had been scheduled for, I asked Paresh when he came in to cook our lunch. He looked pleased. He said the boys had really enjoyed the food and had wiped off all that he had made. I complimented him on his effort. I was glad he could give his colleagues a new and different experience.

Paresh acknowledged the compliment, but added that despite his efforts, the boys had said at the end of the meal that they were still hungry. "What did you do then," imagining how disappointed he must have been. "In sometime, I cooked them chow mein," he said, with the confidence of a chef running an all-in-one Indian, Chinese and Continental food restaurant.