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September 17, 2006
South Indian cuppa vs the French press
This was published in today's Mumbai Mirror.
My first memories of coffee are of drinking Mom-made, cold Nescoffee at home. Expresso in those days was the frothy hot coffee you got at fun-n-fairs, from “Expresso” machines. And black coffee, was what I used to make, using two table-spoons of instant Nescafe powder, in boiling water, trying to stay awake at night before important exams.
My favorite filter coffee though, was brewed by Jamuna aunty in her kitchen, where a decoction using filter coffee from Mysore Concerns (MC) was always ready, the added milk and sugar, yielding perhaps the best cuppa in town.
Over the years, I have now learnt how to use a coffee-maker with paper filters, how to differentiate between espressos and ristrettos as well as between lattes, cappuccinos and macchiatos. And, for some time now, I have been using a French press, to make my own cup of wake-me-up morning coffee.
A French press needs a medium-to-course grind, which I’ve always been able to stock up on, during my travels abroad or thanks to traveling relatives.
Three weeks ago, I ran out of coffee for the French press.
Assuming that I could always find coffee powder in Matunga, I made my way to MC. Though MC is one of the four pillars of Tamil Matunga, the only time I’d been there earlier, was about 5-6 years ago, when I had tried to get them to grind some coffee beans I had bought abroad. The person at the counter flatly refused, without any explanations and I finally had to use the grinder at home.
This time around too, I didn’t get much help. MC makes a very fine grind coffee powder, which is not appropriate for a French press. No amount of cajoling, asking them to make a more medium to coarse grind, worked (honestly, how difficult could that have been). I still bought their smallest packet, hoping against hope.
Still, knowing it wouldn’t work (which it didn’t, when I tried it at home that afternoon), I decided to drown my sorrows in a mocha at the local Café Coffee Day (CCD) opposite Don Bosco. While placing the order, I saw a tin of “Dark Forest”, a specialty coffee, on sale. When I asked the barista whether this would work in a French press, he was emphatically negative. The coffee was expensive (Rs. 120 for 200gms) as compared to the Rs. 20 for 100gms at MC, but I decided to give it a try anyway.
After a disappointing attempt with the MC coffee, I opened the Dark Forest tin and made a glass of coffee. The aroma was enticing and the cup turned out great. I then went through the literature that had come with the tin, which apart from all the self-praise, including comments from a famous coffee expert, had this line… “Best used with a French press”. Methinks, the CCD baristas need a wee bit of extra training.
So finally, I did find the medium grind coffee that I wanted…and in my own backyard. But the times…they-are-a-changing. Instead of finding what I wanted, from the local famous David, it was actually the multi-chain Goliath, who came through.
Posted by bhavinj at 06:04 PM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2006
Aamchi Mumbai
This appears in today's Mumbai Mirror.
The two photographs that I invariably turn to, when I am showing off Jehangir Sorabjee’s aerial photo essay of Mumbai, “Above Bombay” (photos courtesy Eminence publishers), are the ones on pages 162 & 163. I had first written about these photographs last year, when I couldn’t help but describe my visceral reaction to the picture on page 163 showing a Beybladish, multi-pronged Maheshwari Udyan (King’s Circle), shot from a helicopter hovering above Don Bosco, as well as the one on page 162, showing the Circle as if it was the face of a wrist-watch, the two limbs of Ambedkar road forming the strap of this watch.
Its amazing how the green Circle has been planned, with its seven arms radiating unequally in multiple directions. If you are facing north, Ambedkar road makes up the 6 and 12o’clock positions with the other roads occupying the various other o’clock positions; 7, 9 & 10 towards the West and 3 and 5 towards the East.
This imagery specifically stands out, because in both these photographs, there is a virtual absence of traffic, except for a few cars facing northwards on the wrong side of the Circle, but with a huge preponderance of people, lining both sides of Ambedkar road and the entire circumference of the Circle. There is one truck, seen opposite Amar Petrol Pump, with an orange statue-like structure jutting out from it. From the height that the photograph was shot, it just about faintly resembles the idol, whose final day this was, the truck on its way to its Shivaji Park destination, where the idol would be laid to rest.
Jehangir couldn’t have chosen a better day to shoot King’s Circle, perhaps the only day, when people-power takes over the roads and the pavements. The photograph does full justice to what the Circle looks like on the evening of Anant Chaturthi. What it is unable to capture though is the energy at ground level.
Last year, we took the kids to be part of this jamboree. At all times, I had one or the other kid on my shoulders (Ganapati-bapa style), trying to make sure they wouldn’t miss the fun. The number of eating carts had doubled, no probably tripled, and there was everything from pav-vada to Chinese American chopsuey, to “golas”, “buddhi-ke-baal”; kulfi and ice-cream vendors with any number of people selling cheap plastic Chinese toys and a variety of balloons.
There were people and people and people everywhere. One image stood out. Outside Monarch, was a bunch of kids, sitting silently on the pavement, with their legs dangling onto the road, probably from the neighboring BJ Home, eating ice-cream cones. Towards Dadar, Ambedkar road was clogged, with Ganpati-laden trucks and hand-carts, trying to make their way through the throngs of people crowding them, with intermittent cries of “Ganpati Bapa Morya” along with the latest “dhin-chak” music, interspersed with people blowing horns, for no reason whatsoever. An equal number of people were settled on the large divider, some enterprising women having brought their plastic chairs and stools to sit on…the mistresses of all they could survey.
As on all Anant Chaturthis, the Circle was throbbing with an indescribable energy, drawing from and then in turn enveloping everyone present, as if part of a huge orgy, in honor of Mumbai’s favorite deity.
I am sure there are other pictures in this book, which invoke similar visceral responses in other people. But for me, its all about pages 163 and 162.
Posted by bhavinj at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)
