Love in the Time of Quarantine

T he talented Indian actor Irrfan Khan passed away yesterday. He was only 53. Besides Indian movies, he featured in several prominent Hollywood productions including Slumdog Millionaire , Life of Pi , and Jurassic World .  In India, Irrfan Khan set himself apart from the typical histrionics of Bollywood with his nuanced portrayals of characters. He was skilled at conveying multiple layers of meaning through effortless delivery of dialogs. Even though his expressive eyes often marked the characters he played with an underlying pathos, his comic timing was perfect as evident in one of his last movies, Hindi Medium, where he plays a henpecked husband who is trying to support his wife's social aspirations. One of my favorite Irrfan Khan movies is The Lunchbox.  The movie relates the story of an unlikely romance between a middle-aged widower and a young housewife whose husband is cheating on her. Their relationship results out of a mistaken delivery of lunch boxes -- when the lu...

B eing under lockdown for the past seven weeks has messed up my sense of day and time. Sure, everyone in the family has his/her daily schedule of calls and deadlines, but I am finding that when we don't have to leave the house for those tasks, it is easy to lose track of what month or day of the week it actually is. We also had an unusually cool April in California this year. So, the realization that we had transitioned into early summer did not hit me till this past weekend when temperatures soared to 80 degrees. Instead of heading to the beach to break social distancing rules, we dusted off the backyard grill and officially opened summer barbecue season. I am always impressed by people who say that their typical summer dinners comprise of grilled meat with a salad on the side. For us, grilling is definitely a weekend activity. We are not big meat-eaters, but the meat we grill has to be seasoned with spices, marinated in lemon juice or yogurt before it is thrown on the grill...

One of our major endeavors on a regular weekend is to meal-plan for the whole week. My husband and I either prep for all the weeknight dinners or cook large batches of food that can see us through majority of the week. Over the years, we have developed an efficient system that does require some time commitment upfront, but allows us to have a home-cooked meal within minutes of getting home on a busy weeknight. One of the surprising upsides to the lockdown is that we have been temporarily relieved of the task of cooking/prepping for the whole week. I have been cooking fresh almost every night and relying less on leftovers for dinner. This has also given me a chance to test out small-batch recipes that I typically do not have the luxury to cook when I am tasked with meal planning for the whole week. This beet preparation from Thakurbari-r Ranna,  the food journal of the revered Tagore family of Bengal, is one of those small-batch recipes that I have been eyeing for a while. T...

This week has gone by in a flurry...well, as much of a flurry as this lockdown allows. We have settled into a rhythm of sorts --  calls and virtual meetings all day, a quick lunch in-between, a walk around the neighborhood in the evening, then dinner followed by a show or movie on Netflix. We hardly get a chance to talk to each other during the day, but I am thankful that we are together under one roof and safe. It is amazing how this virus and the lockdown has altered our lives. I went into work briefly one day to pick up some documents. That seemingly routine activity felt like a highly risky endeavor. I discussed the decision with my husband who told me I should only go if those documents were absolutely essential. My kids, uncharacteristically for them, expressed concern about me going into work and I had to assure them that I would be back before they knew it. I had to request permission to go into the office building and certify that I did not have any of the common sympto...

I learned early on in my cooking years that baking is a science. A few months after we got married, we had some friends over for dinner. Instead of opting for a store-bought dessert as any other sensible, neophyte in the kitchen would, I decided to make a two-layer vanilla chocolate cake, from scratch!  In another rookie move, I made the cake last, after everything else for dinner was ready. This meant that when the individual cakes failed to rise higher than an iHop pancake, there was no time to salvage the disaster. In hindsight, I think I must have miscalculated the proportions of baking soda and baking powder in the batter creating a failed scientific experiment in the form of deflated cake layers. Raised in a culinary culture where recipes are rarely written down and ingredients measured in pinches and fistfuls, the specific, methodical approach of baking seemed alien at first. I learned from failed attempts like the cake from that ill-fated dinner party, tha...

D uring the lockdown, we have been forced to buy things in bulk -- even perishables like fruits and vegetables. Thanks to online posts and tutorials, we now know how best to package and store these items to maximize their shelf-life and freeze them once they are past their prime. Making the most of what you buy and reducing food waste have become the mantra of the lockdown kitchen. Most Indian kitchens live by these principles under ordinary circumstances, but they have definitely taken on a new significance at a time when our trips to the grocery store are infrequent and produce shelves sparse. My husband came back from his last visit to the grocery store with a lot of bok choy. He said the store was running low on the usual vegetables we buy. The bok choy looked fresh. So, he bought several leafy heads. I like bok choy because unlike other fresh greens like spinach and kale, they are easy to clean and cook up in a jiffy. All you need to do is trim and stir fry the whole stalk...

I am not a fan of reality TV. I could never get into Survivor ,   Lost,    Bachelorette,  or The Real Housewives  series. I found the premise of the shows unrealistic, the characters unbelievable, and the conflicts preposterous. Clearly, they have some kind of appeal for audiences. Otherwise, these shows would not be running into multiple seasons. I know several highly educated, intelligent, and rational people who follow these shows religiously. When asked how they can watch something as ridiculous as Keeping Up With The Kardashians, they contend that they watch it specifically because it is ridiculous. Not surprisingly perhaps, the only reality TV shows that I end up watching are those that are food-related. Even these, if produced in the US, seem to take on a glitzy, hyper-competitive aura, that distracts from the actual matter at hand -- the food. The same does not appear to be true of British reality food shows like The Great British Baking Show ...

T his week, I went to the grocery store for the first time since March 15th. Like many other families, we are trying to limit the number of times we go to the store and the number of family members who are exposed to public contact. My husband is the designated grocery-runner for the family, but, after five weeks of social distancing, I felt a strong urge to go out and do something that felt sort of normal. The experience was anything but normal. My initial plan was to go to Trader Joe's, our one-stop shop for the organic produce, fruits, and alcohol :-) that we were beginning to run low on. When I pulled up to the store, I found a line of 25 socially-distancing shoppers snaking around the tiny parking lot. Given that only a certain number of people were being allowed in the store at the same time, I estimated that it would take me at least half an hour to make it inside. Once inside, I imagined that it would be a stressful shopping experience with people being hur...

A lmost all schools and universities in the US have shifted to a distance learning format since the Corona virus-induced lockdown went into effect. The sudden transition of a system that heavily relies on direct human interactions to a virtual format was rough on everyone involved: students, educators, and parents. The challenges were many: lack of access to technology, lack of time to establish viable digital learning platforms and build capacity of educators to revamp traditional classroom instruction for an online format. Over the first five weeks of the lockdown, workable, if not entirely satisfactory, solutions have been found for most of these initial hiccups. In most cases, school districts have been left to fend for themselves with no clear guidance or support from the state or corporate level. As a result, distance learning responses have varied across districts, often determined by the socio-economic status of the student population. Smaller school districts in wea...

Today is Poila Boishakh, the first day of the first month (Boishakh) of the Bengali calendar. The Bengali calendar is based on harvest cycles with the first of Boishakh marking the end of the spring harvest season. For all practical purposes, Bengalis follow the Gregorian calendar, ringing in the new year on December 31st with as much gusto as the rest of the world. However, for Bengali businessmen,  Poila Boishakh has a particular significance as the day marks the start of a new trading year for them. Back in the day, businesses would open their account books for the new year on this day and show their appreciation for loyal customers by inviting them to stores or sending token gifts home. In today's digital age, I don't know how businesses conduct the ceremonial task of opening new ledgers and drawing the holy Hindu swastika on the first page. I do hope that they still invite customers because accompanying my Didu (grandma) on these special store visits is the most endurin...

S tarted the day with a heartwarming story about three generations of an Indian-American family surviving the lockdown under the same roof. Written by a senior editor of CNN, the piece documents how the author and her family moves in with her parents to escape the Corona virus outbreak in New York City. The author's parents are elderly, an age group at high risk of contracting the virus. In addition, her father is released prematurely from the rehab facility where he was recuperating from a stroke. While the family tries to take care of the ailing and find some degree of normalcy in their new living arrangements, the author showcases the importance of togetherness at a time when social distancing is the global norm. As the grandchildren struggle to maintain physical distance from their grandparents, the author's mother assures her, "The grandkids...are the best medicine..." The story felt close to home. I could hear my parents saying the same words. If we move...

W e are heading into the fifth week of the lockdown. That is more than a month spent almost exclusively within the four-member family unit. I would say we have coped surprisingly well given the circumstances.  There have been fleeting moments when we got on each other's nerves, but, overall, we have been able to avert major meltdowns and confrontations. All that changed today when members of my family were seized by a sudden spell of recklessness that I can only attribute to cabin fever. Over lunch, we were discussing recent news articles on the increased demand for hair color, beard trimmers, hair clippers, and other beauty products. During the first weeks of the lockdown, people stocked up on essentials like food, cleaning products, and medications. However, after going several weeks without trimming or touching up colored hair, many are finding the need for supplies that would let them get the job done at home. My daughter informed us that these items were not just in demand ...

F or my daughters, their Dida (grandmother) is their best friend, confidante, personal chef, and Santa Claus rolled into one soft, cuddly package. They are more comfortable sharing their secrets and wishes with her than with me. Perhaps because she listens patiently to their verbal ramblings and asks questions instead of absent-mindedly mumbling "Hmm..." or snapping, " Get to the point! " I think it also helps that she is willing to lend a sympathetic ear to their many complaints against me. I am happy that they have this connection with her despite the physical separation of thousands of miles. Those of us who have the good fortune of watching our parents in the role of grandparents to our children, often marvel at the transformation that this new responsibility brings over them. Our parents seem to be more indulgent, forgiving, and patient with their grandchildren than they ever were with us. This is probably a factor of age -- people mellow with age and are ...

I have always been confused by the proverb: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  The saying seems to imply that lemons are inherently bad. I am not sure why lemons would have such a negative reputation. They are bright, tart, fragrant, full of essential oils and Vitamin C. They have many beneficial qualities that are utilized in cooking, baking, cleaning, and producing medicines as well as skincare products. Why anyone would consider a bounty of these wonderful fruits as a misfortune that can be reversed only by making a sugary drink baffles me. Anyway, the proverb has been around forever and besides the problematic lemon reference, I get the gist of it. When faced with adversity, or too much of a bad thing, one should try to make something good out of it. I also believe that if ever there was a time when real life mirrored the proverb, this is it. A pandemic-induced global lockdown has handed us "lemons" in the form of time spent in the anxious isolation of ou...