When Sujitra's Away...

Jarrod and I have been left cook-less since Friday. Sujitra, the woman who cooks for us, normally comes every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and on the off days we eat the leftovers. Food is always abundant.

Sujitra informed us on Thursday that she would be on vacation until Monday, leaving us to another means of feeding ourselves for four days. Well, okay.

Don't get the impression that we're lazy bums who can't cook for ourselves. I lament the fact that I don't cook much here (save for Maggie, Nescafe, cha, and reheating food). The kitchen is just so different from in the states, and in any case, what would I even cook?

Maybe I'm being whiny--that's not the point of this post. The point is, in comparison to when we were living in the guest house after we first arrived and had no cook, it's been so much easier to feed ourselves this time around, and this is why: street food.

Before, we didn't dare touch the stuff for fear of getting A Stomach Bug. Boiling hot cha was the only thing we allowed ourselves, and even that, Jarrod said, was like playing roulette. Consequently, we had to eat out for about five days, which was a big pain, and kind of expensive. We also supplemented our meals with packaged food like chips and biscuits.

But now that we've opened ourselves up to eating from the stands that line the sidewalks, there's no need for all the trouble! Take yesterday's lunch, for example: we made a big loop around our area by starting with a roll stand near the metro, moving on to luchees with aloo dom on Rash Behari, I got momos* at the stand next to the luchee stand, from there it was mosambi juice on Sarat Bose road, then a quick stop at the sweet shop by our house, and finished off with two steaming cups of ginger cha.

This is the life!

For dinner I got this delicious plateful of papri chaat, which are kind of like Indian nachos, only instead of beans, salsa, cheese, etc, they're covered with runny yogurt, some sort of hot stuff, and a little bit of crushed potato. And all for eight rupees! Unbelievable.

Anyway, Sujitra comes back tomorrow, and though it will be nice to have hot Bengali meals waiting for us every other day, we've enjoyed ourselves this weekend.

*Momos were something I forgot to write about, but in any case, the first time I tried them was yesterday. At Rs 15 for six, they're "steamed Tibetan dumplings", and basically taste like potstickers. And they're delicious.