Baking Queen!

In the past couple of years, I’ve rediscovered a latent love of baking which I didn’t even know I had in me. It has lain dormant for over twenty years, a subtle obsession planted deep in my soul since childhood which has only now re-emerged, thanks to a rush of hormones marking a particular lifestage.

Twelve years ago, I exchanged my fickle, twenty something life in London for a brief backpacker existence quickly followed by a smooth slide into the Expat world. During my twenties, I was too busy working eighteen hour days and attempting to climb the greasy pole of London’s competitive advertising circuit to worry about putting food on the table. I lived in a shared house, cooked my share of pasta dishes a couple of times a week, and relied heavily on Tesco’s variety of chilled “just like home made” pasta sauces which were brilliantly simplistic in their choice of red or white, spicy or mild, the overpriced versions from the chilled cabinet (for the couple of weeks after the salary arrived in the bank) or the cheaper options in packets, on the shelves (for the rest of the time). When the carbohydrate overload became too much, I simply switched to eating calorie controlled frozen dinners which cooked for sixty seconds in the microwave and which along with a few glasses of wine, just about curbed my hunger. I topped up my limited diet with a healthy expense account – after all this was the nineties and I had to keep my clients happy and well fed, and as expected, I dutifully maxed out my corporate credit card on five star dinners and lunches.

Moving to Asia meant a life of delicious, exotic food on tap. I discovered a world where domestic help came as a pre-requisite, a maid was standard issue for every expat, and they were all extremely capable of rustling up delicious, healthy, home cooked dishes which I’d discover in my fridge when I returned home from a day’s work. Failing that, if the maid was having a day off, for example, I’d stop off at one of the myriad street stalls to order Pad Thai or Chicken Satay, piping hot and laden with eye watering chillies which I theorised would kill off any bacteria. In ten years, I don’t think I managed to use my limited kitchen to cook much more than a slice of toast, and even that was an occasional deviation from the norm, given the poor quality of Asia’s bread (think plastic, sweet and sweaty). The fridge was for chilling beer and wine, the stove top was for the maid to produce her incredible curries and the kettle was for tea or for boiling water for a pot noodle.

When I met and married my husband, we made the most of Mumbai’s renowned service orientation, and I directed my new-found domestic goddess to organise a handy laminated file of takeaway menus. Our biggest decision of an evening was always – pizza, Chinese, Thai, or Indian. Or when we couldn’t be bothered, yesterday’s leftovers. It sounds sloppy, but it simply hadn’t occurred to me to bother cooking, and I used my poorly equipped kitchen, India’s lack of oven culture and its propensity to fry everything as excuses for my culinary lethargy. And then some English friends who were leaving Mumbai gave me their old oven, a tiny thing which could just about hold a (small) roast chicken but which aroused the first deeply buried twinges of domesticity within me.

I suddenly realised that I was sick of eating food whose ingredients had flirted briefly on a stovetop rather than meeting and fusing in a hot oven. This tiny addition to my kitchen ignited some deep part of my Englishness, and I became overwhelmed by the need to cook, and determined to overcome India’s limitations in that area. I discovered a tiny, smelly stall hidden at the back of one of the more popular market areas, and found that I could get surprisingly decent beef (or perhaps buffalo) there, as long as I was prepared to walk past stinking rows of live chickens lined up for the kill, and mangy flea ridden kittens slinking around in the hope of a handout. I found that I could source the cooking basics from the local shops, even occasionally find dusty imported items to top up my limited stores, and if all failed, I would simply carry critical ingredients back from my visits to the UK. I’d always made a trip to Tesco to fill my suitcase before leaving England, and now I simply exchanged boxes of wine and new shiny shoes for Yorkshire pudding mix, Bisto Beef gravy granules, goosefat for crisping roast potatoes, Colmans mustard, bacon and sausages.

I was all set to dive back into the world of cooking, and during that first year with my oven, I ran through the English classical recipe repertoire, producing beef roast dinners with all the trimmings, shepherds pies, toad in the hole,bangers and mash, beef and ale pies and lasagne (not strictly English, but close enough from the heavy carb and fat content perspective). My husband, who grew up in an English boarding school was delighted, reconnecting with his own inner schoolboy, and I called my expat friends home for Sunday dinner, delighting them with meals which were literally impossible to find in Mumbai, and stretching my tiny oven to its limit.

And then came the real double whammy – pregnancy combined with a brand new fitted kitchen, along with a shiny new “proper” fan oven. My inner domestic goddess returned with a vengeance, delighted to be finally liberated from the shackles of the wok and the instant noodle. As the pregnancy hormones kicked in, my repertoire expanded, and I developed a whole new obsession for cooking proper, old fashioned puddings and cakes. Victoria sponges, cupcakes, Lemon meringue pies, cheesecakes, queen of puddings, Banoffee pies, all came tumbling out of my new gleaming oven to the delight of my husband and the office, who became guinea pigs for my culinary experimentation. I realised then that this new found desire to create heavy, starchy delicious dishes was actually a throwback to the pre teenage me, and that the maternal cocktail of hormones swelling inside me had actually revived old memories of a childhood spent poring over floury cookbooks with my Mum who painstakingly taught me how to make pastry and cakes.

Now that I am pregnant for the second time, my baking obsession has intensified, and I find myself scouring the internet for new twists on old favourites. My husband loves the steady flow of delicious dishes which are emerging from that glorious oven, but he and I both know that once the baby is born, the desire to create complex fusions of fat and carbohydrate will be replaced by a fitness kick which will leave my oven cold and bare. I’ve promised him that I will fill the freezer before I deliver the baby, but it won’t quite be the same – those enticing baking aromas will no longer waft around the house and it will be back to Indian recipes and takeaways, at least until the next hormonal rush grabs me.

A peculiarly English obsession ...

England can be an utterly gorgeous place to be. The happiest, most positive space on earth, a country filled with possibility and opportunity, with smiles and great big surges of warmth. People connect, they reach out to one another and they spend hours together, whiling away the time and listening to each other’s stories.

Paradoxically, it can also be the worst spot on earth. A grey, depressing, bleak country, where people turn in upon themselves and barricade themselves into their homes. England can be a cold, soul destroying environment where even the simplest things seem impossible, and life appears to stretch endlessly into a vast chasm of future misery.

The truth is that my home country perpetually swings between these two extremes depending on one simple factor – the weather. Few other countries in the world are gripped so mercilessly by the weather gods than England – the fickle unpredictability of the climate means that nothing can be planned, that events can be ruined or made gloriously memorable depending on whether the sun decides to show its face or not and that as a result, we’re a nation obsessed by the weather barometer.

Most non Brits fail to understand our fixation with the weather. Those who live in more constant climates simply don’t get why we have to talk about it so obsessively and why it affects our lives the way it does. Essentially, it all comes down to a lack of control. Living in Mumbai, you know for sure that June to September will be wet and warm, October, March April and May will be fearsomely, blisteringly hot and humid, and November to February will be cooler and fresher, perfect months for planning outdoor parties, events and weddings. Though there are occasional surprises, when for example the temperature drops below 10 degrees celsius or when the Monsoon comes early or there’s a spatter of rain in February, but generally speaking the seasons are constant and wonderfully predictable. Mumbaikars plan their lives around the climate changes – some escape the monsoon rains for sunny European cities, others make the most of the few weeks of lush tropical landscapes which the annual downpour creates. Americans and even Parisians escape the searing summer months, and most of Southern Europe downs tools during the hot season.

England on the other hand is perpetually on the brink of indecision and arbitrary swings when it comes to the seasons. The newspapers are constantly full of headlines about snow in April, blistering heatwaves in September, and rain, always the rain, constant and about the only thing you can rely on to show its face when you least need it. England’s rain is not the warm, heavy raindrops of tropical climes. Nor is it a welcome spattering of coolness during an otherwise oppressive and sultry day. No, this kind of rain is random – it can appear suddenly even when you think the day will be bright and clear, and it can quickly turn nasty, with sheets of drizzle soaking everyone through to the bone, accompanied by a persistent wind chill which makes everything miserable. And with the rain comes the leaching of colour from the landscape, as bright hues make way for a palette of greys and muddy browns, and the country starts to scowl and eventually lose its collective temper.





Its not all bad of course. On the brief occasions where the weather is good and even great, the entire country joins in celebration, and a weird kind of camaraderie emerges, unheard of in England’s typically closed culture, where people normally shut themselves inside their houses and shy away from engaging with each other. Suddenly people are sharing spaces, crammed up against each other in parks, removing items of clothing and making casual, spontaneous conversation with strangers. And then, just when England seems on the brink of becoming a happier, more positive, friendlier country, the weather patterns shift, the sun disappears, and with it the atypical affability. Back comes the English reserve, and out come the umbrellas.

Mind you, on the rare occasions when the sun does decide to stick around, the childish delight in the warmth is soon replaced by a collective whining about the heat – we Brits generally weren’t made for warm weather, and somehow the average cool, grey climate suits our Eeyorish personalities. We need something to talk about, we crave something to bond our nation together, and that something is the weather. It’s a collective enemy which unites, and we generally prefer that its not too good to us, otherwise we lose the vital social glue of talking about the weather that we’ve come to rely on. Listen to any strangers conversing, or even on any groups of English people meeting or talking on the phone – it is virtually guaranteed that any conversation will either start with an opener about the weather, or meander on to the topic. We are a nation obsessed and in thrall to an unpredictability which those in the tropics or in perpetually cold countries don’t get. Its one of the things which makes us so sweetly eccentric I suppose, and its certainly one of the main reasons for my fleeing the country twelve years ago.

Canada's hidden depths

After a week in England’s pastoral Westcountry, which has slowly but surely soothed our frazzled nerves, our trip takes us to Canada. I’ve been here before, but as always, I’m amazed by the sprawling simplicity of this country. Somehow, it seems quietly uncomplicated, its wide, clean streets and huge boxy department stores a vast contrast from England’s higgledy piggledy streets where houses and shops squeeze together like a mouthful of crowded teeth. It is also possibly the absolute opposite of India – its calm, steady ambience diametrically opposed to a country which never seems to pause for breath.

We landed into Toronto Pearson Airport. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the entire place looked freshly scrubbed. The airport has free wifi which is instantly accessible without the need for passwords, laborious sign-in procedures or the exchange of cash, and to me this simple fact seems completely amazing. Mumbai has its own complicated wifi access which requires registration and passwords so that users can be monitored, and London wants your hard cash before allowing you to surf. The only slight blip on an otherwise peaceful entry was a grumpy immigration officer who asked us lots of surly questions, as if unable to believe our simple explanation that we were in Canada to visit friends and that we’d be leaving in a week. He scribbled on our immigration form in neon pink marker, and we were sent to a second stage of interrogation, during which we had to produce proof of our exiting flights and details of the professions of our hosts in Toronto. I wondered whether it had anything to do with the colour of my husband’s skin, but although the line contained a slightly higher percentage of Indians, overall there was enough white skin to suggest that this wasn’t simply about racial profiling.

Although I usually shun perfection and carefully sanitized environments preferring grittier cities with messy personalities, there’s something about Canada which I find very appealing. On the outside, it looks as bland as most of the US, but if you allow yourself to tune into the vibes which lie just below the surface, you’ll discover that a slightly more meaningful heart beats below its mild exterior. The US is all about being brash, opinionated and, dare I say it, arrogant. Most Americans actually revel in the fact that they don’t travel, considering their native country to contain everything they require for happy lives. As a result (and I am generalizing massively here to make a point, of course) the entire country, with the exception of New York and perhaps a few other random cities, has failed to temper its opinions with those of others, or allow the possibility of alternative thinking – and by alternative, I don’t mean the deliberately self-conscious embracing of Eastern philosophies, re-labelled by trendy West coast types. Perhaps because of this, Canada is quietly apologetic for its overbearing neighbour, its tourists and travellers proudly displaying its maple leaf flag to differentiate themselves from the nation that the world loves to hate. Canadians are known for their gentle demeanour, and they are just, generally, really nice people. They are helpful without being overbearing, interesting without being self-obsessed, perhaps because the policies and politics of the country are more about support and understanding than about ego and postulation. Maternity/parental leave is a jaw dropping year long (with 55% of salary paid), health care is publically funded and free, delivered according to need not ability to pay.

This is my third trip to Canada, and I’m struck once again by its sweetness and by its depth of character. If England is depressive and disapproving, and India is dramatic and expressive, then Canada is quietly cerebral and thoroughly unpretentious. If it wasn’t half a world away from Mumbai, then I could see myself here more often, if only to fuel my new found addiction to Tim Horton's French Vanilla cappuccino.

From Mumbai to Cornwall ....

I’m in Cornwall, the extreme southwest bit of England which looks like the big toe of the country, poking gingerly out into the chilly English Channel. This is one of England’s most rural areas, with 23% of people over retirement age, and a predominantly white population – 99% of Cornwall’s inhabitants are “White British” according to Wikipedia. My brown husband sticks out like a lovely sore thumb, his long black hair and beard giving him a distinctive, exotic look in this vanilla world. Tiny, pretty towns are dotted between enormous swathes of pristine countryside, which though brutally susceptible to wintry wind chills, light up in the summer months under sunlight which warms the land for up to eighteen hours a day. People here are ridiculously friendly – it’s a place where time runs incredibly slowly, and no-one is in a rush. There’s no road rage, no fury with meandering tourists (Cornwall’s second biggest source of income is tourism, after agriculture) and no snapping at strangers. I asked the ticket lady at the train station what time the train would arrive. She went online, slowly and methodically, to tell me exactly where the train was currently, did a few sums in her head and then gave me an expected arrival time with the added bonus of informing me that I should move my car to the car park on the opposite side of the tiny station, so my husband, who I was meeting, wouldn’t have to carry his suitcase over the bridge. Contrast that with the hordes of people pushing and shoving at a Mumbai rail ticket window, or the surly, grumpy response of a typical London railworker and you know you’re not in Kansas any more.

There's something very strange about my surroundings. For a start, its almost silent, the only ambient sounds are the discreet tweeting of birds and the gentle trickle of fresh water. I'm used to noise, all around me, all of the time, created either by the throngs of people who constantly shove and push their way into each other's space, or by the general din and cacophony of a crowded city which believes that the only way to get ahead is to be loud. I’d also forgotten how clean the air can actually be in the English countryside. There’s no stench of diesel fumes billowing from vehicles which are hanging together by the proverbial thread. There are no smells of cooking, now that the morning’s bacon and eggs have receded into a happy memory and a pleasantly full stomach. There’s no smog, no fog and no dust. Only clear, clean air and a temperature which is just the right side of fresh. I take deep breaths and I can almost feel the unadulterated air cleaning out the debris of accumulated toxins from my lungs.

As we tucked into our loaded breakfast plates this morning, enjoying the full English Breakfast experience, my husband and I contemplated the view – ponies in the neighbouring field, chickens clucking around their heavy feet, bright green grass and a cerulean blue sky. “I can see us living somewhere like this” he said. “We’d go mad after a week” I told him. “We need the constant rush of the big city, and there’s nothing to do here once you’ve finished admiring the view over a few pints of local scrumpy cider”.

I know what I’m talking about. I spent my childhood and teenage years in the neighbouring county of Devon – an area with similarly rural qualities, yet an important step closer to London and thus slightly more connected. You can take a train to the Capital from my home-town of Exeter in two hours, if you’re lucky. Cornwall doubles the journey time, which makes London practically a foreign country for the Cornish, unless they happen to fall into the minority of Cornish millionaires who can afford to pop up to the metropolis in their helicopters for a spot of shopping. I was a bored, fractious teenager, desperate to escape the confines of a sleepy part of the world, and missing out (I thought) on the glamour and excitement of the big city. Perhaps that’s what drove me around the world in search of adventure, my eventual relocation to Mumbai a direct result of a misspent youth in a tranquil environment. What I do know is that Devon and Cornwall, though extremely pretty and wonderful to visit, are not places to settle in if you get a thrill out of a buzzy, restless big city chock full of ambition.

I wish someone had invented cars which could fly half way round the world in minutes. That way my husband and I could have our ideal solution – weekdays in the cut and thrust of Mumbai’s intoxicating dynamism, and weekends in our serene picture postcard perfect cottage in rural England. Until then, we’ll make the most of this holiday, the perfect break from the madness of a Mumbai which though addictive, saps energy levels after a while and leaves you fractious, short tempered and with frayed nerves.

Singapore changes ....

I made a 5 day business trip to Singapore this week. Singapore used to feel like my second home, thanks to the fortnightly trips I used to make to visit my clients back in 2001-3. I would shuttle between Bangkok and Singapore as though I was travelling from North to South London, and I quickly got used to the extreme levels of hygiene, the odourless air and the neatness which contrasted radically with the grimy stench of most other Asian cities, and the manufactured appearance of its controlled environment. I enjoyed my trips here, ate vast amounts of delicious food but generally got bored of the perfection very quickly. However, on this trip, made after 5 years, I found that things had changed significantly.

Singapore is of course a city, a city-state and also a country, with a population of 5.1 million – roughly the same number of people who are crammed into the tiny tip of South Mumbai. Like India, it was colonized by the British, yet has taken a very different path in terms of its development. Whereas India was left struggling to reconcile the impact left by the British with the complexities of its own systems, people and culture, Singapore, under a succession of efficient and determined governments and of course a considerably smaller, more manageable population, grew exponentially in terms of its economic might and its infrastructure. There’s a lot of negative talk about that growth, which has ultimately been achieved by controlling the emerging economy’s citizens via a set of rigid rules, and by a firm education and a harsh capital punishment system.

There is a vast amount of evidence of that control – not only in the clean streets and the manicured foliage which lines them, but also in the behaviour and reactions of the locals. I wanted to change my hotel booking and leave a day earlier than planned. I informed the front desk of my schedule change on my arrival. Apparently I couldn’t just tell them that I wanted to check out early, I’d have to go online and make the change. The system wouldn’t allow me to amend my booking, so I called the booking centre, where I was robotically informed that it was hotel policy not to cancel bookings unless the cancellation was made 48 hours before arriving. But I hadn’t known then that I would need to cancel my last night’s stay, I argued. In fact, I said (melodramatically and somewhat dishonestly) I had been called back by my doctor for an emergency checkup because I’m 6 months pregnant. I piled on the emotional pressure, and then added a business motivation for good measure - I was on the lookout for a good mid priced hotel as we were setting up an office in Singapore (true) and though I wanted to use this particular hotel I wouldn’t be able to unless some flexibility were extended. All of this met with silence and the repetition of the fact that “Madam it is hotel policy”. I changed from pleading to anger. I told them that I’d blacklist the hotel, blog and tweet and Facebook and leave negative reviews on Trip Advisor. More silence. “Don’t tell me that its policy. Listen to what I am saying and respond according to my situation, please” I begged the robot. “Send mail to booking centre with your reasons” came the response. Eventually, and on the back of a long, flowery and passive aggressive e mail, my final night’s stay was cancelled. But boy was it hard work.

In India, I would probably have faced the same kind of stubborn refusal to deviate from policy, but I’d have spoken to the manager and probably the emotional pressure would have done it. Singaporeans are literally unable to think outside the box. Unlike Indians who are resourceful lateral thinkers who will use ingenious methods to achieve their results, Singaporeans have been taught not to question authority, not to deviate from process, not to question policy. It was an infuriating insight into a country’s psyche. And next time, I’ll be more careful before I book.

I hadn’t been to Singapore for at least 5 years, and I was struck by the changes. What is still squeaky clean, shiny and flawless has been enhanced by a different undertone than I’ve encountered previously. Put simply, the energy of the city has changed. Not only are there more shiny buildings, towering edifices which soar over the city in what look like architecturally impossible shapes, but there is an entirely new undercurrent – of hope, possibility, success and dare I say it, creativity. I went for drinks with a friend on the freshly emerging Robertson Quay, lined with new watering holes and fancy restaurants, and walked back to my river facing hotel over a fancy pedestrianized bridge which was packed with small groups of local kids, sitting around bottles of hard liquor, drinking and being as rowdy as any drunken teenagers I’d seen on the streets of England, where drinking is a national pastime. They were loud, drunk and having a great time. I couldn’t reconcile this picture of unruly teens with the controlled, restricted Singapore which I’d come to expect. The bridge was lined with large green rubbish bins – according to my friend, the police had tried to crack down on this subversive behaviour initially by trying to move the kids away, and had eventually given up and decided that if they couldn’t ban underage drinking in public, they could at least ensure the place remained tidy. A bizarrely Singaporean resolution to a situation.

So the kids are rebelling, and no doubt Singapore’s art and creative scene will develop and grow and provide a much needed antidote to the suppression and the conformity as a result. One downside of this though is the emergence of a generational gap which has never before been seen – whereas previously, kids were subservient to the state and to their parents, now they are defying authority, and turning to themselves to create self sufficient groups. The concept of the family is under threat, so much so that the Singaporean government is apparently looking for strategies to rebuild communities and ensure that older people are looked after in their dotage, as has traditionally been the case, otherwise their care will require massive state handouts which the government cannot afford. These abandoned parents are now also taking on menial jobs to survive, and this is evidenced by the sheer number of older men and women driving taxis and working as public toilet attendants and serving in restaurants. When a rainy morning meant that I couldn’t get a taxi and was late for my meeting, a local friend explained to me that the majority of taxis are now driven by older people who get scared to drive in the rain, and so they simply stay off the streets when there’s a downpour.

I love Singapore’s new energy, and its clearly attracting others – multinationals are now focusing their regional hubs in the city and expats are flocking in. Procter & Gamble is moving its global headquarters from Cincinnati to Singapore, an unprecedented move which feels like a huge endorsement of Asia’s superiority in the global mix. That change is also driving prices up – the cost of living has already risen several times as foreigners flood into the city and the competition for apartments increases. It will be interesting to see how Singapore metamorphoses in the future. I for one am glad that its finding some kind of soul, the lack of which has always been my personal bugbear when it came to spending time there. I only hope that it manages to keep a balance, and that core values remain intact alongside the progressive change.

Sort your basics, Gen Y

I’m sorry people. I’m probably going to piss you off and sound like your grandmother. And given that I’m in my fourth decade (just!) I suppose that you could arguably assume that I’m over the hill, disconnected, out of touch, practically a dinosaur, too geriatric to tweet, completely uncool etc. But I can’t keep quiet any longer about some basic stuff which is really just bugging me.

As a schoolgirl, when mobile phones were only seen frequenting the sets of Star Trek, and doing research meant a trek to a dusty library rather than the click of a mouse, I was taught “proper” grammar. I hated the endless repetition of tenses, the ancient teacher who it seemed hailed from a different era, the mind numbing dry subject matter which required discipline and endless patience to get right. Who cared about errant apostrophes or whether it should be whom instead of who? Why would I ever need this stuff? My spoken and written English was pretty good, life is short and I really couldn’t see the need for it.

As a result of my very proper, old school grammar training, I’ve become a bit of a grammar nazi, but you know what? I write well, and I sound intelligent when I put pen to paper. I can’t stand sloppy grammar and spelling, and whilst I appreciate that some people struggle with spelling, and others don’t learn English as a first language, the combination of a lack of attention to the rigours of correct grammar, as well as sheer laziness are contributing to a complete decline into slothful communication. Since when is it OK, ever, to write “wen” instead of “when”? “Plz” instead of “please”? “Da” instead of “the” and my particular personal irritant– “gud” or “cud” instead of “good” and “could”? I appreciate that this is the Twitter generation my friends, and that you have to work within 140 characters, very often .. but why not just write less, and at least make yourself appear less idiotic?

OK so fair enough, I’ll let you off the grammatically correct Tweets. Tweet away with your codespeak, (codspeak?). Go for it. But don’t send me resumes and covering letters for jobs filled with spelling and grammatical errors. And then wonder why I don’t call you for an interview. And please don’t post shit on my Facebook timeline that makes the grammar obsessive inside me cringe, and spoil my morning.

Whilst I’m at it I might as well air my second bone of contention. Why oh why can’t you people be on time? OK I appreciate that the inability to be anywhere at a specified time isn’t strictly a Gen Y affliction, but I really don’t accept that you can’t be on time for a meeting which starts at noon. And that potential job seekers think its OK to be late for an interview and that an under the breath mumbled “couldn’t find your office” will make it all OK. Googlemaps, people, Googlemaps. What could be easier? Especially as you can search on your lovely smartphones whilst you are literally standing on the street.

There ends my rant. I never thought I’d end up sounding like my mother. But you know what, I just think you Gen Y guys have it too easy. You expect everything, now, and you want to take the easiest route from point A to point B.

Now flame me, shame me, call me old. But at least my grammatical integrity is intact, and I’m never late for meetings.

Disclaimer : There are obvious exceptions to the above. But I’m making a point.

Curry for breakfast?

The development of the palate is a well documented phenomenon for foreigners who spend any length of time in India. On initially landing in India, there’s usually a fierce desire to eat only local food - the more ‘street’ (and thus apparently more genuine) the better. New arrivals trade diarrhea and vomiting tales, and pride themselves on their enhanced tolerance levels for dubious hygiene. There are some on the other hand (the ‘bubble wrapped’ expats) who actively avoid local cuisine, either for reasons of palate preference, or because they are paranoid about germs and hygiene, cooking everything in bottled water and eating from only 5 star hotels (ironically all my instances of food poisoning and upset stomach in India have originated from eating in hotel restaurants, where the food is cooked in huge batches and often left to collect germs). Curry cravings are rampant, the food choices awesome and low priced and the ‘curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner’ habit kicks in. There’s a feeling of bonding with the locals as cornflakes and cold milk are replaced by steaming hot idlis and spicy sambal sauce, toast and marmalade by spicy potatoes and fluffy puris. Indian food is truly delicious and though it bears little resemblance to its british counterpart, which is mainly served up by Bangladeshi migrants and features a whole host of different flavours, spices and sauces, eating local food is a big part of the settling in experience.

When I first arrived in Mumbai, I craved Indian food day and night, my tastebuds perpetually tantalised by the waves of spicy aromas flooding from every corner of this foodie city. After a few weeks on a constant diet of chapatis, rice, daal, aloo gobi and various meaty curries, with poha for breakfast (flakes of yellow flattened rice served with the ubiquitous coconut chutney) and samosas or masala dosa at snack time, I realised that my waistline as well as my health was suffering, along with my over spiced tastebuds and digestive system. After about 8 months of this constant bombardment of Indian food, my body started craving bland, western food and in particular English style pies, sandwiches and mashed potato, pizza, spaghetti and even McDonald’s – a fast food which I wouldn’t have touched in the UK given my snobbish revulsion for the junk food of the masses. Suddenly the filet of fish in its plasticky bun with fake cheese on top seemed tantalising, and the crisp, salty fries were to die for. Though the only burgers available at an Indian McDonalds are chicken, fish or veggie given the country’s sensitivity to beef and pork, the and the majority of menu items have been customised for India with local flavourings and twists (eg the McAloo Tikki), the sensation of cramming a great soft white bun with mayonnaise into my mouth, with no lingering spicy aftertaste was sometimes too much to resist and I found myself standing relatively often in the McDonalds queue actually salivating over the menu items and wishing that I could order a Big Beef Mac instead of a McChicken meal. Similarly, I began to hunt out places where I could purchase the foodstuffs of my dreams – cheddar cheese, ham, decent brown bread and proper mayonnaise.

If you know where to go in Mumbai, it’s perfectly possible to find this kind of deli food, but it comes at a price. There are tiny delis like Sante in Mumbai’s expat rich suburb of Bandra which sell a relatively huge range of cheeses and hams, but at extortionate prices. Their shelves are also lined with great British and American sauces and condiments, desserts, tins of custard, and a fridge packed full of yoghurt and butter imported from France, mozzarella cheese and marscapone and various other tantalising delights for the palate jaded by masala overkill. Every time I ‘pop in’ to this culinary treasure trove, especially if I’m hungry, I come out with a couple of small bags and a dent in my wallet to the tune of at least three thousand rupees – equivalent to a couple weeks salary for the boys in my office, for example. I’m always shocked and feel faintly guilty at this kind of excess, but I do return time and time again for my fix of bland, and judging by the number of expats I meet in this tiny corner of deli paradise, this is a highly lucrative business and a taste of home for many. I also ask all my visitors from the UK or US to bring “sausages, ham, cheese and bacon”, and though some are too squeamish to navigate the “no foodstuffs” customs declaration, others breeze confidently through to give me a fortnight of absolute joy in the form of bacon sandwiches for breakfast, with lashings of HP sauce.

Recently, and following the acquisition of a built in "proper" oven, I've started baking again. I lived without an oven in Asia for 7 years, was given a tiny but functional oven by friends in 2009 and now finally have upgraded to oven English style, i.e. big enough to cook a roast dinner and apple pie at the same time. I've been cooking for expats and Indians alike, and they are all raving about my beef and ale pies and quiches, mince pies and cakes. I'm creating a daily calorie fest from my kitchen and probably a whole new following for simple English cuisine.