Wine Wednesdays at Maritime by San Lorenzo

A couple of weeks back Rhea asked me if I'd like to go to a Wine tasting evening at the Taj Land's End in Bandra and I very happily jumped to it. The event is called the Wine Social Wednesday and is held at the Taj Land's End's lovely Italian restaurant the Maritime by San Lorenzo.

We got there at 7.30 pm and were met by the PR Team and Ms Rajveer Kaur who put us at our ease and explained the background to this weekly event. The idea was to introduce the wines of Italy (and elsewhere) and pair them with Chef Allessandro's really simple but amazing Italian food. Knowing that they had a superior wine selection they also knew that the Indian wine drinker was a hesitant careful creature not very open to experimentation. So they came up with an idea where they would not only make a selection of their wines available by the glass instead of the bottle, but they would also showcase the low price point that was one of their USPs . The restaurant has decided to pass on the benefits of the good rates they are getting from their purveyors - a real winner for wine lovers in Mumbai!

They had a lovely selection of Whites and Reds all priced incredibly well. We started off with a Prosecco that was a lovely well rounded yet young tasting wine. Low in acidity, very fruity and not too sweet. With this the Chef sent out a lovely basket of Gamberetti and Calamari Fritti (Crumbed Fried Prawns and Squid rings).

We moved on to a really complex yet full bodied Saint Clair Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. Very few people in India seem to even know about the absolute world class winners that come out of the vineyards of New Zealand. Both Rhea and I have always been very partial to the Waipara Springs Reisling thanks to our friends Sue and Imtiaz and are always game to try out a New Zealand wine. The Saint Clair Marlborough did not let us down at all. With this Chef served up his really interesting variation on a Focaccia ... a flat, thin and somewhat crisp focaccia with arugula and shaved Parmesan and truffle infused olive oil. I am a self confessed carbo-holic and I was very pleasantly surprised by this.  Chef Allesandro told us this was a Focaccia Tartufata and was a memory from his childhood in Italy. We asked him what else he could do with this and he sent out an absolutely fantastic variant (off the menu) topped with Parma ham, shaved Parmesan and his truffle infused olive oil. It was magnificent, truly Buonissimo!

I decided to try out one of their red wines and went in for the Chilean Trapaca El Rosal Pinot. I have learnt to have a very healthy respect for South American wines and have found them to often be finer than their Californian counterparts which are often more flash than flavour. I love my wines young and fruity, with a little body, not a great deal of tartness/acidity nor mouth puckering tannin or an excessively long finish. I know that wine enthusiasts are probably going to call me a barbarian but I like my wine young, fruity, with flowery and/or citrus-y notes, a well rounded body and a good finish. The Trapaca Pinot was all of this. I for one was truly happy and Chef's Calzone was a perfect accompaniment. I can recommend this wine to all comers - first timers, old hands and rebels.

Chef wouldn't let us go without dessert and he brought the evening to a fantastic end with his selection - an apple tart, a silken tiramisu and a heavenly pear and raisin 'pie' his mother used to make.

The wines are priced extremely well and 'by the glass' prices range between INR 400 and 700. The place has a lovely feel to it and their selection of both wine and food is truly charming. I'd really recommend this mid-week indulgence especially around Valentine's Day.

Raanachya Bhajya - The Forest Greens

I have heard a lot of complaining these days about the monotony of Indian vegetables and the variety of foreign veggies ... I have heard cribbing and complaining with no real action. Have even 10% of urban Indians bothered to find out what vegetables are available? No. There are tonnes of Indian vegetables and we just need to go out there and make a little effort.

Added to this in the last few years have been my discoveries of what are called raanachya bhajya or forest greens eaten all over Maharashtra in the Monsoons. Traditionally summer is a time for stored, dried beans and dals and the monsoons, before the longer growing vegetables are ready, are the time for foraging and eating fast growing and freshly sprouting vegetables from the forests, field boundaries and the charai (grazing) lands.

My fascination for these took off with the 'shevaal'  (Amorphophallus commutatus) that I saw sprouting at my excavation site in 2012. These would be quickly appropriated by the first labourer to see one. Shevaal is a great favourite along the Konkan and is cooked with mutton mince or with dried prawns ... Kunda Maushi makes it amazingly well and she showed me how the stamen is to be removed and discarded and how the shoot/flower needs to be soaked in salt water otherwise it leads to a very itchy throat. My friend Soumitra Velkar also posted a shevaal recipe  which reminded me that I must keep an eye out for the shoots this monsoon. 

Image Credit: http://www.indianaturewatch.net/images/album/photo/1121821107466becf31f5ef.jpg

A few days later my friend and colleague Dr Suraj Pandit came over to the University for a meeting and his lunchbox had a vegetable I had never seen or heard of before ... gentle probing led to the interesting story of a vegetable to be eaten at least once a year in the monsoons (supposedly for its therapeutic values according to Ayurveda) called  Shatavari. It was slimy, chewy and faintly oniony till you got a grip on the leaves which, when crushed tasted quite unique. You won't have me clamouring for it but I wouldn't turn it down either.

When I asked our senior resident botanist Dr Lattoo he laughed and told me I was eating wild asparagus - Asparagus racemosus . I realised when I googled it that the damn thing used to grow wild in a pot on my balcony for years!

The third wild veggie I ate this month was a real surprise I hadn't eaten it in years and had only heard my friend Rushina say they were sometimes seen in Grant Rd Bhaji Galli - fiddlehead ferns. They are a great treat in Canada and Canadian friends regularly post pictures on Facebook ... but I was pleasantly surprised to hear that they are a rage in Bengal, Assam, Nepal and parts of the Northeast. The Bengalis call it dhenki shaak and the Assamese call it dhekia xaak.

We'd gone over to Gitika's for an amazing Assamese tribal meal last week and lo behold! She had made Pork with Fiddleheads! Needless to say much happiness was derived.

Image Credit: The Sassy Fork

As I was driving to work yesterday AIR FM 100.7 had a lovely programme in Marathi in the afternoon around 1pm which was discussing these veggies ... there were at least 25 different veggies they named and they advised new cooks to ask the old 'maushis' selling them for cooking tips. What a lovely yet simple way of keeping tradition alive.

So if you think there isn't enough variety in vegetables just visit the smaller neighbourhood markets and look around for things you don't recognise. And take the plunge!