ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Immodestly yours ;-) Kishore
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This blog is dedicated to food and the amazing power that Good food has to connect people together .The author of this blog , kishore has personally experienced how his love and passion for cooking has won him countless friends and fans alike.Appreciation for great Food is the binding factor between him and countless number of people he met in course of time , many of them are a part of his inner circle today .
A Successful Restaurateur,Mixologist,Chocolatier. Self trained in the complex art of Charcuterie , Barbecuing , apart from being well versed with Italian , Mexican, Continental,American,Chinese,Goan,Sindhi,Punjabi,Awadhi,Aagri,Malwani,Pakistani Cuisines for over 2.5 decades ,Kishore got interested in process of cooking at the tender age of 8
"life is like a box of chocolates, U never
know what u gonna get "
actually it was Forrest Gump's mommy who said that
but its so relevant in my predicament .
Humble beginnings :-
Kishore's mother was the one who initiated him to the art of cooking at that tender age .It was she who noticed his extra ordinary interest in cooking.
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Kishore reminiscences
" I still remember , i used to straddle up on the kitchen platform sink and watch her cook , day after day , chat with her while she was cooking , and keep asking her questions , a truckload of questions ,most of them pertaining to food, the cooking process and why she was doing what she was doing
Why is she adding some oil to the phulka dough ?
How does she know the water she has put along with the rice shall be sufficient to cook it?
Why does she prefer making daal in a pressure cooker ? and so on
Mom said something to me when i was 11 ,which still rings in my head every time I cook , she had said
QUALITY IS WHAT YOU MAINTAIN EVEN WHEN NO-ONE IS LOOKING
Little did I know that these observations would make me more interested in the complex art of rustling up a meal .I was completely unaware that dealing in food/cooking would become eventually my profession one day, and all those valuable tips she passed on to me would come handy over a lifetime.
Until I discovered cooking,I was
never really interested in anything
Kishore found the process of cooking absolutely fascinating .it was such a complex process of mixing and matching the correct ingredients together but his mom made it look so easy and simple
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Kishore decided that he wanted to learn cooking & become an expert at it like his mother so, instead of going outdoors to play with his cousins and friends ,he preferred to stay in the kitchen and learn cooking from his mother and(chaachi) Aunt. Since he was born in a joint family that consisted of (hold your breath) 21 members , there was always a flurry of activity in the kitchen at least 18 hours a day , this, in fact - helped him learn faster .
Mommy dearest put him in charge of washing the dishes for over 3 months even before she formally taught him anything about cooking at all ,so he knew all the names of the vessels he would wash & could easily search for them & hand them over if required ,so Kishore started off as a Humble Mori boy (dish washer )
She also started making him revise names of the all the food ingredients (the list was endless ) , she said this was a ritual for any one who wants to learn cooking .plus she would explain in detail, about each ingredient and the way it behaves when its cooked in different ways , for example , potatoes , varieties of potatoes available in India , how to buy good potatoes , what to watch out for while buying potatoes ,correctly store potatoes, how does a potato behave when its boiled , fried , steamed , broiled , baked , etc and so on . She would often say that THE MORE THROUGHLY YOU KNOW YOUR INGREDIENTS , THE BETTER YOU WILL BE ABLE TO USE THEM WHILE COOKING. TRY TO KNOW ALL ABOUT THE INGREDIENTS YOU USE , LIKE YOU TRY AND FIND OUT THE LIKES AND DISLIKES OF A LOVED ONE OR A CLOSE FRIEND AND TRY AND WORK AROUND IT , LIKE WISE ONCE YOU HAVE UNDERSTOOD YOUR INGREDIENTS WELL , YOU WILL FIND THAT YOUR COOKED END PRODUCT WILL HAVE IMPROVED DRASTICALLY.
she would make him accompany her to the vegetable market and grocery stores .she would always carry a pre-written shopping list (before leaving the house ) with her-
"This ways I avoid overspending , I don't forget any ingredient & a list like this completely rules out impulsive buying"
she had said (which made perfect sense ) She would get back to the kitchen and teach him how to effectively and correctly store the day's purchases and label everything along with the date the said ingredient was purchased on the container .
unlike these days , labels were not available back them , so they would make do with school notebook labels :-)
He progressed to washing veggies ,meats ,cleaning fish , making tea , making a batch of curd ,lugging the rolled pappads ,kheechas,kachris,(rice flour crispies )red chillies etc to the terrace at about 2pm(after school) in the summer season when the sun was at its hottest to sundry them on bed sheets and guard them from birds & squirrels with his trusted slingshot (gulel) and a box of marbles (while completing his homework ;-) multi tasking existed in the 80's too until sundown and bring them back ,store them carefully to repeat the exercise the next day and so on .
Gradually, He was taught to knead dough , he started assisting his elder sister in making rice & daal for about 20 people everyday ,It was no less than working for a caterer .The quantum of food that was cooked at home was massive. He cites an example where upwards of 12 liters of milk was consumed every day in his household in the form of milk , tea, Dahi etc -but nevertheless That is a huge quantity even by today's standards !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He started cooking full time only when he was 11, by this time he had worked in every section of the kitchen , be it washing vessels , cutting chopping , labeling containers ,buying and storing veggies & groceries .He had also learnt to distinguish between a fresh ingredient /veggie/fruit ,foodstuff and something that was past its prime & needed to be thrown out . he had also learnt about Washing ,cleaning fresh produce & making a shopping list for the next day's requirements (budget allocation for the whole month) .His Grandfather handed over a fixed amount every month to his Mom & aunt for the kitchen expenses so there was always prior meal planning and buying the seasonal veggies to stay in their budget but he remembers that they perpetually dined like royals and never ever cut corners when it came to food .His mother would often say "we all work so hard - we do deserve a decent meal,we shouldn't mind if we have to eat a bit less but we should never scrimp on the quality of food we consume ".
:-) On a lighter note , I took my mom a bit too seriously considering my weight & portly size :-)
His Mom also taught him the importance of making everything from scratch whether it was a Ginger garlic paste ,chutney ,garam masala ,pappads or pickles . she would tell him that if it was not made from scratch , then we will get a feeling that somebody else(a factory worker who had packed the garam masala or ginger garlic paste that we added to our the recipe had helped us) and hence you wont get the overwhelming sense of achievement that this recipe is 100 per cent our own creation. So we should plan wisely well in advance and make these preps beforehand and keep them ready .
Kishore says - Writing about my trials in the kitchen as a child made me so nostalgic
and took me down memory lane and brought back soooooooo many awesome
memories of my childhood,my golden years
I m blessed to have such a loving supportive family & a happy Childhood . God bless us all .
We do not need to attend classroom
training programmes for everything. Observation
opens the windows of knowledge around us
Under his mother's keen eye for detail & able tutelage he learned to adeptly roll out perfect round fluffy Phulkas,make awesome stuffed parathas & lip smacking kheer by the age of 12.
If there would have been a master-chef junior competition around in that era & had he participated ,He would have won it hands down .
Wishful Thinking !!!!!!
If dreams were horses , beggars would ride :-)
There was a solitary boring Doordarshan channel in those days with only 6 hours of transmission on weekdays -No internet , no satellite T.v, no cell phones , you-tube smartphones ,whatsapp, bbm, twitter ,facebook ,google absolutely nothing-In-fact if you had to call back home , you had to line up at the nearest std/pco booth , beg/hunt for 1 rupee coins and hope & pray that the phone lines weren't down and some one picks up your call at the other end . If you tell this to any kid from today's generation -they will be like , " shut up !!!!!! you gotta be kidding me , how is that even possible ? " But we have lived through the dark ages and survived them with aplomb too :-) )
No one is born a great cook,one learns by doing
Cooking gradually transformed into his passion and he kept on experimenting with food and cooking occasionally for his friends and family .
Cooking had become second nature to kishore , he found it extremely therapeutic to cook, it was a great way to destress. He would enjoy knocking & punching the dough down.
Cutting or chopping veggies wasn't a chore anymore,he would get excited at the prospect of cooking & would plan on how to improvise his current recipe,how to give it a twist,how to make it better than the last time ,the mere thought of cooking would excite him.It was all the more exciting when he had to cook for someone else.He would customize the food according to their taste and would wait for their constructive feedback ,and try & better his art every single time .
Kishore believes that food talks back to him , he shares this amazing bond with food , he puts in a lot of hard work , time and sincere effort in cooking and what he gets back is this amazingly tasting food which taste even better than the last time he made it . He believes that if you are honest with your ingredients and cook food to please people , strive to give them a culinary experience every single time and don't mind going the extra mile to achieve the right amount of flavor , color , texture , mouth-feel , then your food will seldom disappoint . It will shine through every single time .Disinterest , boredom and routine is what makes food(made with star ingredients )taste bland and unappetizing .Someone who loves to cook and is a stickler for perfection when he is at the hobs will rarely ever disappoint .
Circa 1986 to 1993
Unfortunately his mom passed away when he was just 18 and then he was saddled with the responsibility to handle the house & kitchen .
No joint family anymore ,just me and dad , both sisters got married, the elder one in 1991 & the younger one in 1995
He had to start cooking full time ,its then , that he started experimenting with different cuisines .
The adventures & misadventures of the author Kishore Talreja
His work (he owned a trading company )made him travel extensively and after his work got over(after hours & off days )he would try to gather as much information he could about the regional food while he was physically present there,His hosts /Colleagues/Business associates/Travel companion/friends / guide) would actually mock him and exclaim "Are u sure u don't want to go sight seeing and just want to go the local produce market instead"
Kishore did in 1994 what Chef Gordon Ramsay would attempt in 2010 with his great escape T.V series.
Explore different places and learn how the locals made the Food that made their region popular for that food .
He was doing this for his own education - The hard way & obviously at his own expense,without no cameras trailing him - with just a plain pen and paper documenting everything he noticed ,primarily sight seeing , then exploring the local markets ,checking out the local utensils , local produce ,types of fuel the locals used , seasonings , condiments ,learning and documenting all of the above and also authentic cooking techniques from home cooks in their home kitchens.Since he did not go to any catering school ever , he was not bound by the rules and regulations that they would teach him otherwise.hence he had an open mind and that helped him in a way that he did not have any pre conceived notions or fixed perceptions of what he was going to experience or learn .
This is a tiny list to give you an insight of what kishore has picked up along the Food trails from his business/pleasure trips over the decades :-
Baramula - Kashmir
Rahat appa ,an affable old lady(an ex employee's aunt ) in Baramula, Kashmir ,India taught Kishore to make a yummy Awesomely fragrant Gushtaba apart from many other Kashmiri delicacies including modur pulav,Noon chai etc.
Kasara,Maharashtra
He learned how to brew a really potent & kickass Desi Daaru made from Mahuwa Flowers by a villager called Ghanshyambhau Chawri in Suryamaal,Khodala Ghat,a dense forest (here, he was even mauled by a lone hyena & rescued and released many snakes too)located between Kasara & Wada,Maharashtra
p.s- Kishore is a snake rescuer ,has captured, documented and relocated over 7200+ snakes in over 25 years .
Konta - Madhya pradesh
Bikram singh Maurya (a local tribal )taught him how to make a yummy fiery & extremely tangy Chapura Chutney(made of toasted & crushed live red ants ) in a Naxalite ridden
(Had a near death experience when he was cornered at gunpoint by the naxals when they mistook him for A local politician's son,and were all ready to shoot him down .Luckily by the grace of god & his mom's blessings he survived to tell the tale.AMEN) Konta ,Dakshin Bastar, Dantewara (It was in Madhya pradesh back then now its in Chhattisgarh)
Kanpur-Uttar pradesh
Kishore learnt the art of making heavenly Kakori kebabs & many other recipes from a cook who used to work( for 4 years) in the Famed Al Kauser restaurant in Delhi.(a Lonely Planet favorite) ,Kishore met this amazing cook , Mohd.Javed Qureshi by a sheer stroke of luck- he calls it serendipity (on a cross country road-trip while he was touring U.P) while he was surveying the old school spice markets of Rasoolabad,Kanpur ,Uttar pradesh.
The cook in Javed-miyan was really intrigued by Kishore's dusty (Royal Enfield Bullet) Bike loaded with Kitchen implements like a portable LPG cylinder ,pots,pans and 4 Backpacks bursting at the seams .
Kishore is a people's person , looks very friendly, approachable and makes friends rather easily .
so they got talking and found common ground in cooking food,thereafter Kishore was invited over to be a house guest (and was treated like he was a blue blooded descendant from a royal family )at Javedbhai's massive ancestral home in Asalatganj for 12 days sharing recipes and cooking away to glory as if the world was going to end .Kishore also learnt how to adeptly butcher ,skin and debone goats & sheep at his Host's family owned meat shop which was attached to their house(That skill comes extremely handy when kishore makes Mutton biryani for 100+people) Javedbhai and his family still visit and stay with kishore whenever in Bombay ,They like an extended family to each other for 18 years now. Like Kishore earlier mentioned "Good food binds you to people and helps you make many life long friends." .
Alibag-Maharashtra,
Kishore learned how to make Popti - a Seasoned Chicken stuffed in a clay pot with edible leaves and Vaal and sea salt & cook it on a shehkoti (campfire lit during the winter months to keep warm)from local Farmers called Sunil & Amar Mhatre in Phopheri Village,Near Rewas in Alibag- Maharashtra
Chengdu - China
An authentic imperial Peking duck recipe taught to him (by Aunty Li Xiu,his business associate's mother) in Gaoshanxiang ,Chengdu, China .
Hikkaduwa -Sri Lanka
Learned to Make Authentic Kottu from a sweet,helpful local stall owner called Gunasekara On a Holiday trip In Hikkaduwa ,Sri Lanka
Beirut - Lebanon
Learned how to make Authentic Sharwarma,Falafel,Toum,etc from scratch from a fellow foodie called Waleed Jomma in Broumana ,Matn,Lebanon.
And so on .
(Kishore has Multiples of 1000's of documented recipes like these in his possession (Like a grand old man he has sweet nostalgic memories of the stories behind each one of them )
Exposure to such a large diversity of cuisines got him fascinated to food.Eventually over a period of time he realized that Food was his calling,He wanted to do something worthwhile in the food industry ,That how he got involved in the food trade even though he is a rank outsider & is happy to be accepted with open arms by his patrons,friends & family who swear by his food.
He believes that its his faith in his own ability, his integrity & passion towards food,reverence for tradition,strong basics&fundamentals about the ingredients being used & the cooking process which will yield the best results possible apart from having an open mind,is not rigid about rules(cooking unlike baking has almost no set rules ),he is always willing to learn , customize the food ,thinks out of the box & has an eternal desire to please the Diner's palate is what makes him earn respect from his patrons and from people who have tasted his food. Amen to that .
My favorite hobby is cooking and
there is nothing I can do well , if I
haven't eaten well.
He has been experimenting , exploring , researching , tasting , learning a lot of recipes all his life , That's how he manages to cook a variety of cuisines ,which he was learnt over the decades . He believes that once the cook is facing the gas range/ovens /workstation in the kitchen and has decided what recipe to rustle up ,from this point on-wards its only experience and expertise that counts .Especially in the kitchen, one can only learn through pure trial and error ,Its a learning curve , cos as one keeps cooking ,his method of cooking evolves too & one also learns to improvise along the way as the situation demands them to.
Cooking is one failure after another,
and that’s how you finally learn
Books and a formal training can only teach u as much (He says -I m not trying to ridicule people who attend catering schools ,in fact I doff my hat to them , they will always have an edge over a home cook because of the vast amount of theoretical and practical knowledge that the hotel industry's stalwarts have imparted to them during their training period in school )but then experience & a passion for cooking is what really counts in the kitchen ,that coupled with strong theoretical knowledge about the kind of ingredients being used and the science behind the cooking process that must be used for a particular recipe is what makes the cook /chef 's food stand out every single time.
Learn how to cook–try new recipes,
learn from your mistakes, be fearless,
and above all have fun
To illustrate his point, he says if we make a catering school topper compete with a Batiyaara and indulge in a cook-off to make hyderabaadi chicken dum biryani or haleem and provide both of them with the same ingredients - No prizes for guessing who will win.
Kishore shares his extremely useful kitchen do s and dont s, tips ,tricks and time tested recipes with the world through this blog here
Cooking is not about being the best or most perfect
cook, but rather it is about sharing the table with
family and friends.
The following link contains food reviews from paying customers
who have sampled kishore s cooking and hospitality at his restaurant in Thane(shutdown in Jan 2013 ) ,which was amongst the top 6 restaurants rated by burrp.com based on the positive food reviews. Please do take out the time to read the amazing reviews his kind patrons wrote for him , Each one of them is an ode to good food.
http://www.burrp.com/mumbai/qishos-world-cuisine-temporarily-shutdown-kolbad-listing/354299#
Kishore was the executive chef & a 50 % partner in Big Daddy pizzas & more( in Khar/Bandra/Andheri) and his food was much loved by
hard core foodies in the Bandra-Khar-santacruz- vileparle-andheri-4 bunglows-Lokhandwala belt
(His menu dedicated to health food was extremely popular with Fitness freaks including Bollywood stars .
John Abraham(was a bigggggg fan of kishore's super healthy invention called meal in a glass smoothie )
Bipasha Basu(Was forever craving for Kishore's
version of caramelized bread pudding on days when she was not dieting )
Uday Chopra(practically ate out of kishore's kitchen for months together(used to deliver food to his bungalow in Juhu & office near Fun republic )low fat healthy meals especially customized & invented for him -kishore says the ever so humble Uday Chopra is by far the biggest foodie he has ever ever met )
Aftab Shivdasani used to order health food including breakfast ,lunch and dinner from Kishore for months at a stretch )
Lead vocalist Uday Benegal from the Band Indus Creed(Formerly Rock Machine) was a big fan of Kishore's Focaccia sandwiches has also become a personal friend .
Gaurav kapoor, Aditya Roy kapoor,Rahul Bhatt,Rohini Hattangadi,Pamela Chopra ,Shonali Nagrani, Anjana sukhani ,Sameer Malhotra ,Deanne pandey, Shefali Alvares ,Congress M.P Krishna Hegde , Rati Agnihotri, Tanuj Virmani ,Ajinkya Deo , Vir Das , Ranbir Kapoor ,Deepika Padukone
the list of celebrities,Bollywood stars and page 3 patrons ordering for Kishore's food and the interesting stories behind each one of them is simply exhaustive and never ending )
In 2011 kishore quit the partnership in Big daddy & decided to branch out on his own and started his own restaurant called "Qishos world cuisine" which almost immediately acquired a cult status in Thane (the Burrp& Zomato reviews are proof to it ) 9 months later, he had to abruptly shut it down owing to legal hassles with the landlord .
He plans to restart his restaurant (but obviously!!!!!! )after he is free from his other work commitments .
Until then he is happy blogging & sharing all these wonderful recipes , tips and tricks which float around in his head by the thousands .
Happy reading
Food, far more than sex, is the great leveler.
Just as every king, prophet, warrior, and saint has a
mother,
so every Napoleon, every Einstein, every
Jesus has to eat.
More Trivia about Kishore .
Kishore was born in a Sindhi Family, his Grandfather owned an ancestral milk diary (400+ cows & buffaloes )in Sindh(Now a province in Pakistan after the partition) His grandfather would regale him with stories about the good old British Raj days and also tell him how they ran their milk business in Sindh . whatever milk was unsold at the end of the day was converted into Mawa, paneer ,Dahi ,Ghee , & sweetmeats .They had a solid reputation and customers used to come from far and wide .There was a time when No wedding was complete without Mithaai's from their sweetshop .Britishers would carry countless packets of their mithai back home as exotic gifts from India.His forefathers had started this diary & sweetmeat shop back back in 1870 , more than a hundred years even before kishore was born,Back in 1913 , his great grandfather had displayed a board outside their Shop saying
- roughly translated to noone can fry /cook better than a Talreja .(Hats off to his great grandpa's copywriting skills, that too in the year 1913 . :-)
So cooking practically runs in his blood , No wonder he is so passionate about cooking and always insists on being in the kitchen .
Kishore confesses that Whenever he cooks food , especially for others , he puts his heart and soul into the cooking and is extremely eager to please the person/people he is cooking for .He is extremely fussy ,picky and very particular about his choice of ingredients, and always strives to uses the freshest produce possible and he hates to waste food . He claims Food is a rare and precious commodity ,we are lucky fortunate & blessed to have food on our plates .food is holy and we should never waste or throw away food, Push comes to shove , we should distribute it to the less fortunate ones but never throw away food. Its a mortal sin and blasphemous to waste food that ways .
Bitten by wanderlust, because I had no place I could stay in
without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere,So I just keep rolling under the stars on my trusted Bike ,exploring new places in Beautiful India ,my
Motherland.
Kishore was an avid biker and has travelled the length and breadth of India on his trusted Royal Enfield & Triumph Tiger.
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Footloose,Single &With no familial responsibilities (his dad was working,was self reliant and also knew how to cook & fend for himself
(yes,all males in my family know how to cook , it runs in our Halwaai blood )
& Bitten by the wanderlust bug ,carefree and eternally ebullient he would be out on a road-trips ,sight seeing
(and exploring moffusil villages and unheard of
towns in rural India ,places which he had only read about in books -why ,he even camped and slept out in the open in his sleeping bag in the spooky haunted ruins of Bhangarh(deserted City known as a haunted Town full of ghosts after sundown) - So inhospitable that no one stays there or even passes by after dusk, Near the Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan And survived the night too )Sometimes for 2 months at a stretch,at times roughing it out like a nomad,because he wanted to see the real India & learn how to make authentic regional delicacies from real people in real time in real kitchens.
He wanted to avoid the touristy places and meet real people and learn real food in their kitchens not what restaurants all over the country pass off as authentic regional food .
He was out on a mission,To Eat and savor (& learn)all that the world had to offer on a plate . (as mentioned earlier in this blog )
He was really intrigued about where the ingredients for the food we cook come from ,how does the food & allied industries work .
for example after a goat is butchered , what do they do with the skin - how and why is it processed ? inquiries to these questions with the local butcher led him on a trail to a tannery in Dharavi -Mumbai & later to Kanpur - Uttar pradesh where he took a factory tour in real time
' you might be wondering - why not just watch it on youtube '
you-tube videos (video profiling of such factories -which could be viewed on your computer screen )was invented almost 15 years after this event.
He was told that these skins were processed into tanned skins & parchments which were used for drum heads & Binding books,where as the tanned skins were used for rugs, gloves ,boots , basically anything that needs soft leather .Although this info had nothing to do with food ,but he helped him understand how the allied industries connected to the food industry works.
Another example of a food related trail which led to a mind numbingly shocking discovery was
once he was visiting a slaughterhouse in Baliakheri,U.P & he saw a truckload of animal bones being dispatched , on further inquiry he was told that the consignment was on its way to a bone processing factory in Karnal - Haryana , these bones would used for the extraction of Bone powder and gelatin.
(here is where his documenting each observation came in handy) On another trip 2 years later he made it a point to visit the processing plant(previous lead derived from the baliakheri abbatior) in Haryana ,and interviewed a few workers there and was horrified to discover that the gelatin extracted from the collagen in the bones is processed and used extensively in processed foods like commercially available Gelatin , used extensively in the bakeries and in making confectioneries and other food products available in India like jelly crystals ,jams , chewing gum,ice creams.
And the bones are further processed into a fine powder and sold as calcium to pharma companies which use it to manufacture toothpaste & a specially treated bone-meal was produced and sold to sugar factories was used it to whiten molten jaggery into stark white common table sugar .
Kishore mentioned earlier that this discovery shocked him that's because his mom was a staunch vegetarian all her life until her dying day - she (used to use gelatin in making jellies , jujubes etc in a lot of home made desserts & consume them too )was blissfully unaware of the fact that gelatin contains pig/cow collagen and tissue
(religious sentiments to consuming a cow product apart ).
even after the advent of the net - youtube - this is still the food industry's biggest kept secret .
The food labels are misleading till this day - common Jam , jelly crystals ,jelly beans , aspic , chewing gum , ice cream containing jelly chunks ,certain sour creams , yogurts , etc contain animal derived gelatin and are mis-labelled as type b gelatin (alkali derived ) making the consumer believe they are consuming vegetarian gelatin like agar agar , which is not the case .
some crooked lawyer can still make his billions from MNC FMCG companies based on this facts !!!!!!
Anyways ,back to the food trail
Field Trips like these gave him First hand information about where the ingredients for his food came from and how exactly were they processed .
(like wise when he was out on self educational road-trips He would spend every day experiencing & documenting a different life ,he would accompany a Tannery worker , farm hand, poultry farmer , fresh produce vendor ,Cattle herder,Diary worker ,Kababiya Rakabdaar, Bawarchi, Batiyaara, Butcher ,sweet meat vendor , tea plantation worker, Pickle maker, Halwaai , deep sea Fishermen ,Fish mongers, Crab trappers, small game hunters etc, to their workplace , informally chatting with them ,interviewing them on a one to one basis and getting insights & first hand information about their line of work to understand the intricacies of how the food reaches us from the farm to our plates - He did this to get answers for questions that were floating around in his head pertaining to food . Remember there was no internet or even Mobile phones in those days - Google was about a decade away from being invented .
Sergey & Larry were still pimple faced students in Stanford. )
On one such trip, He rode his Royal enfield Bullet all the way from Bombay to Kashmir, Leh Khardungla Pass, Sosan, Moorang, Joshimath and from there to Cape Camorin in Kanya kumari and back home .Learning to cook the local food during his home-stays along the way from real people and not online or in a cooking class like most people do these days.Its this interminable passion for cooking which makes his food stand out every single time .
I have lived a life thats full
I have travelled each & every highway
more , much more than this ,
I did it my way. - Frank Sinatra .
One would wonder how did he get to stay in a home stay in a new area, it was very simple ,His bike was loaded with cooking implements So it looked like a chef's bike .
(As a thumb-rule & more so out of sheer experience , he would avoid towns - and cities -people there were not so welcoming- unless some previous host gave him a reference or a lead )
The reason why Kishore wouldn't ride post sun down
"Sarr sallamat toh Pagdi Hazaar "
Highways weren't safe post sundown( highway robbers would ambush Trucks in those days)-Once kishore was robbed of all his cash at gunpoint by a gang of dozen plus highway bandits at 2 am in Guraiya in M.P-Between Jabalpur & Chattarpur on a road trip ,He still remembers how he maintained his cool and had to bluff his way to save his bike,that was an eventful night.
Post that incident Kishore had promised himself that he would never travel post sun down when out on a road trip.
so he would stop at a small village square ,his huge but friendly persona,his dusty (loaded with Back packs) designer bike would grab SERIOUS eye balls (he was the star attraction and the talk of the ____ village !!!!) and when he would confide in/announce to local tea/meat/veggie vendor that he was looking for a home stay and will cook dinner for his host too without even entering their kitchen and willing to sleep in the verandah- 9 times out of 10 there used to be a fight amongst people as to who will play the host (he would choose someone who would exchange a few local recipes (their kitchen's secret recipes) with him-kishore would gladly pay for the ingredients if they would let him )because everyone wanted to hear his biker stories and cudnt believe that kishore was travelling cross country & had rode all the way from Bombay , so It was very easy to find a homestay-People in the interiors of India are still really down to earth and have that " attithi devo bhavah attitude " kishore says he has experienced it personally , more than a 100 + times over .
Back up plan
well If he didnt find an homestay , he would stay at a government school or a temple in his ultra comfy sleeping bag and tent (he was forced to do this once when he was penniless after being robbed of all his cash- but he loved the experience and that became a standard operation. )next day before dawn he would stop at the nearest hotel , pay them 20-30 bucks(Yes things were cheap back then, Even petrol was priced at less than 15 bucks a litre)for using their facilities,would Shave,wash soiled clothes ,change into a fresh set of clothes and be ready to face a brand new day.
He could have easily afforded to stay in the best of hotels, but he wanted to rough it out & meet real people , enter real kitchens ,learn authentic recipes .A drab boring claustrophobic hotel room didn't appeal to the eternal wanderer in kishore .
Call it providence
During one such trip in the Himalayas , he happened to interact with a learned & much revered Ayurveda Vaidya , Swami Narayandas who after seeing his undiminished interest in cooking and the infinite passion & eternal zeal to learn new things taught him how to make ancient Ayurvedic medicines for a host of illnesses ,Now he puts that to good use in curing his friends and family of ailments .He also learnt a lot about Ayurvedic cooking in the swamiji's ashram which honed his culinary skills further .
HOBBIES APART FROM COOKING
Kishore was a national level power lifter way back in 1995
He won 2 Gold medals on the state level , ironically he broke his back in a horrible gym accident (while squatting) which is why he had to quit power-lifting forever or else (his orthopedic surgeon warned him)that if he continues lifting ,he may get paralyzed waist downwards . Which was too heavy a price to pay at a young age of 24.
Out of perpetual curiosity & his perennial hunger to learn something new he did some meaningful courses,he holds a diploma in Health and Nutrition(Which helps him tremendously in making health food for his clients ) apart from being a certified Fitness trainer ,Massage Therapist & Certified Perfumer
He is a glass design artist and knows all about Stained Glass,etching,Acid designing on glass,Airbrushing ,He owned a glass trading company and was a pioneer of sorts when he opened Thane's first fully computerized glass design studio with a plotter machine & the works in 1999 supplying designed glass on a turnkey basis to Silverline in Thane and Chennai & Infosys in Bangalore
kishore has also created numerous wrought iron sculptures & gifted them to his friends and family .
Infact his silver and black skull /skeleton bike you saw a short while ago up there somewhere was conceptualised/designed /fabricated and put together by kishore after a lot of trial and error .
He loves Music
He loves listening to Gospel,Jazz,CountryBlues,SoFt rock,Love ballads,Rap.
To name a few singers , he loves to listen to
Louis Armstrong ,Tony Bennet ,Frank Sinatra ,Peter Cincotti, Don williams ,Kris kristoffersen,Jerry lee Lewis , Barry Manilow, James Taylor, Hank Williams Jr. , Hootie &the Blowfish, Air supply , Bon jovi, Tom petty, 2pac, Micheal Buble , Ustaad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and so on .
He also loves to sing.
These days he is rather content singing along on karaoke .
RETIREMENT PLANS
(in his own words )
Kids have started called me uncle(and why not -if I had my own,They would have been teenagers now )so I guess its high time I have a retirement plan in plan ,well I have the blue print all sorted in my head right down to the tiniest details.20 years from now when I m past 60
Deep down inside ,I m a Simple man Who prefers to lead a rather frugal life. i have a life long dream to Permanently settle down by the beach ,
(Obviously still single ) older and hopefully wiser leading a life post retirement in Either Goa, Kerala,Nicobar ,Bali or Sri Lanka . I picture myself on my small farm not very far from the sea shore surrounded by a lot of dogs ,creepy crawlies ,my pet teacup pig and my pet stallion .
sky above my head , sand beneath my feet and a few sea shells or cowries in my pocket , hmmmm life is good .
I am an eternal beach boy - the best kind of therapy is beach therapy for me I m totally a beach person . The beach and me are practically inseparable .The voice of the sea speaks to my soul .the ocean is where I belong . if there is a heaven for me , i m sure it has a beach attached to it . Nothing soothes my soul like a walk on the beach , nothing brings more clarity in my thought process than to just sit back and watch the waves crash on the shore , endlessly , they teach us sooooooooo much about life without any effort at all
time doesn't move hour to hour but one moment at a time ,.
walking barefoot on the sand under the clear blue skies feeling the surf on my face and a few shells in my pocket and sand in my toes ,I feel more closer to mother nature than i do anywhere else in the world .
watching the white capped waves gracefully swaying their way to the shore is therapeutic for my soul . its just another day in paradise ,where every moment is happy
I love the serene brutality of the ocean ,I feel electrified with every breath of the wet ,sulphury briny air and the best part is I feel the same way every single time I visit the beach .I intently gaze at the sea listen to the waves and enjoy the stunning view .The power of the sea and every other thing about it overwhelms my senses .
(and yes ,I get side tracked pretty easily hehehe !!! did u notice just a mere mention of the ocean and I just slipped off into my happy world )
I plan to Start an Ngo for Animals in distress and work towards conserving natural resources in my immediate surroundings .Educate people in the town around me and beyond about snake rescue and sensitize them about these misunderstood reptiles.
I picture myself cooking away to glory for neighbors , friends and family .
I will record songs in my own state of the art sound studio and finally write a draft for my first book ever.(did u notice, I can write reams and reams about something that I fancy)
Also plan to set up a state of the art kitchen with the latest-most snazziest ostentatious kitchen equipment and shoot cooking videos of my food recipes (with handy tips and tricks) which i have picked up from the world over and post them online to stay in touch with the greatest passion I have ever nurtured in this mortal life of mine ,Cooking. great top of the line food recipes with the freshest most ingredients .
I am also going to personally construct my own wood fired oven ,Barbecue pit and smoke house to prepare deli meats and exotic cold cuts and also have a quaint little deli( with my Qishos branding at the farm gate that serves fresh , preservative free food and exotic cold cuts like smoked sausages ,bratwurst,pepperoni , smoked ham ,bacon and nuggets .also have my own range of food produce like Charcuterie products ,condiments,seasoning blends ,sauces etc .
I love horses , people who say there is no heaven on earth have never been on a horse .
I go out on dusty trails with my horse deep in the woods and feel so one with nature . Its Man and beast in perfect tandem . I used to have my own and I plan to gift myself one sometime soon .
I will settle down in a small fishing village by the Sea where the surf , sun and the sand is in abundance.
I lurrrrve to swim in the ocean, I can do it from dawn to dusk ,I just lurrrrrrve to float around like a happy blue whale
( it helps that I look like one too , keeps the sharks at bay )
I love deep sea fishing
with the warm sun on my face and the cool breeze abound, under the azure skies,sniffing on the unadulterated smell of the ocean, watching the endless emerald green waters , sipping on a chilled stiff Bowmore on the rocks and then .....Voila .........the tiny bell on my fishing rod starts tinkering , its a strike and then I m reeling in , its nothing like watching it on TV , Nothing beats the real thing , of being there in that moment of time where time is not a precious commodity and it just lingers on languorously, No phone-calls ,No social media, no traffic , no crowds , no honking ,
no deadlines to adhere to , can truly chill out in the true sense of that term . When it gets too hot I just jump into the ocean for a quick dip (I lurrrrve swimming with the dolphins and its always a ritual practice on my secret beach in goa where the dolphins flock to the shore in dozens ) and I m back on the boat again , Hmmmmm , life is so good and i m so lucky to have lived it that way.
I will buy a small yacht and a trailer and go out deep sea fishing.whenever the time and tide is right and the weather permits .
Bottom line is he in his element and his happiest best ,where
there is Food, sun surf and sand .
Amen
Keep Him in your prayers
Cheers to Life
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