BY TARA NARAYAN
SOME FOOD for thought! There’s a cold bite in the air at dawn and dusk which is making me somber and sensitive…all’s not well with me and the Goa I love!
That means I’m down with my first cold and cough of the season and depressing thoughts are wandering through my mind. Why is it that although we know what we put in our mouth by way of drink and food impacts the quality of health, it is so difficult to make dramatic and sweeping changes in the way we feel, think, and act, including the seemingly simple matter of drinking and eating? In a feverish mood I asked the hubby, “What destroys more - love or hate?”

BY TARA NARAYAN

IT CAN be a surreal experience eating out beneath the stars in the velvety cocoon of a balmy night - at the Park Hyatt’s beachside restaurant, the Palms! Why surreal? Because all the coconut trees beneath which we were ensconced were bald or naked of coconuts and it made me feel uneasy. I don’t thing I like the idea of dining beneath coconut trees without coconuts snuggled on them high up! Hey, I understand the imperatives of protecting guests fine dining on sumptuous grilled sea food beneath the swaying canopy of coconut trees by the beachside,

BY TARA NARAYAN

HEY, LIFE has its moments. Friends were coming home for an evening and said they’re bringing over their daughter and one-year-old granddaughter who’re based in the U S of A and were visiting… by the way, their granddaughter only eats organic food! What a lucky granddaughter, I thought… please bring her over, but won’t she eat my home-spun kichadi-kadi or kichadi-fresh curd which I was planning to make, by way of some comfort vegetarian food? No, no, explained the doting grandmother, her American daughter has brought along a suitcase full of the American “Nature’s Promise” food for infants and for dinner that evening Naira was going to have “Organic Pasta Primavera”

BY TARA NARAYAN

DON’T ASK me how one Sunday afternoon I found myself discovering the flavors of Japanese sushi at the Oriental-S.E.Asian. Nowadays, of course, these growing number of restaurants are called pan-Asian restaurants and Tamari at the new Taj Vivanta in the heart of Panaji is one of them. Actually, I’d been sneaking in to savour the Italian gelato at their Caramel patisserie and steadily falling for the cool, friendly ambience of this newest five-star in town.

HAVE A sweet, go on…nah! And then pop, after all the initial nonsense about not loving or even liking sweets I’m invariably tempted to pick up a slender golden slice of doce de grao from the platter of Christmas time Goan sweets to nibble on…appreciating its velvety soft sweetness with a gentle hint of coconut about it. This doce de grao was not hard and sickeningly sweet. Where did you get it from? If this sounds like familiar Christmas turning into New Year scenario in Goa you’re right.

HERE’S THIS talk of everyone turning over a new leaf and celebrating a green Christmas this year and I’m all for it. In fact, how about a green, blue and white Christmas? Green (real life green, not false dead green) Christmas tree like the poinsettia with its exquisite colouring of green and red, blue is for sunshine blue skies in the day time (the winter time sky of Goa is blue and velvet black studded all over with silvery stars at night)…but where is the cloudy mist?

I THINK I will always associate Christmas in Goa with the akash neems down the Campal promenade in Panaji in full bloom… with their flurries of scented silvery white flowers cascading down and filling the air with an unforgettable tantalising scent in the hot afternoon. Akash neem scent comes wafting into our home courtesy two fabulous akash neems across the road at the NIO complex…and how much I love it! The scent of Christmas in Goa will forever be an akash neem scent for me.

IN ALL the 40th IFFI fortnight goings on I quite forgot other things interesting and boring. But they’ve been at the back of my mind. Like my friend Parvish Kamat dragged me all the way to Banana Republic (one of the Cavala beachside premises) at Baga to introduce me to a new line of ready-to-use masala in the market called “Jaldi 5″, brought out by the Kamat Group of Hotels or more specifically by young scion of this Kamat family, i.e. Vishal Kamat.

IT’S IFFI or International Film Festival of India season anew in Panaji and Goa and one is looking as much for food for mind and body as heart and soul! With five IFFIs tucked away in my bosom, I’m becoming a veteran IFFI goer and have seen it blossom and still struggling to settle down into a familiar pattern with fewer hiccups and hitches.

HEY, happiness is crooning an old Hindi number about “Do din ki zindagi…kaisi yeh zindagi…”! I was crooning it all day long on the birthday for I was feeling every bit of my 60 years now, a milestone. From here one may roll down steadily to oblivion or continue to hold one’s own…is it the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? I understand that only metaphorically in my bones in an eerie way. November’s my birthday month and my cup of life usually see-saws between complete drainage or complete overflow!