I just realised that I’m a snob.
On the way to Golf, my husband and I stopped to eat our Sunday croissant from our favourite boulangerie (a walk from our apartment) and sat in the car commenting on the quality of the croissant and how the texture of the croissant in the boulangerie in our building has changed.
Yes, you read right, we have a boulangerie in the building so we wake up to the aroma of freshly baked French bread. How wonderful na? Not At All! Believe me, after the first two weeks it’s not a pleasure, it’s a curse! Try knocking off the Diwali or Christmas indulgences while waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread. It either makes you hungry first thing in the morning or makes you crave for bread the whole day.
But as usual, I’m meandering. So as we ate our crispy croissant the conversation moved to baguettes and croissants from different boulangeries and what is better where. During this conversation a thought suddenly struck me and I said “Atul have we become bread snobs?”! A moment later I laughed loudly because I realized that I am not only a bread snob but I do have a tendency to become a food snob.
So to begin with, I’ve always been a Gol Guppa, Kebab and Roti snob. Nothing compares to “what we get in Delhi”(Those from Lucknow can stop rolling their eyes). I lived in Chennai for 2&1/2 years and during that time and even today, the idli and bissibelabaath is never perfect (except in HK when my friend Laxmi made it or now in Paris if my friend Bharathy makes it). The Sarvanas and Sangeethas (outside Chennai) don’t come “naak ke neeche” (meet the standard). I loved Sagar (in Delhi) before I moved to Chennai and still like it but “it’s not quite the same”.
Nor is the Bhel and Saiv puri from South Extention (Delhi) worth the upset tummy after you’ve lived in Mumbai and eaten the real thing almost every day for three years. And let’s not even discuss Dim Sums. Twelve years in HK and I’m spoilt for life. Just nothing anywhere else compares to it unless you pay an arm and a leg to eat at the (Paris) Peninsula.
Oh ho... such a tough life. No, I’m not a foodie. What a plebeian thought. I’m just a food snob!