COME OUT COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE...
What is it about the hunt for the best pieces of meat from the meat and potatoes [and the other hidey-holey vegetables the cook puts in to throw you off] dish?
You stand over that table, at the top of what could be best described as a loose queue.. or a serpent caught mid-writhe.. You are in the middle of a conversation with Mrs.‘Hakoba-lace-petticoat-peeping-from-accordion-back-split-skirt’. You are discussing, how, while you agree that writing screenplays for the hindi film industry, does not quite constitute writing as such, it must figure somewhere as it IS a series of words strung loosely together with some effort at conjugation and punctuation. She looks at you in shock at your stupidity in even attempting an argument with her [and I must admit that almost anything she says makes you want to say 'but aunty..']. I look at the meat dish in front of me like manna from the gods.. playing its dutiful role as a conversation steerer. "Ooh!. Beef chilly fry! Its my favourite", I say enthusiastically, knowing full well that the cook is her sister, Mrs. ‘Slightly-opened-lace-curtains’. She predictably stops trashing my literary non-skills and attempts to see if I will attach suitable action to my declarations of love. Will I do justice.. or is it merely another bandying about of the word 'love'?
Now, here we have a real problem.. If this was my mothers beef chilly fry, it would matter not a whit, how long and assiduously I labored over getting the choicest pieces on my plate.. but this is a landmine.. The challenge is to serve myself enough to justify my excitement, while at the same time surreptitiously avoiding all the waste-of-space pitfalls of potatoes, carrots, big green chillies [tcha!..not spicy, baba!] and potatoes… all inserted into the recipe to create bulk and disguise the fact that only a half kilo of beef has actually been used.
She stands breathing cuticura and eau de cologne at me as she peers at my plate. I can almost see her counting the pieces of beef I have taken. But I’m onto her and am actually quite a pro [ask my long-suffering sister, Christine..].. I can pick out the best pieces and cleverly hide a few under concave capsicum squares, the entire operation conducted at lightening speed, which belies the fact that I have won all the best pieces!.. How do I know I’ve won?.. As I walk off, I can almost see the next person now being forced to bend from the waist and peer into the dish to find a piece of meat.. any piece of meat.. any size.. something.. anything... to make the other little piece of meat on their plate get less lonely.
