One of my culinary highlights last year was an elaborate feast prepared by my brother and sister-in-law when I visited them in Jakarta. There was no special occasion or reason to do it except for our mutual love for food . (Brownie points to my brother for doing the bare minimum and ensuring the burden didn’t solely fall on his wife).
When the dishes began appearing on the dining table, all our eyes, including my parents who have always been gastronomically ambivalent, started gleaming. My sister-in-law is Arab and the dishes reflected the best of how she had interpreted classic Middle Eastern dishes such as the mandi, mansaf and fattoush through the sieve of Indian and Indonesian cooking techniques. But were we all ecstatic because of how extensive the platter was? Or was it because it was the first time in almost two years that the entire family sat together to eat at the same table ? Had my sister-in-law, by accident or maybe consciously, prepared dishes such as the mandi and kebuli to ensure that we had no choice but to share, talk and laugh together? When the same dishes were served to me at Sette Mara, prepared by chef Ahmed Fathi Albab Mhammed from Egypt , I couldn’t help but wonder how relationships can be nourished over a shared plate.
Its healing powers can’t be emphasised enough. It was also quite poetic that I was invited to the Middle Eastern restaurant in Mumbai’s St. Regis on the same night in June when India won the Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup so the.