Think, do you need that Swiggy order?

$ 240+ million investment that built a unicorn worth $ 3.5 billion relies on the cost benefit analysis you do every time you want to eat anything cooked, knowing you will choose the path of least effort that can get you the most calories. And it’s a bet on millions of people choosing that many times of over, as far as possible in perpetuity (100 million customers ordering 15 times a month in 10-15 years, a Mint article in 2019 said).

As one of the few much-maligned North Indians, I am an anomaly. I can have South Indian-ese practicality every day. So it’s no wonder idly-vada-sambhar makes me go weak in the knees.

Deciding to pop in to The Filter Coffee, a lovely restaurant with tiffin items and meals and assorted batters and pudis in Kammanahalli, while grocery shopping, I sat down to a banana leaf. I was already bemused by a bill of some Rs 180 odd. It was about Rs 100 less than what I would have paid through Swiggy. I know why - the delivery partner, the packaging, all using more plastic and fuel, but in my newly found frugal corner of the brain, that was a lot. And then four HOT, STEAMING idlis were plopped on them. I almost burst into tears. I don’t get that in a package that takes 20 minutes to deliver. And when I asked for more sambhar (they serve in small pattal bowls), I was told my bowl will be replenished with hot sambhar whenever it looked to have dangerously low levels, “...else it will get cold.”

I am now sold on hot food. I realised the reason I accepted cold food for so long is because I often had other things on my mind, and I didn’t have an Indian housewife or cook. And now, with an deep interest in losing weight, Swiggy is gone with the wind for the morning idly-vada, even as I continue my search for the best idli-plate money can buy.

Worry not, there are 1.3 billion people in India today who won’t find this blog.

An attempt at being frugal

Wondering about the Rs 2,000 Vodafone (Vi these days) bill yesterday, I was curious why I was paying so much. These thoughts are generally prompted by infrequent bouts of interest in savings and idle curiosity, but this time, it was due to a determination to be successfully and therefore frugally retired.

Lo and behold! I was being charged outdated elements. Clearly it’s in a cellular provider’s interest to have harried, over-worked, over-paid employees as customers, who don’t feel the pinch of Rs 500 disappearing here and there. So I had a Rs 500 plan, which allowed 75 GB data, unlimited local and national calls and a Prime membership (unused, as I have had my own for years). So far so good, though for some reason I had thought I had only 7 GB, and there was a faint disquiet in some corner of my brain. Never mind, so let’s see what else is there. I also realised the format of the e-bill has changed and it took me a while to find the actual details. Summary are great things, because when I finally located the bill, I almost choked. There were two other monthly charges: Rs 300 for some 600 minutes of STD calls and Rs 800 for, wait for this, 7 GB of data! Add-ones from another era were nestled away from prying eyes!

Correction was immediately sought. Which meant 45 minutes of dedicated effort to find the latest customer care number, getting distracted by the cool new ViC, the chatbot, figuring out new IVR till I reached an actual person and being on hold till the person (thank you Deepak) sorted through everything. 

Frugality will need to come through other means. This was simply stupidity and lack of interest in money matters. And millions of dollars being spent in behavioural science and its application on day-to-day interactions for a great customer experience, which also includes how to prevent a customer from stopping spending. Seamless, fast, simple experience created using cool design thinking stuff (I do love the methods) is for when you want the customer to SPEND. Why blame only poor Facebook and Instagram and whatever? All businesses are digital these days.

Anyways, I will save enough money monthly to Swiggy in four idli-vada breakfasts for Man and me. Which tees up nicely the next post on my renewed frugal mindset.

North East meal = pork + rice

Nothing could be further than the truth.

Don’t get me wrong, there is meat in every meal. At least what I saw in a short trip to Meghalaya. But it is not in the quantity we have come to expect in a restaurant. For you mainland folks, a good reference point would be perhaps double the quantity of pickle you take from the jar. The rest of it is steamed rice, boiled vegetables, greens and daal. And the roadside dhabas serve all of it in a small plate, the size of a side plate in a city restaurant.

I was reminded of it recently, realising this is what Alan Goldhammer and John McDougall want you to eat if you want to lose weight.

Here’s a quick thaali you can make in about an hour at home.

1. Steam or boil rice. 

2. Make masoor dal (very thin and no tadka, unless you can make it without oil) with salt, turmeric, garlic and asafoetida. 

3. Prepare a cross between oying (Meghalaya; has cabbage, green beans, potato and mustard greens) and bai (Mizoram; made with green beans and cauliflower stalks):

    Boil a litre of water, drop a tsp of cooking soda when it comes to a rolling boil.

    When the foaming subsides, add a cut potato, some torn cabbage, and if you have, small, sliced pieces of bamboo shoot and a few torn-into-two stalks of cauliflower.

    After 5 minutes, add whole green beans (ends torn off), mustard greens or cauliflower leaves, salt and sliced chilly.

    Once cooked (you will be able to see it or then keep biting into vegetables), take off the fire and add in 1/2 tsp chopped ginger.

    Do not cover with a lid at ANY stage. The green colour fades into an unappetising grey-green.

4. Make a quick tomato chutney, roasting tomatoes, bhut jholokia and garlic over fire (use one of those hole-y flat contraptions you can place on gas fire) and blitzing (or squishing) them with salt and lime juice.

Quick notes:

Want to impress someone? When you use cauliflower next, retain the stalks and the leaves in the freezer to use in the oying-bai.

And I see you have noticed the word “torn” being tossed around. A YouTube video by a local says the food tastes different/authentic when you don’t use a knife. I of course say, “Yay, even less work!”

It tastes best when had hot and in not-too-hot weather. So it tastes great practically 75% of the year in Bangalore.

What if I never feel like having potato chips again?

That seems to be in the realm of possibility these days.

After so many weeks of eating WFPB foods, with only some S from being SOS and flour/nuts free, I noticed the packet lying on the coffee table, fresh from the favourite Hot Chips fellow in Kammanahalli. And I could not resist. But after chomping on just a few, perhaps 50 gm worth, I started feeling sick. It was as if the oesophagus had been coated with STALE oil. Thinking it was an aberration, the next day I tried to finish a small box of jowar biscuits - home-made, organic, etc - and I thought I would puke; earlier, this would be tasteless, now the first 3 or 4 felt like heaven and then it started going downhill. Then the neighbour sent over a plate of SOS+flour+seeds stuff - Mysore pak, assorted murukku, laddus - all my favourites. I gave away all the sweet stuff to Maya without a passing thought (is it wrong to give to others what one knows is terrible for the body, or does their value lie in the receiver’s/beholder’s eyes?) and then, that same feeling again, this time from the murukkus.

For those confused with the acronym peppered across, it’s Salt-Oil-Sugar.

I am salting my food and adding a tsp of sugar to the blueberry-apple-banana-millet-soy milk bowl. But I still seem to be doomed for health.

Kalyug is finally upon us.