A Very Cheesy Affair - Go Cheese Tasting Event

Cheese and Wine - That Classic combination and add to that a chance to meet an old friend. Cherry on the cake, Master Chef Judge and Celebrity Chef Ranveer Brar was going to host the evening. What more could you ask for when all these came together and served to you on a platter. Thus I was at Blue Frog on the last November Saturday in the afternoon looking forward to a wonderful session of Cheese and Wine with an old friend Aditi. This event was organized by Go Cheese in association with Femina India. There I also met Geeta Sridhar a fellow blogger and a wonderful human being. Girl, wasn't I happy! Blue Frog was full of beautiful ladies and few gentlemen too; all ready to enjoy the afternoon full of Cheese and Wine.

Met Aditi after ages

The event started with Angad Singh Ranyal who goes by the twitter handle @piratedsardar. He sure brought the house down with laughter. The mood was set and we all were even more enthusiastic and looking forward to the events to unfold. Mr. Mahesh Israni, the Chief Marketing Officer of Parag Milk Foods Pvt Ltd spoke at length about "Go" the brand and Go Cheese. He gave a very insightful speech about Cheese and it's place in India. In countries like France the per capita consumption of Cheese is approx. 2 kgs a month whereas in India it's only 200 gms. That too because of eating out, cheese is yet to find a permanent place in Indian kitchens and Go Cheese is exactly aiming at that.

Friends and Conversations over Cheese

Parag Milk Foods started with products like Milk Pouch, Dahi,Ghee etc under the brand name "Gowardhan". As they themselves say " GO is derived from Gowardhan and has a dual meaning - apart from resonating with the Sanskrit word for Cow, it also embodies an energetic spirit with the act of going." Go Cheese is made from cow milk hence it is leaner than other cheeses made of goat milk or buffalo milk.

Chef Ranveer Brar

Keeping with this energetic and on the go image in mind, Go Cheese now has Chef Ranveer Brar as their brand ambassador. Mr.Israni invited Chef Ranveer to the stage. Chef talked extensively about different types of Cheese and Wine and also how Cheese can be used in Indian kitchen. For him, this classic combination of Cheese and Wine is a holistic experience. Indian snacks offer a great opportunity to experiment with cheese and chef recommends blending cheeses while using them in your kitchen. Meanwhile we were served with a Cheese Platter with the option to choose wine, red or white. I chose white. I loved the different flavoured Cheeses from Go that were served apart from the Gouda and Mozarella.

 My favourite was the Go Pepper cheese.

Cheese Platter

Snacks Platter

As the event progressed, there came a plate of completely "Cheeseful" snacks. So cheesy. The eating session was wrapped up with a very interesting Fruit tart and a mousse.













The audience which was mostly comprised of women asked a lot of questions to Chef Ranveer during the Q&A session. He very patiently answered everyone. Everyone wanted a selfie with the celebrity chef and he obliged all with a smile.

My moment with the chef!

The session was over by 5.30pm and Go Cheese presented us with a goodie bag full of Cheese and more Cheese. I just loved that goodie bag.

Wishing Go Cheese all the very best and hope they achieve what they aspire to do - find a place in every Indian household.

Looking back with DDLJ

It is a film that has redefined love in Bollywood. A film which has made the sweet love story of Raj & Simran immortal. This is a film that made the paddy fields of yellow mustard as romantic as the snow capped mountains or the flower carpets! And it is the film, which is still running and is completing 1000 week on 18th Dec this year.

 

This is a film which is a part of my teen years. Just out of school (10th) and landed in a hostel for further studies in the "then big bad world of a bigger city" - Guwahati . I came from a small town - Dibrugarh; my world had been protected and confined to school, tuitions, friends and family. I was scared, nervous and the fact that my room mate was a senior from same college, did not help either. That was one day and this is today when I am looking back and smiling as I type the words.  Few days back the new trailer of DDLJ was launched to celebrate the completion of 1000th week and it brought back a bucket full of memories.

 

I don't exactly remember which film I had gone to see when I saw big poster of the "Next change". It was a huge poster of paddy full of yellow mustards and no actors. With limited access to TV in hostel, I and my friends were clueless about this film. But in college the " day scholars" or the fellow batch mates who stayed at homes not in hostels like us would talk about the next big film of Shah rukh Khan we would be all ears. Came Friday 20th Oct 1995 and the film was released. It created a huge buzz and the film buffs all of us at the hostel were, we had to see it in the same weekend. So the planning started from Friday evening onwards. With limited pocket money we could not afford to pay the "Blacker". The only option was to make sure that we take the first few places of the queue. The theatre was Anuradha Cinema, one of very old cinema halls of Guwahati and closer to our hostel. Sunday we reached the cinema hall , believe it or not, at 7.30am for a 10am show! I was the first in the queue. There were total 5-6 of us. The sweeper was still cleaning the premises; and while standing in the queue, I was looking at the big poster which was wet! Yes wet. I tried to remember when did it rain last night. It did not. The poster was wet because they had just pasted it. It was the wet glue. All the girls were looking at the poster and giggling. That was the first time and then I have lost the count how many times I have watched this. On TV reruns of course.

And then there was Annie; my hostel mate. Crazy for SRK then and still is a big fan. She insisted I accompany her to one of shows in the following weeks. Since all the shows were going full, we had to again go through all the ordeal of standing in the queue for hours to manage tickets. She had missed coming with us the first time because of some class test. I still remember her watching the film totally engrossed, laughing and crying with Raj and Simran on screen. The most memorable part was when Amrish Puri came to know of SRK's real identity and slapped him real hard. Annie with her long nails squeezed my hand and almost went hysterical in the theatre. I tried to stop her and reason that that was not real. That was a film we were watching and people near our seats were watching us!! Annie being Annie, came out with the response " You are so unromantic". Annie would go crazy for SRK in each frame in this film. Her absolute favourite was when Kajol imagines SRK flashing his dimpled smile and waving his hand at the end of the song " Ho gaya hai tujhko to pyar sajna". If we had mobile phones and laptops those days, Annie would have gone berserk for sure.

 
But all said and done, that was one of those films which I had watched on big screen. In Dibrugarh, we would hardly go to the theatre to watch films. Dad had got us a VCR and we would get cassettes of the new releases from the neighbourhood Video parlour. The first film that I watched in a cinema hall without " Parental supervision" was Hum Aap ke Hai Koun. Yes, we had gone from hostel. A gang of 12-14girls. That was another story. That unleashed the filmy bug inside me and eventually I started going for films all alone too.

 

DDLJ was a film which we as 14 year old starry eyed, mills & boon fed generation of girls had watched and re watched. Over the years, the story of the boy and girl meeting during a Europe tour has reached new heights. I mean literally with the SRK and Kajol cut outs on top of Mt Titlis. Well if you ask me honestly, I personally think that's stretching the "fan"hood a bit too far. Anyway, since we Indians go there and get ourselves clicked next to it, no one is complaining.

 

Here's to my first hostel mates, watery curries of hostel, momos, the boys hotel in front and the  "rival" college's boys hostels which we had to cross to go to the theatre. Incidentally my husband was also one of the boys from the "rival" college staying in one of the hostels.

 

More power to love, laughter and happiness..DDLJ style.

Jab We Met

It all happened with a simple post on the FB page of "our Group". Our group is the IITTM 2002-03 batch group. IITTM - Indian Institute of  Tourism and Travel Management. We all were in the Gwalior branch of the Institute. The main branch. Our course PG Diploma in Tourism Management (PGDTM)

It was a year that all of us love to call " A year long package tour". Yes we had fun, went to 2 Major trips and few small trips. We studied about Tourism, tours, packages, cargo! Not to forget a foreign language. I took French; and during the 10 long years, never used once. Well I donot blame the teacher. She was a wonderful lady. Its just that I never had to use French in my professional life.

It seems like yesterday at times. We all were in Gwalior, in the sprawling campus; fortress like hostels, classrooms,a mess, a lawn. We even had our own Marine Drive. During the unbearable summers, all the girls had to sit inside the rooms when all the boys would loiter around the campus (some out of it) like free birds. We would be jealous. Icing on the cake was those hours and hours of power cuts. The deadline for girls' to enter the hostel was 9pm. Believe me there was a whistle which the hostel warden Sushma Ma'm would blow sharp at 9pm All of us would run back to the hostel.

Honestly dont exactly remember studying hard during that year. Only may be during the 2 semesters, had to go through the notes, the books. In second semester, I had to take up "extra classes" for Accountancy as I was and still am really bad with numbers. Thanks to Ruchira, Nitya and Sushmita, I managed to score the passing marks. In that one whole year, I was the one who spent most of the time in the Girls' Common room; watching TV or talking on phone. Yeah; even would talk on "wrong numbers"...those were the days.

The campus selection placed all of us in different places. Most of us landed in Delhi. After 3years in Delhi, I moved back to Guwahati, my hometown. Then in 2010 I reached Mumbai. All these years never really stayed in touched with each one of the batchmates. But trust me even though we hardly met, all of us surely remained connectoed somehow. After all how do you not think of that One Year of Packaged tour that we all had spent together in Gwalior.

We all had gone our own ways. But on 14th Dec, many of us managed to come and meet at Nehru Place. It was a simple affair. Nothing fancy. But meeting whosoever could come was so wonderful. So glad to know what the other was doing or who is where.

We all have changed. Grown up, mature, more cautious with our words, appearances changed. Have become wife, husband, father, mother. But I am sure when we sit down and look back, there will always be a year which all of us had spent in Gwalior;just being us. Simple as that.

And thus we met..:)

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

Friendship isn't about whom you have known the longest... It's about who came, and never left your side..

It was one of those regular days at work. One “passenger” walked in and sat in the chair infront. He wanted to know about the airfare to Mumbai after one week or so. As I checked all the options and dates, we started chatting casually. He said he was from the same town that I grew up in; Dibrugarh. We found out that we were actually batch mates! He was in Don Bosco and I was in Govt. Girls School. I gave him all the fares on all the dates he was asking for. He said he would take a call by evening and let me know. He came the next day to get his ticket. We talked some more and found out that we infact went to same teachers for tuitions; had some common friends too. How come we never met! It was a Saturday and half day at work; so we decided to meet for a cup of coffee after work. That meeting proved that “ a lot can happen over a cup of coffee” and we became friends. Those were the days of yahoo messenger and we added each other and started chatting and talking in emails. Talkative I was and talked about everything under the sun. He mostly listened and then slowly opened up. We became best friends and confidants. As they say nothing like getting a friend as your life partner. So we decided to take this friendship to a different level and took the plunge 2 years back. We still are the friends we started off as and hope continue be. Amen.