Hello!

[windy_city_fan]

Hello! Originally from Mumbai; now living in greater NY metro area, I lived for a while in OH and in south central MI with occasional (some would say too frequent) foodie runs into Chicago!  Much of my youth has been spent lining my (ex-cast iron!) stomach with Mumbai street food (of course when mom wasn't looking!). My wife and I used to run a now defunct blog on our eating adventures and we often get introduced within the family as the "crazy ones who drive hundreds of miles (and in some cases fly across the country!) for that 1 amazing meal!"

 

Looking forward to learn from and contribute to these forums!

[Alex]

Yes -- you will fit right in here!

 

Is your blog still available for browsing?

 

Where in MI were you? That general area is pretty much a restaurant wasteland, so I certainly understand the Chicago trips.

[cyalexa]

 the "crazy ones who drive hundreds of miles (and in some cases fly across the country!) for that 1 amazing meal!"

 

Looking forward to learn from and contribute to these forums!

I also enjoy food-related travel as do many others here. I grew up near Detroit and lived near Lansing for many years. 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Hi windy_city_fan,

 

We won't think you're crazy here at all.

 

I hope you enjoy this excellent forum as much as I do, and I'm looking forward to hearing about your food experiences and adventures.

[windy_city_fan]

Yes -- you will fit right in here!

 

Is your blog still available for browsing?

 

Where in MI were you? That general area is pretty much a restaurant wasteland, so I certainly understand the Chicago trips.

No, we were hosting the site pages on a home server running off a domain name that we let expire. We had a baby, changed a couple of jobs and the blog suffered as a result! We have plans to revive it and one of these days hopefully, we'll be able to unveil it in a new avatar!

We were in this small town called Jackson right off I-94 and our nearest culinary oasis was Ann Arbor. We would also find reasons to make occasional runs to Dearborn for middle eastern food and deserts and on to Chicago for wider culinary explorations

[Deryn]

Welcome to eGullet!

What type of cuisines are your favorites? What Indian street foods were your secret passions ... and do you cook any of them these days for your family (toning down the heat perhaps to accommodate what you say is an 'ex-cast iron stomach')?

[windy_city_fan]

Thanks! Well, we really love to switch around cuisines to keep it interesting. A great bowl of slow cooked chili, a nice andouille gumbo, a Moroccan lentil soup, a hearty posole, a bowl of tonkatsu ramen or a nice well simmered Pho; any of these made well would satisfy me equally. However, if there is 1 cuisine that both my wife and I love, It'd be Thai cuisine. We'd go weak in the knees eyeing a nicely charred Pad Kee Mao basking in the glory of its wok hei or even a flavorful Pad Gra Prao.

There are several foods typical to Mumbai that aren't made as well anywhere in the rest of India, let alone in the United States. For instance the vada pav is classic Mumbai street food; a sandwich or actually a slider involving a potato patty aka 'batata vada' placed between a soft very mildly sour and very slightly chewy 'pav'. There are several variations of the 'vada' itself but it is the pav that no one outside of Mumbai has managed to nail down. The pav is akin to a dinner roll; is of Portuguese origins and depending on your street vendor, sweet and spicy chutneys are added on and other fixings like fried chillies.

The food we typically cook and eat at home most often is quite unlike hat's available at Indian restaurants here. We are originally from a coastal region south of Goa and we eat what's known as Saraswat Konkani cuisine. The cuisine is coincidentally vegetarian (or even vegan). However, seafood is pretty common as is consumption of tons of freshly scraped coconut (not coconut milk) for use in curries.

As far as cooking other cuisines go, the last I cooked from one my of cookbooks was a couple of recipes from Ottolenghi's book 'Plenty' and from Fuschia Dunlop's "Land Of Plenty".

I meant the ex-cast iron stomach in reference to eating off the street food stalls of Mumbai. I still do that on my trips back home but these days am likely to suffer the following morning!

[Deryn]

Thank you for that explanation.

I look forward to hearing more about your food adventures and insights over time, windy_city_fan. I had to go look up a vada pav recipe - and I love when someone talks about something I have never heard of so I have something new to investigate and think about. They sound delicious. You should definitely fit in well here!