Food

Before I came to India I was intrigued about what the food availability would be, how we get our groceries home, what kind of food stores would be around and so on. I have found that there is a small food store of some sort every few blocks. They are generally about 30 feet by 30 feet or a bit smaller. Where we are staying now, in the neighbourhood of Kormangala, there is a store we can walk to in under 10 minutes. It is similar to other food stores we have shopped at in Bangalore and Goa. Every time I go in, I buy as much as I can carry and I buy similar things because there is not a lot of variety to be found. I buy rice, a variety of dried lentils, cashews, raisins, Muesli cereal, noodles, tea, peanut butter, jam, bread, and butter. Everything is sold in small quantities, which makes it easy to carry home. There is a separate produce stand that takes 15 minutes to walk to where I can get cauliflower, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, grapes, bananas and apples. I have also found green beans and corn on the cob when we happen to pass a produce cart that is being pushed by a vendor along the side of the road. There is another store, further away so we have to take a tuktuk, where I can get milk (comes in 1 L tetrapacks) and juice. One of the dinners I make is a red lentil stew with cauliflower, carrots and turmeric. I even made my own roti to go with it!
We have been pampered by having breakfast provided by all three of the places we have stayed in India. The first place we stayed provided breakfast in a small dining room on the main floor of the apartment building. The boys had an omelette almost every day while Kevin and I had whatever Indian breakfast they had on offer that day. See the pictures below for some of the dishes. The place we stayed in Goa provided a cook every morning to come to our townhouse and make us breakfast (and clean up the dishes too!). We ate mostly omelettes until we communicated with the cook that we would like a dosa. It took a few days but we did get a couple Indian breakfasts that week. Where we are now has the best selection ever. They do a full buffet breakfast with wonderful fruit, sausage, bacon, toast, cereal, pastries, juices, figs, and a variety of Indian rice and lentil dishes. As well, we can get pancakes, omelettes or dosas made for us. One of the cooks comes out of the kitchen when I bring the boys down for breakfast and asks William if he wants a blueberry pancake :) The waiters are getting to know us quite well and I usually have at least 3 helping me on any given morning (carrying glasses of juice for me, making toast for the boys, playing with the boys, serving me coffee, etc). The customer service is phenomenal and we have breakfast on an outdoor patio with classical music playing in the background...it is lovely!