The Secret Ingredient: Love!
"Certain things in life simply have to be experienced and never explained. Love is such a thing." -Paulo Coelho Our daily banter around the usual worldly topics brought us to food, which is usually the case when Bengalis discuss anything because all our conversations are empty without food-talk. Anyways, when we were talking about hostel food and the thread diverged towards a cook in my father’s office canteen. My father was a regular visitor to the canteen till he retired because he enjoyed both the food (a rarity for canteen anywhere) and the company of Shankar, the cook. Shankar has been cooking for more than 30 years now and is close to retirement. However, he enjoys cooking every single meal. Despite having a fixed menu, he would make extra dishes as per availability. Since my father helped him with some office work, he would get the special evening tea. Whenever we would visit my father’s office, we would definitely have our lunch over there. Shankar dada would always...