What I'm cooking (and eating)

My friend John Barth asks where I shop, what I eat for breakfast and whether I'm cooking.

The answers:

I tend to shop at Nilgiri's, a grocery chain that is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Nilgiri's and Food World are the closest thing you'll find here to a supermarket. They're good but tend to be small.

The markets have a mix of Indian food and Western food. So, if you want (and I did), you can buy Skippy chunky peanut butter for about $6. Expensive but cheaper than therapy.

The Nilgiri's I use is on Brigade Road, about 15-20 minutes from where I live. I tend to walk there on the weekend, then take a rickshaw home with my purchases (You don't see shopping carts around here. A rickshaw is my motorized shopping cart.)

There is also a little place near me where I can buy things like bottled water if I don't feel like walking to Nilgiri's.

Breakfast is pretty ordinary: toast with jam or cereal with milk or yogurt, washed down with tea or coffee are what I start the day with.

As for cooking, I do a little, mostly as a break from eating out. Restaurants tend to be not too expensive and often it's almost as cheap to eat out as it is to cook at home. My cooking tends to the simple rice or pasta and sauce variety. Nothing fancy.