Eating our way through the day

Mumbai, being fairly cosmopolitan, at least in some parts, has an incredible range of food from the worst American crap like Pizza Hut, to every imaginable type of asian cuisine. Road side stalls are everywhere and serve up many strange and wonderful foods, but all to often prepared in horrific conditions. We eat out most of the time here, since our cooking facilities are rather limited, and stick to the better places, which seem to have a combination of Indian and Thai or Chinese food. Peter also knows of a few really good hole in the wall dives that are great and I try to enjoy them and not to think about the kitchen conditions. Later, during our home-stays in Rajastan (Jaipur and Jodhpur) food is always prepared by the women in the house, usually four or five of whom are crammed into a tiny kitchen. We always thank them and tell them how good the food is, but they often seem a bit surprised that we even acknowledge their presence. But with some of the teenage girls, you can sense a bit of indignation that they're always serving the men. It's definitely a little weird for us. We mostly eat on the bed or floor mat the bedroom, which typically serves as the dining room and living room. For breakfast, we often have eggs, which are good and fresh and can be had sunnyside up, or in flattish omelets, usually with onions and mushrooms. Nothing special, really, but for Peter, who's not as adventurous with the spicier food, its a nice, less spicy way to start the day. And, of course, there always chai. For lunch or dinner, in Rajastan, we usually have a few dishes like biriani, dahl, potatoes in sauce and chick or mutton, served in tin bowls or cups and which is always eaten with chapatis using our fingers. One of the odd things is that we never eat with the whole family, but a number of family members will come in and sit down with us as we eat. In Rajastan, the food gets much hotter as they include peppers in just about everything, especially the biriani (spiced rice usually with chopped meat). Now I like fairly hot food, but what the locals in Rajastan call 'not spicy', seems pretty hot to my pallet and makes Peter balk at the food. Spicy would probably be lethal to Westerners like us.