Food videos have become my proxy to fulfilling all my cooking-related desires without involving actual cooking.

Indian restaurants and pubs have their own caste system. Firangs are the Brahmins of the restaurant world, and next in line are Silver Spoons – celebrities from the film industry. All the hospitality is reserved for them. At the bottom of the rung are single, young men, aka the Sad Stag Group.

Despite being from a cosmopolitan family, I realised that every day, I was unwittingly consuming our caste on my plate. In the game of kitchen politics, caste is a far more deeply riven divide, than the differences between North and South Indian food.

My grandmother often bursts into tears at her inability to cook any more. I want to tell her that it’s all the memories that go into making food, which make it taste better.

Most middle-class Bengali families such as mine are moderately open-minded. You can make honest confessions to them about your vices and hope for a friendly ear, but never about your vegetarianism.

We love food. There’s no two ways about it. So how does the average twenty-something in India find the patience and money to buy avocados, chia seeds, quinoa, and coconut milk to replace their staples of breads and spreads?

Turn your plain old masala Maggi into crunchy spring rolls with this easy recipe.

Gatari, the last day before the holy month of Shravan begins, is a day of indulgence. Eat meat and drink until you pass out in the gutter. That’s the mantra in Mumbai’s Maharashtrian pockets.

Dear jackfruit, you are about to replace moringa as the next best thing to have happened to the white gut. The Brits have branded you a “vegan sensation”. Be prepared to be passed off as a burger patty, meatballs, or a crab cake.

Four students at JNU, aka the Indian Institute of Protest Management, were fined for cooking biryani. The idea of biryani as protest food is a satisfying one. Thanks to its communal past, it incites the right amount of outrage.

Jiggs Kalra, the flamboyant chef, changed the way we looked at Indian food – how it could be cooked and consumed. He put a bit of Kashmir in Kanyakumari and Bengal in Bombay. Today at 71, Kalra breathed his last, ending a delicious chapter in the kitchens of India.

My young nephew knows A for Asparagus, B for Broccoli, and C for Celery. While the proletariat “palak” and “methi” draw a blank from him, his eyes light up with joyful recognition at the mention of rocket, kale, and arugula. His international school has only taught him about “angezi sabzi”.

Every Sunday, at the stroke of noon, a group of Indians gathers to validate its privilege through Instagram filters of eggs Benedict and mimosa. This breed of people can be classified as snobby Sunday brunch-goers.

For those who enjoy a good cup of chai, teabags are like limp, soggy, pathetic parcels of anti-flavour that sink to the bottom of your cup and fester there like a bad memory.

On a good day, RoohAfza tastes like a vampire’s tonic that drowned itself in a vat of sugar. On a bad day, it tastes like pulverised incense stick. What then is the hype really about?

There's more than one way to enjoy Kurkure. Here's one of them.

On Poila Boisakh, the lives of the big-eyed, gentle-faced, and maach-guzzling Bengalis are marred by a potent shadow of the world’s most deadly dose of ABC – ambol (acidity), bodhojom (indigestion), and constipation.

Gone are the days of good old steamed idlis and paneer-capsicum pizza. Today restaurants that serve pav bhaji fondue and red velvet dhokla flourish. It doesn’t matter if the food tastes awful. Just like our lives online, it is only important that the food we eat looks great.

Pune, forever condemned to be Mumbai’s uncool younger cousin, has got its own party going. And it is pretty lit.

As a child growing up in Calcutta, we were raised to believe that if the mango was the king of all fruits, the Himsagar was the emperor. It is all about swag, style, and a symbol of Bengali pride. When I moved to Mumbai, I approached the Alphonso with all the cynicism of a Bengali. And then I was smitten by its fragrance.

A list of essentials that urban Indians need to survive First World problems and the Armageddon.

In India, poverty isn’t just a state of mind, and paisa-vasooli is a way of life. Yet, people buy an extra birthday cake, just to smash it gleefully in some unfortunate soul’s face. What gives?

Khichdi ke hai teen yaar - dahi, papad aur achaar.

These Maggi cheese fingers take longer than two minutes to make, but trust us it's worth the time and effort.

This easy to make Baked Mac and Cheese makes for a perfect Sunday supper.

Staying in this weekend? Try making these microwave potato chips using just 3 ingredients. Netflix has never been this chill before.

Switching cities can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to finding everyday comfort food. But culinary experimentation and acidity are two sides of the same coin. How do you flip a favourable outcome?

Gujaratis inherit a penchant for "food terrorism". There were Gujarati kids at school who wouldn’t drink “jhoota” water in case it had been touched by a meat eater. And there was my grandmother who’d remind me that I was Jain every time I’d go for an evening snack.

Kothu Roti is a Sri Lankan street-side snack that pairs well with beer. Be prepared to get caught out on a googly of flavours.

If chocolate is an aphrodisiac then Nutella is literally sex on toast. On World Chocolate Day, here's an amorous ode to the luscious spread. Plug in your earphones and put your browser in incognito mode coz this one's NSFW.