My trip to Kanpur was an awesome experience as it was my love for food and travel combined together! I was offered a 4 days workshop at the GD Goenka school, which was primarily for the mothers of the kids attending summer camp there and of course the teachers, who were present in the school at that time.
I arrived in Kanpur, in the early evening hours and my parents arrived a little before dinner time, to look after Vedika (my daughter) when I would have gone for my sessions in school.
I had an agenda for 4 days of the workshop, which we did not follow keeping the demands of the students in mind. However, the dishes that were taught were simple, less time consuming and could be made by ingredients that were easily available. I could sense the curiosity and eagerness to learn in each one of the parents sitting there to learn more about healthy food for kids. At this time I realised that I am not the only one struggling to feed my daughter. All kids avoid food.
On Day 1, being the first day, all of us struggled with collating the ingredients, utensils and setting up the kitchen in a classroom. The efforts were successful and we made a Hawaiian Sandwich, Fruit Punch and Oats Kathi Roll. Everybody was really impressed with the way Oats were used, instead of the regular Oats and milk, upama and poha. This evening, we all went out to have chaat, which was not that great but filling enough for us to skip dinner.
Day 2, the audience was more comfortable and much more participative. On this day, we made Sprouty Peanut Tomato Rice, Tikka Parantha Sandwich and Broccoli and Apple salad, which again was enjoyed by each one present there. On this evening the Chairman of the school was kind enough to request one of his friends to show us around the city. He picked us up from the hotel and being a native, he took us to all the non tourist streets of the city. We started our evening with some shopping of artificial leather bags and chikan kurtas at the New Market in Kanpur. Followed by the famous 'Ramswaroop Chaat' at Birhana road, which is surely not to be missed. I do not remember having a better chaat than this one ever. People there also told us that this chaat guy was invited by Ambani for one of his house functions in Mumbai. After this we picked up the famous 'Thaggu Ke Laddu' and had it's 'Badnam Kulfi'. Honestly, I did not like either of it much. We ended our city tour with a visit to the 'Cawnpore Club', which was huge with several dining places, disco, bar, gaming, gym, swimimg pool, play area for kids, coffee shop, huge lawns and majorly all sports. After the club, we were dropped at a friend's place for dinner and then back to the hotel.
Day 3- Healthy Paneer Burger, Nutri Nugget Kebab and The Rose Kulfi was the menu. I had to wind up my session early on this day as the other trainer had to leave on this day and her session was immediately after mine. This evening, we had nothing much planned as the previous day we had covered most of the things to do in Kanpur, we chose to skip the regular tourist places there and visited the JK temple close to the hotel and a local fair, which was too much fun, picking up liitle things at dearth cheap rate.
Day 4- The farewell day. on this day all the dishes were made on demand, including 2 kind of pastas, salsa, sour cream, cheese corn balls, stir fried greens etc. Since, on this day we had a little more time to ourselves, we ended with a small cooking contest for participants and gave out little goodies. After the session, my parents and my daughter joined the principal, chairman and me for lunch at the school and we were bid farewell with loads of gifts. Not to forget another brilliant sweet that we picked up from Kanpur was 'Banarasi Ke Laddoo', the best boondi laddu, one could have.
Overall, a great experience and awesome food :)
