A dear childhood friend is in town after a few years and came over for a meal today.
It was bittersweet, because it’s the first time he’s been here since we lost my dad, whom he loved almost as much as his own (lost when we were in high school). Even tougher because his last trip, after COVID, was after he lost his own mom, so it has really kinda sucked for him to come home the past couple of times.
By request, we replicated the last meal he shared with my dad, mostly home-cooked with a couple of divey takeout additions. Plus a couple of our favorite desserts.
We had goat trotter soup, brains in green masala and ghee, nihari (overnight-cooked shank with marrow, from one of dad’s divey spots), and our family favorite kababs (from another of dad’s favorite spots — coincidentally my cousin sent us pics from there yesterday remembering dad 
),.
Accompanied by two kinds of naan (one from the kabab place, which I prefer, the other from the nihari place, which everyone else prefers).
Dessert was basundi (burnt milk with saffron and pistachios) and two kinds of kulfi (umm… pretty much frozen basundi if it’s correctly made).
Oh and we started with khandvi, which is my favorite snack and also his — a hard to make, thin, noodle-y roll made from a gram flour and buttermilk batter. Yum.
