MC Recommends: Best experiences and possessions to splurge on this week

Calcutta Walks (calcuttawalks.com) offers a Tiretta Bazaar tour that takes you across its labyrinths and introduces you to the culinary cauldron and its famous dishes: mildly sweet Ham Jeen Piang (fermented yeast dough batter) stuffed with sesame seeds; Youtiao or Chinese crullers that will remind you of doughnut sticks; chilli pork or char sui roast pork or pork with red wine sauce at Tung Naam, and fung mei mian (noodles in sweet soya sauce). This is one walk that always ends in a great meal.

Tiretta Bazaar in Kolkata is one of the oldest continuously running markets in the country.

A spot of sunshine with Hermès

The French luxury brand’s new tableware collection is inspired by the sun.

Benoît Pierre Emery, the creative director of La Table Hermès, worked with skilled artisans to design the soothing yellow Soleil d’Hermès tableware collection.

The sun-kissed aesthetic of the 24-piece collection draws heavily on art deco design that showcases geometric designs depicting stylised palm fronds and flowers, alongside graphical, abstract patterns that reference natural forms. They are imprinted on deep sunshine yellow and outlined with delicate black lines, against a background of pure porcelain white.

If the dinner plates are covered with an interlocking pattern arranged around a white centre in a doughnut shape, the teapots are a canvas for a modern rendition of palm fronds.

Manolo Blahnik bows to comfort

When Manolo Blahnik, a high fashion brand made famous by the American series Sex and the City, creates a collection high on comfort, you know the pandemic has left a lasting effect. The brand has collaborated with BIRKENSTOCK, which defines everyday comfort, to create a whole new range of glamorous sandals. The two-strapped sandal and clog mule have been transformed by Blahnik in three colourways, including two new designs that replace the standard leather and suede with plush velvet in vibrant colours such as fuchsia and sapphire blue. Each regal-looking sandal is finished with an embellished silver clasp and black sole. Seemingly, Birkenstocks has become a magnet for high fashion labels since the beginning of the pandemic when consumer appetites shifted toward extreme comfort.

Ready for a coffee bonbon?

Cascara, or the husk or peel of a coffee bean, considered a waste product, has been recreated into a delicious treat by coffee makers at ARAKU. The brand’s Cascara bonbons are a zero-waste dessert that features 75% dark chocolate and coffee bean husk. Handcrafted at ARAKU Café in Bangalore, these ready-to-eat bonbons come in 16 vegan and gluten-free varieties. They are a tiny nod to the idea of circularity in the food system, and the regenerative agricultural practices in ARAKU valley. The coffee brand, famous as much in Paris as it is in Bangalore (both cities have a signature Araku café), has launched several other products. Early Harvest speciality coffee is made with the season’s first harvest of coffee cherries and has berries, citrus, and herbaceous notes. The new single-serve drip coffee pouches of ground coffee held in folded paper stands can be suspended over any cup or bottle to create an instant brew.

The art of mapping

Mumbai’s Asiatic Society’s neoclassical interiors are home to a month-long exhibition of rare maps that depict the work of early explorers, travellers, and mapmakers who once mapped an unknown world. Over the last few years, experts in Asiatic had been working on conserving rare maps from its diverse collection. A selection of 30 gems, spanning 300 years in Indian history, is being displayed for enthusiasts, art lovers, and collectors. Meandering Through a Mapped Canvas introduces us to the art and visual artistry involved in map-making.

Mapping a city, region, and country requires not just craft and skill but also a sense of aesthetics. In some ways, the early mapmakers were artists…many drawing little representations, ornamental inscriptions, and minute detailing of roads, cities, towns, villages, monuments, bridges, rivers, forests, and seas onto a white canvas, along with those dense sinewy black lines for which different kinds of inks, strokes, materials, and colours were used.

The collection includes handmade maps as well as prints that were hand-painted or hand-coloured at the time of or after printing. Keep a watch for a 7-and-a half feet map showing one of the eight sections of Punjab and a fascinating 1652 Mughal map of India. The Bombay showcase includes an 1898 Plague map (how relevant is this!) and an 1855 map of the Fort of Bombay pitched against the Native Town of Bombay.