Lounge Loves: Toast Doughnut Shop, ‘Mastermind’ and more

All things coconut

I like coconut, in all forms. Coconut barfi, coconut cookies, coconut milk-based curries, fried coconut slivers in savoury mixtures—the works. My fondest memories from childhood are of pink coconut barfi from Nathu’s in Bengali Market in Delhi, coconut macaroons from Jee Enn Bakery in Srinagar—a colleague got me a box recently—coin-sized coconut candy from the tuck shop in my school, and my aunt sending us jars of homemade narkel naru (Bengali coconut laddus) made with gur (jaggery). I hadn’t had a decent narkel naru in some years—either they are too dry or overly sweet—till I bought a packet from the Bonolokkhi shop in Santiniketan. They were fudgy, delectable and just the right amount of sweet. Their aam sokto (mango leather) is equally addictive. Good things come in small sizes, packed with nostalgia. —Nipa Charagi

The real mind hunter

I am five years late to the Mindhunter party, having watched the psychological crime thriller series only last month. By the last episode, I was hoping for an announcement that a third season would be made—it won’t by the looks of it. Here’s where the accidental discovery of Mastermind —To Think Like a Killer, on Disney+ Hotstar perked me up. Directed by Abby Fuller, the three-part documentary delves into the origins of FBI’s Behavioural Sciences Unit (BSU), through its protagonist: Ann Burgess. The film showcases her seminal work with archival audio and video footage of interviews with serial killers like Ed Kemper, Jon Joubert and more. She is the real Anna Torv. — Mahalakshmi Prabhakaran

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Doughnut of my dreams 

It was an overnight refrigerated doughnut. Too lazy to heat it in the microwave and adequately weak-willed to ignore a sugar-craving, I had it cold. Most pastry chefs would consider it blasphemous, but it had braved the cold well. It was shaped like a roundish pillow and stuffed with custard dotted with vanilla. Any dessert filled with custard can go only two ways—horribly wrong or nostalgia-soaked good. This one was the latter. The filling had a delicate pudding-like texture enveloped in vanilla flavours. The bread casing was thin, soft and made me realise that a doughnut is more than a carb-loaded fried dough. It was from Toast Doughnut Shop in Mumbai, and it continues to challenge my goal to limit my sweet intake. — Jahnabee Borah

Reading hack

How many times have you found yourself scrambling to find a digital version of a book to refer to? When you finally find it, you struggle to find the right app to open it. I recently found an interesting Google Chrome extension to put all these problems to rest. The Mobi Reader is free to use and helps you view Mobi (a file extension used to store ebooks) documents in your browser or in a pop-up window. You can drop a book URL or drag and drop a file on the Mobi Reader to get access to a book. The interface is minimal: with options to change font style and size, and increase the viewing width and line height. It gives the user three different colour modes: light, dark and sepia. There’s also a handy, horizontal scroller at the bottom that lets you move between pages quickly. It’s changed my reading and research. — Nitin Sreedhar

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