India's prolific children's author Ruskin Bond at 71 still has a childlike weakness for chocolates. He jokingly confesses that his love for food lover the years has made him the chubby man that he is now. However if you ask him to cook he is ready to come up with books on his misadventures in attempting to fry or boil an egg. Bond shares his memories of sneaking out goodies from his grandma's larder, joining tikki-eating competitions and the dinners that he enjoys with his foster family.

As a child your parents had locked you in the bathroom as a punishment. You stole chocolates from a suitcase kept in the bathroom and nibbled all 30 of them like a rat. Do you still have a sweet tooth and a weakness for chocolates?
I still do have a weakness for chocolates. But nowadays I don't nibble them around the edges but bite the whole chocolate.

Your grandma was a strict Victorian lady who never allowed second helpings at meals. Did you ever dare to steal goodies from her larder too?
Sometimes she relented and let me have an extra kofta or two.. I made friends with the khansama who would sneak things out of the kitchen for me.

Your story �The Tikki Eating Competition�, was inspired by your fondness for hot spicy tikkis. You could eat up to 20 then. Now the number has come down to four. Why?
I was just 17 years old then. At 17 you can eat much more than you can when 71.

You were a very skinny boy at 17 but now you are a chubby old man. How did you put on so much of weight?
Fifty four years of eating tikkis.

You are a life-long bachelor who however doesn't live alone. Do you cook your own meals, have a cook or does your adopted son Prem and his family make a meal for you?
I have my adopted son Prem, his children and grandchildren. Prem's two daughters-in-law cook. They take turns in cooking. I try to help them but they don't let me as I'll make a mess out of it. I usually dine with Prem's grand children.

You cook up the ghosts in your book. If ghosts were to cook a meal for you instead, what kind of meal would you like it to be?
I'd be a bit scared of eating it as I wouldn't know what they'd put in it- maybe old bones.

What do you think makes an ideal hilly picnic?
Well, the old custom of the picnic has died out. In the old days you prepared a hamper of food and made the effort of going to an out-of-the-way place. Now, all people do, is just drive to the nearest dhaba and go through the menu card. The whole charm of the picnic is lost.

Do you exercise? Are you calorie conscious?
I take walks in the evenings.

Do you eat out?
Rarely, as we don't have very good eating places where I live, which is in the outskirts of Mussoorie. There are good eating places in Dehradun, though.

Do you visit the local bazaars to shop for fruits, vegetables, meat, fish and dairy?
The girls in the house don't let me go shopping as I'll bring back the worst vegetables. The sabjiwallahs gets rid of their worst vegetables when I go shopping.

Are you allergic to any food?
Shellfood- lobsters, crabs and sometimes even prawns.

What kind of food do you like to eat best?
I like fish (except for shellfish) - fried, curried or grilled. I like colourful vegetables- tomatoes, carrots, beetroot, brinjal etc. I don't like potatoes all that much as I like lots of colour in the vegetable.

Can you cook?
I am writing a cookery book. It will be called Fifty Different Ways of Boiling an Egg or A Hundred and One Failed Omelettes.

You mean you can't cook at all?
I can boil an egg. However in the hills you need to be patient as the boiling point of water takes longer to reach. But I get impatient and my attempts at making hard boiled eggs often result in soft eggs. Or the soft boiled eggs I try to make turn out as hard. I can however make a salad. I chop up whatever vegetables are in the house and add some mayonnaise and vinegar.