Every accomplished cook has to go through that ritual by fire, namely making your own masalas. In fact you are not accomplished, if you resort to using store bought, ready-made powders and mixes, and pass off the results as your own. Of course, anyone who is starting out or is pressed for time has had […]
Social media can make you nostalgic. It can land you on pages of people who used to be a regular feature in your life, but now have disappeared just because you have geographically moved away from them. They are people who are not great friends or relatives, but merely acquaintances with whom you were associated […]
There is a signal I must cross each day before reaching my Institute gates. It goes green for exactly 32 seconds, where pedestrians and cyclists can cross in any manner they want to, as the vehicular traffic comes to a standstill (think of a rectangle, and all possible routes along the sides and diagonals). Now […]
Last week, I wrote about our breakfast Ajji. This week’s post is about our dinner Ajji. This formidable looking lady runs the shop around the corner, which opens late in the day, and stays open late in the night, sometimes well past midnight. The evening Ajji’s place is where we head to, when we are […]
There are quite a few ajjis (grandmothers) that I have adopted here in Taipei. The term ajji actually was bestowed on them by the Scientist (he has known to refer some of his friends by that name too – for these ‘girl friends’ were way older than him, but managed to look years younger!). The […]
So these days the Scientist and I are watching the re-run of a Marathi soap on YouTube. Currently it is chronicling how the new daughter-in-law who had never entered the kitchen before marriage, has to cook for the whole joint family, as ordered by the matriarch. A pretty usual scenario these days, for many girls […]
Perhaps I should begin with a disclaimer: This is a far departure from my usual posts about food, travel and adventures. So feel free to skip, if this subject grosses you out. But fellow sisters might want to go on and read it before making up their minds. That said, today’s post is about menstruation. […]
After a post about idly, a post about the dosa simply had to be written…(nahi to idly ko bura lagta!!) As far as food relationships go, idly and dosa are siblings – born from the same parents, urad dal meets (or mating with) rice (some furious fermenting between the sheets is required). While we always […]
Life has an unexpected way of teaching you lessons. And some of the most profound messages are delivered in the quietest of manners…such was a lesson I learnt from my curry leaf plant. I had procured the curry leaf plant locally at the Jianguo weekend nursery market (if you are a plant lover, you must […]
Now any person who cooks has to know his or her share of failed experiments in the kitchen. It’s almost a rite of passage to fail in your first few attempts, as you try and master your kitchen and the intricacies of cooking. And I don’t only mean the extra or no salt kind of […]
