There were dark smudges everywhere. Black flecked my clothes, pushed under my nails and settled on the counter like onyx dust. A dead give-away to the goings on in my kitchen. The culprit was black cocoa. The key ingredient in arguably, my best brownie recipe. And what’s great is that this is an easy chocolate brownie recipe.…
Fresh corn on my kitchen counter for making easy muffins triggers off memories from years ago. Standing tall over the hedge, silk glinting in the sun, the cobs perched like trapeze artists tantalised my greedy little hands. I remember our tiny but bountiful kitchen garden keeping its secrets in a corner of our main garden, behind the hedge. But it could never hide the towering corn reaching for the sky,…
Contemplating Dorie Greenspan’s very French Chicken in a Pot among other chicken dishes for dinner, I had a flashback of my trusty clay kadai, which in turn openened a floodgate of memories. I still remember, it was her feet that caught my eye. Coated with talc-like dust, they seemed part of the dark earth with solid silver rings curling around her toes and thick, silver hoops dancing around her ankles. Like some ebony…
“The happy sing their songs whilst the rest of us seek poetry” Read this somewhere recently and it gave me pause. And like the sun spilling its light at dawn, which, like flood waters in slow motion fills every dark corner of the world, realisation rushed over me that it rings so true. At least with me.…
Darkness can be illuminating. My moonless side embraces my guilty pleasures, without making me feel, well, guilty. It tells me that I am of this earth, desirous of the decadent, dark, delicious and some would even say dangerous indulgences. Occasionally, I dive into a trashy, tempestuous romance with an inky-haired pirate hero on its cover. …
Who am I in terms of food? What do I cook and what do I like to eat? These questions bothered me plenty when I first started blogging and still do from time to time. The truth is that I cook all kinds of food from all over the world if I can get my hands on the ingredients. And I certainly like to eat my way through life. To…
There’s no way you can escape Kama’s (the Hindu God of love) arrows wreathed in mango-blossoms. Stories of his hapless, lovestruck victims, which include gods, goddesses, emperors and subjects alike litter the pages of Hindu mythology and literature. He chose his weapon wisely. The mango’s power of seduction is legendary. To us Hindus, it is a deliciously apt metaphor for knowledge, beauty, bountiful blessings, sexuality and fertility. We festoon our doorways with fragrant…
Sanding down chairs last week, I discovered exquisitely-grained wood beneath layers of paint and decided to keep them unpainted. I also chose to retain weather-beaten wooden beams instead of plastic beams (masquerading as wood), that promised to give my garden benches a low-maintenance makeover. The contractor was disappointed with my choices but thinking about them later, it struck me that in both cases, I chose the wood for its honesty.…
Grasses stand tall and cosmos congregate alongside our car, waving summer farewell. On the road, we drive past farm stalls beckoning us with their green roofs and white porches. Crates of avocado, mango and squash conspire with homemade honey and fresh cheese to lure us in. Not surprisingly, I succumb. And loaded up with a couple of golden butternut squash, a boxful of avos and a block of cheese, continue…
Bread and wine, cheese and fruit, a picnic under the trees, bare feet, lush grass, eyes squinting at the sun, a slow and happy drowsiness spreading through me as I see the world with new, hopeful and mellow eyes. Sometimes I manage to slip away, other times I inhabit my daydreams and often when the real world gets heavy, cooking the food to suit my reveries is escape enough.…