It’s festival time!! It has taken me a good 10 years to enjoy and celebrate festivals in a way they are truly meant to be. And I think it has a lot to do with my kids. Earlier when it was just husband and I, what ever little or more that we did to celebrate them, was enough for us. [Read on…]
There are some foods that get the honor of being the face of a city or a state, the culinary pride of that place, Dal Bati Churma is that food for the state of Rajasthan! It deserves every bit of its glory too! Its craze just refuses to die down. There are special ‘Dal-Bati-Churma’ parties held by people on special occasions where chefs are hired to make just these three dishes exclusively. And believe me, you will absolutely not feel the lack of variety on the menu!! [Read on…]
I never celebrated Halloween until I had kids! Earlier it’s almost like I never found a good enough reason to dress up and go out in the nail-biting, teeth chattering cold. Now I have two of them!! And weather has been kind on us too until now. Until few years back, I didn’t even know why Halloween was celebrated. ( I know! Shame on me!) and now that I know, I am thankful that my kids aren’t old enough to ask me about it. And when they do, I am totally going to make up some fancy dress competition story. 🙂 Don’t get me wrong. I do love all aspects of Halloween, the dressing up, trick or treating and having fun as a family. It’s just the explanation of why it’s celebrated that makes me pretend that I didn’t hear the question. [Read on…]
So a lot of people, out of genuine curiosity, asked me “How are you guys celebrating Raksha Bandhan (I have 2 sons)? I am sure that the kids’ cousins must have sent Rakhis for them.” Most of time my answer is a simple “yes” and rarely do I bother with the real answer. 🙂 Simply because (a) It’s time-consuming to have to explain every time. (b) It doesn’t matter how each individual chooses to celebrate it. Raksha Bandhan, for me, has never been about a sister tying Rakhi to a brother and a brother promising to protect her from all the evils because honestly, it’s a good prime-time-story concept but it doesn’t work like that, all the time in real world. Of course, as kids we did exactly that because there isn’t too much freedom for kids in India to do things their way when it comes to couple-of-hundred year old, cast-in-concrete traditions. [Read on…]
Who ever added gluttony to one of the ‘seven deadly sins’ never tasted Gulab Jamuns for sure! I mean come on, are you saying that if you had one of these incredibly delicious and buttery soft ‘khoya balls soaked in sugar syrups’, you will be able to stop at just one? If you are one of those, I bow down to you! I am definitely not in your league. There are sweets and then there are ‘sweets‘. Gulab Jamun falls in the latter category. I haven’t met one person who dislikes them and honestly, what’s not to like in them?
Khoya…….yum!
Cottage cheese……..yum!
Sugar……..yum!
Pure Ghee……..yum!
Even the worst gulab jamun beats a lot of good sweets hands down on any day! Yeah, am a self proclaimed gulab jamun fan! [Read on…]