The Konkan Foodie Road Trip – Sign up for this incredible food venture

The more I travel, the more I feel there’s too little time and too many places to go to. So many things to eat and such little stomach space. I love Mumbai but my hearts fickle. Scattered in the many places I’ve been to, longing for the many places I haven’t. In love with the food I know, craving for the food I don’t. Ingredients, traditions, foods waiting to be found, loved, learnt, experienced.

Onam sadya recipes – Documenting heirlooms

Priti eating her sadya. Clockwise from top left – Cabbage Thoran, Sambar on rice, Avial, Tender mango pickle, Ghee on gunpowder chutney, Ginger and jaggery coated banana chips, banana chips, Theeyal, Inji curry, Kalan, Olan, Beetroot Pachchadi, Mallu pappadam

Each year, when Onam arrives we (I along with Meryl and now Sheryl since she has been here in Mumbai) talk endlessly about all the food we will eat and then when the day arrives, lazily lament the loss of good old home cooking, deride ourselves for not having planned better, make half hearted attempts to find a sadya in Mumbai, scramble into a set sari or atleast salwar kameez, play act at being mallu girls with mullapoo in their hair, try to haul ourselves to a sadya anywhere nearabouts that has a table free, inevitably feel disappointed at what (if we do) we manage to eat and spend much of the day in one long session of reminiscing good old days when we would just go to our ancestral home with our parents and stuff our faces till we could just lie back like beached whales. Yep, we are rather proactive like that.

Create Workshop 2 – Delicious Weekdays

One of my favourite yogurt based dips that happens to be healthy too. Labneh

A yogurt based dip transforming a slice of bread into quick breakfast heaven

A delicious salad made with a quick vinaigrette

A roast chilli and nuts dip that amazing with most things

Cherry salsa crowning a cheesecake

Roasting grapes for that incredible luscious hit of flavour that only roasted grapes can give you

Genoise Basil pesto stirred into farfalle and green beans for a quick and healthy lunch

Homemade garlic and rosemary mayo. Use just a wee bit and sex up your dips.

Roasted grapes with mint and ricotta for a fabulous bruschetta

Weekdays can be cruel. Long, tedious, tiring, and repetitive. No wonder the meals get boring and predictable too. And yet, there are so many scrumptious little secrets that can help you quickly dish out new, unusual and delicious meals that do justice to how hard you work and painfully you travel (in Mumbai at-least . The Create Delicious Weekdays workshop will teach you versatile recipes and simple techniques that are a whole lot of fun but will also change the way you cook so that rustling up that weekday meal is a snap. And absolutely delicious too.

Cooking in Penang and a Malay Recipe – Chicken Rendang

The sight and fragrance of the torch ginger flower will now forever remind me of Penang. I was struck by how beautiful this flower is and quickly realised that this is one of the definition defying fragrances that linger all over Penang.

Honestly, I don’t know where to begin about Penang and food. This has been such an amazing revelation. The most incredible thing about the food in Penang is probably the beauty with which the different types of cuisines (Malay, Indian and Chinese) mingle to arrive at myriad variations of delicious ingenious dishes. The abundance of incredible fresh produce, mind-boggling variety of types and cuts of meat and poultry make, range of spices and a whole world of herbs make cooking in Penang an experience of beauty!

Easy does Yum 1 – Watermelon, feta and mint salad.

I have this habit of being attracted to cooking PROJECTS. Sourdough breads which requires you to cultivate your own yeast and take care of the starter like a pet by ‘feeding’ it for a 14 day period before you can start the bread itself, my own mozzarella cheese from scratch, home-made pasta… As you can see, complicated techniques, unfamiliar instruments, serious research, study and careful planning before I cook have been the only rules I have followed in life.