We all love to win, it makes us feel good.

Well, I can only remember winning a couple of small events during school days and receiving colourful plastic pencil boxes or laminated certificates from the principal…Those were small wins, but were wins nonetheless.

Though a little disappointment for not getting a ‘real trophy‘ still remain 🙂

“Amma, could you believe that I made close to 140 perfect looking Kozhukattais (steamed rice dumplings) yesterday for the shoot… Iniya  the actress who acted in the commercial, rushed towards me after the shoot and asked if she could take a few of those brown coloured yummy Kozhukattais  home.” I paused for a while sipping the strong & frothy filter coffee and stretched my legs to sit comfortably on the large wooden swing in my mother-in-law’s living room.

It all started with scribbling recipes and struggling to click good food photos for Lite Bite, seven years back. And now I feel really lucky enough to stumble on a way of life that I not only like, but love to live.

There are three completed food photo-shoot assignments which are pending to be written about on Lite Bite. But I could not resist to pen down the experience and all the fun that went into yesterdays’ shoot for ‘The Park Hyatt’ with Kunal Daswani.

“With extreme joy, we thank Sanjeeta KK of Lite Bites for photographing the recipes in Indu Bokaria’s “Recipes from a Diary”. Her warmth and friendliness coupled with dedication and passion makes her a pleasure to work with. We look forward to seeing our 76-page, all-colour cookbook in the hands of our readers. If you think the pages look delectable, then you know where the credit lies! Thank you Sanjeeta.” Indu Bokaria, cookbook author.

These beautiful words of appreciation are written by the author of a cook book on her Facebook page for whom I did a photo-shoot last year.

“Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” ~ G. Mahler

Not so long ago, Sankranti to me was all about flying kites and gorging on some delectable winter specialties.

Yes, I could not think beyond my crunchy revadis, gajak, til ladoos, Gajar halwa and sinful Panjiri when the festival of Lohri or Makar sankranti approached in mid January.

It was only after my marriage and settling down in South India I came to know that Sankranti is more than our kite flying frenzy and throwing puffed rice in bonfire.

“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.” ~ Douglas Adams

Even though I am not a big fan of “Kitchen Gadgets’ per se, I have bought quite a few over the years. Some of which are an absolute essential in my daily cooking while some others live permanently on the shelf, unused and much neglected.

If only my ice-cream maker, juicer, coffee maker, electric kettle can talk…they would probably shout their heart out and tell you the misery of sitting idle for years in dark, lonely and claustrophobic loft of my kitchen 😉

Any recognition feels good, as it is a reward and an affirmation of what one does…Hmm..agreed. But what one does when one is featured in two different magazines and is still trying to decipher what is written in there.

Google translation of both the articles makes it a comic read. Well, sometimes, somethings are best if left unsaid. Hoping good is written about me 🙂  here is how it all started…

The other day I received this mail from the editor of a popular Italian magazine;

The thrill of getting employed, striving for power, reaching high-income bracket and standing on your own, right after the college is hard to explain. Yes, twenty years back life revolved more around making money and gratifying the ego.

And then, in between the hustle and bustle of life, the seed to plant a tree of my dreams was lost somewhere.

But no regrets…it feels good that I had been there (employed) and done that (earned). As they say ‘The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.’  

“But Tatha, what about those who are left hander, how can you ask them to perform rituals with right hand?” I heard my son arguing with his grandfather who insisted that he use right hand to offer flowers during a Puja at home.

After the Puja rituals were over their grandmother took a little bit of all the food offered to God and went backdoor. She then placed the food on boundary wall and started calling the crows..Caa..Caa…

“Why do you always offer food to crows granny, why not a sparrow or a parrot?” questioned my daughter.

“Tatha, I read it somewhere that tradition is an explanation for acting without thinking, is it so?”  And the argument between grandparent and grandchildren continued.

You can take a girl out of desserts, but you can’t take desserts out of a girl. Oh yes, I was born with a dessert spoon! According to my nanny my mom was feasting on hot Malpuas dipped in creamy Rabdi a few minutes before she went into labour pains, much to the chagrin of my stressed out doctor father.

Desserts were an important part of our everyday meal during growing  up years in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Our family was certainly not an exception in a state where a day starts and ends with a sweet, what with people queuing up in food shops before the day breaks, fishing out hot Jalebis floating in warm milk for breakfast.