She was a brilliant baker and we used to eagerly wait for Christmas so we could savour her rich fruity cakes. I can never forget that transparent box of neatly arranged dark, dense and moist fruity slices of Plum cake that she would lovingly share with us every year.

An Anglo-Indian by birth and a spinster, she was our English teacher who stayed very close to our colony in Udaipur. She was short and frail, she kept her long shiny white hair plaited down her neck and her hands would always smell like vanilla pods.

Like many other enthusiastic food bloggers, I too started blogging with the notion of organizing my recipes and connecting with like-minded people.

Little did I know that this simple hobby of mine would bestow me with countless precious gifts and many remarkable moments of life to cherish. Good friends, hours of endless entertainment and wonderful creative outlet are a few.

I recently had a chance to attend IFBM 2014 in Bangalore, which was organized exclusively for Indian food bloggers.

I have attended many blogger conferences over the last few years but have never been so excited for a meet, ever. Yes, I am referring to IFBM here, our very first Food blogger meet at Bangalore next month.
It is really hard to hold back the excitement of meeting many of my virtual food blogger friends whose blogs I have been reading and admiring time and again. Oh..well, I am making and packing the special South Indian lentil-spice mix in the picture above for some of my blogger friends who have asked for it.

Did I tell you that many of us will be sharing same apartments for close to three days….start music…it is party time 🙂

I picked up the bowl, pulled out the soft & sticky dough, placed it on my wooden board and started punching it vigorously.

Yes, you got it right, I am baking bread again. Well, with the dates of an important family function nearing, bread making should be the last thing on my mind.

But then, when your to-do list is a mile long and it is getting difficult to focus on the mounting task at hand I resort to baking bread.

Baking bread at home is the best remedy when nothing is working and you don’t know where to start.

A simple hobby which started with the percept of organizing recipes through a food blog has gradually metamorphosed into a memoir over the years. If some recipes help reconnect with my roots then the other recipes are woven around my personal experiences reflecting the cultural diversities I live in.

The omnipresent Idly from South India was a delicacy in mom’s place before my marriage. Many Sunday lunches were reserved for steamy hot puffy Idly (steamed rice-lentil cakes) dunked into spicy Sambhar (lentil curry).

The equation changed after my marriage to KK  from South India in 1996. The humble Idly which is often  taken for granted in Chennai is no longer considered a specialty food at my home.

Soaking a set proportion of rice-lentil, grinding the batter, fermenting it overnight and storing the fermented batter in refrigerator has become a way of life now.

Days pass and memories fade, but the more I cook and write for Lite Bite, the more memories I remember and cherish here.

2013 was yet another wonderful year. I enjoyed every moment of my on line journey through Lite Bite.

I leave you with the links of a few recipes I enjoyed cooking and posting on Lite Bite in 2013;

“Hey, turn back and see who is sitting right behind you” hubby spoke to me in hushed tone during a special cocktail dinner party organized for the senior officials of his company in Leela palace last night.

I gently turned around to see a dashing young man in body-hugging white shirt and tight fit blue jeans behind me.
I used to wonder whether opposites really attract and do they make a perfect couple?  But after being together for the last 20 plus years with him, I know for sure they do 🙂

“Remember the tiny kiosk where we had kulhar (mud pots) tea near Jhulaghat, that small village we stopped by for breakfast alongside river Kali, and the green house we barged in for lunch….everything is washed away in flood.” She told in one breath.

My heart feels heavy every time I watch the happenings in Uttarakhand, India on television.  The early heavy rains, flash floods and landslides in Uttarakhand or Uttaranchal last month have devastated this beautiful hill station of India.

I called ‘M’ my childhood friend from Uttarakhand the other day to inquire about her family. She could not stop cribbing about the mindless construction of illegal hotels and resorts by outsiders on river beds all around the valley leading to deforestation. “Hazards are inevitable, but such human activities convert hazards into catastrophe…and that’s what we are facing right now” I could feel the despair and vulnerability in her voice.

‘A good life is when you assume nothing, do more and realize how blessed you are for what you have‘. Come to think of that Food could be a medium to preserve memories, reminisce with old friends and let my life speak! Well, never in my wildest of dreams I assumed that this blog Lite Bite will be a platform to store a whole stack of memories for lifetime to come.

Days pass and memories fade, but the more I cook and write for Lite Bite, the more memories I remember and cherish here.

”The 3 C’s of life: choices, chances, and changes. You must make a choice to take a chance or your life will never change.’ Unknown. Choices I did make and chances I did take in the year 2012. Some were good…some were bad. While the good ones are carried forward to 2013, the bad ones are buried then and there.

Life has been a roller coaster ride to me, just when I thought I have had enough of it and its time to sit back and relax, I find myself ride the roller coaster all over again.

Hats off to whoever said that ‘Life begins at the end of your comfort zone!’ Am glad that I stepped out of mine for doing things I always wanted to do. Coming out of the comfort zone and jumping into the corporate world again was a big decision of 2012 in my life. Nevertheless I am enjoying every moment of it and I’m game, as long as it does not hamper my family life.