An Indian wedding is a perfect blend of traditions, grandeur, delectable cuisine and sacredness of celebrations. The unbound enthusiasm and the flow of emotions of all the family members have to be seen to be believed.

My children have attended many Tam Brahm marriages of their paternal relatives in Chennai but have never seen any Rajasthani marriage from my side. They were too small to remember anything about my brothers’ marriage in 2004, son was hardly four years and daughter was just a few months old.

During my recent  visit to Udaipur in May 2013, I got a chance to take them to a typical Marwari marriage.  And they were really amused to notice the stark differences between the rituals and proceedings of marriages of two states of India. My daughter quipped that she wants to get married in Rajasthan so that the groom comes riding a horse

My knowledge about Middle Eastern cuisine is very limited, its either a creamy Hummus, spicy Kebabs, handy falafel sandwich or a luscious Baklava. I always think that there is not much scope for a vegetarian to venture into the same. But the past couple of years of food blogging changed my perspective of food and I now enjoy cooking & eating out of my comfort zone.

Sometime in July 2012 when a dear food blogger friend Faith from Edible Mosaic mailed me that she is in the process of publishing her cook book and asked me if I would be interested to review her book. I was excited for her new venture and felt honored to be a part of her world of dreams. A wonderful friend who was the very first AFBLHS guest on Lite Bite and is a great support from the my early days of blogging.

Festivals to me are to celebrate the happiness that family & friends share together. A perfect time to celebrate just living! In India we have celebrations all round the year. Festival of lights (and sound) – Diwali being one of the major festivals of India everyone look forward to.

Though the festival is same, people all over India follow different rituals to celebrate it. In South India Diwali is celebrated with a sacred bath before dawn followed by prayers, getting blessings from elders and bursting crackers. While in other parts of India it is more of a pompous fun fare with grand Lakshmi Puja during evening hours and buying gold & other metals on Diwali.

I am neither a sweet eater nor a cracker lover and left to myself will not indulge in both on Diwali day. But my hubby makes sure that I make sweets and he buys crackers for children on Diwali, so that they appreciate the importance of festivals & traditions in our culture.

There comes a time when priorities win over passion and you stand confused and run-down staring at the golden opportunities pass by.

When the equation of life changes…

A senior person from a popular holiday resort in India approached me to get involved in a photo shoot project some days back. A few phone calls and mails from them made it clear that it is going to be a large scale project. The project required more than a weeks involvement and a few out door shoots as well. I asked for some time to think over it, and from then started days of ‘should I’ or ‘ shouldn’t  I’ ordeal.

‘If there is no chocolate in heaven, I am not going‘  ~ Jane Seabrook   Oh no I am not jumping in the bandwagon of chocoholics. I enjoy my celibacy with chocolates barring a few occasional indulgences now and then. And given a choice between different flavors it is vanilla for me.

“Anything tastes good if it has chocolate in it” says my little princess as a matter of fact.  No doubt that this luscious, gooey and seductive food is defined as world’s perfect food by many. A tiny bar of chocolate can save many bad days and meals at home.
I used half of the pack by rolling out the chocolate Truffles and made this no-bake nutty chocolate cake with the rest. Thanks to my friend now I shop for more of these ‘once upon a time disdained’ cookies

All good things in life are simple and I feel that it is our expectations and desire to get more from it makes it complex. The junk food addiction, chopping down trees endlessly to make paper marooning animals of their habitats, plastic menace….we are moving from simple ways of living to the more complex world. And to think of it, the idea of wrapping around leaves and eating apples straight from the tree as done by our ancestors could solve many a problems of modern day living

A fresh fruit in its natural form is my kind of dessert any day and given a choice I would love to serve a plate of fresh fruits to my guests as well to end a meal. “This is not a dessert we will expect from the author of a food blog” is the answer to my query from my guests most of the time.

I knew very little about rice till I got married and Basmati rice was the only rice I ate and cooked with, as rice is not a staple food to the place I was born. Many households of Rajasthan in India enjoy cooking an occasional Pilaf, a Biryani or simple Daal Chawal (lentil-rice) at times to break the monotony of eating wheat based dishes the whole year.

It was much later in life that I came to know about boiled rice, brown rice, Jasmine rice and many other rice varieties. Now these varieties adorn my pantry and we all love dishes cooked with these nutty, chewy and healthy rice in our meal.

The other day during a house warming ceremony of a friend, we were served an unusual dessert which looked not so pleasant but tasted extremely delicious. I couldn’t stop asking my host about the same and was informed that this is a very special dish made during important functions using Black rice.

“Gudia, I would like to eat our simple and traditional food” informed my paternal aunt during her first visit at my home. The very popular rustic treats from rural India Daal Baati and Lapsi (couscous dessert) are on her menu for most of the days. “But both the recipes are way too simple, your small Gudia of yesteryear knows to cook many varieties now, aunty” I tempted her with many food choices. “Some other day, this time lets keep it simple” and she changed the topic of conversation. Huh..of all the exotic desserts I know she opted for Lapsi, a simple 3 ingredient recipe!

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it. ~ Russel Baker. Am sure many would be one to love summer for a good reason – Ice Creams! There was a time when the very word ‘Ice-cream‘ was banned in my house. Recurrent cough & cold and instructions from the music teacher to avoid anything cold for the children made sure that ice cream cease to exist in our house. For good long years both of us also avoided ice creams served during any party or functions lest our children will get tempted.

But now that they are grown up and have better immunity power the ban has been partially lifted. They are allowed to eat ice creams but have to gulp warm water immediately to reduce the effect of cold. Does this sound too cruel…Well, I have heard such weird stories from many possessive & protective parents. And I willingly admit that I am one among them

A bowl of creamy wobbly Panna Cotta soaked in juicy fresh fruit compote is a best bet for an easy, quick and exotic dessert for any day! Panna Cotta means “cooked cream’ in Italian and this simple dessert is served with caramel, chocolate sauce or any fruit compote. Compote is a sort of thickened sweet sauce cooked with stewed fresh or dried fruits mainly berries in sugar.

It is really hard to switch over from the incredibly addictive cream based panna cotta with  yogurt and coconut milk. But then a look at the health benefits of yogurt and coconut makes it a wiser decision to do so. Panna Cotta cooked with coconut milk which I make often takes the recipe to different levels. I made two batches, the one set in the ramekins are with cream & yogurt combo and the other in the glass is just plain yogurt panna cotta. And no, I did not miss the creamy culprit from my recipe