Monthly Archives: April 2012

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I think I’m still a kid and no I do not mean the “young-at-heart” kind of way (though I wish I did). But, in the way that I need my mommy (no, that’s not what I call her) whenever things just seem a little too difficult to handle.

Well, uhm… kid would be putting it mildly. Baby would be the correct (although harsher) term, but let’s just be kind and think of me as a kid.

So the other day, my ankle (the very ankle that had gotten sprained months back) started swelling again, making working in the kitchen kind of difficult.

If that was not enough, I get a huge bump on my head thanks to me hitting it against a real sharp edged table. How did that happen? Let’s just say that I am really clumsy.


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I started Garam Masala Tuesdays with three aims- one, to familiarize non-Indians with Indian cooking; two, to familiarize Indian cooking to Indian ladies like me, who had only recently forayed into Indian cooking and who like me did not have the pleasure of their moms to guide them through various aspects of Indian food and three, to share recipes handed down by my mother or friends or relatives or seen on different sites along with giving a little background about the dish.

Now, because of the above three aims I am always in a dilemma when I write any post for the GMT. I wonder if I am writing the recipes for Indians, non-Indians or for Indians who are living abroad.

Indians living in India have access to all kinds of spices and vegetables and their taste buds are used to eating Indian flavored dishes. Indians living abroad have access to most spices, but might not have access to all and if they have been born and raised abroad might not be used to the different flavors of Indian cuisine. Non-Indians might not have any of the spices and even though they like Indian food, they might find it a pain to stock up on the oh-so-many spices that most Indian dishes call for. On the other hand, if I post a recipe without the necessary spices, Indians who might cook from my blog will lose out on the flavor that these very spices hand to the dish- and then for them the particular dish won’t be the real thing.

So, the dilemma always remains- how do I make sure I cater to everyone’s needs?

Of course I can’t and won’t even attempt to. And today I thought I’ll try to cook from a non-Indian’s pantry perspective. I think that’s something that GMT misses out on occasions.

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I have been busy the past few days and it’s going to be like that for the next few days as well. This is also the reason why there have been no Office Thursdays for a while and I missed last week’s GMT.

I’ll try to blog as often as I can but if I go missing in between it’s because my in-laws are here and I will be busy catching up with them. Also, unlike with V, where I can tell him to wait for food while I photograph stuff, I doubt I’ll be able to do that now.

Fortunately, I was able to make and photograph my SRC assignment few days back, and able to schedule my post while V’s parents were getting over their jet lag.

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I was introduced to Jane’s site when she was assigned my blog as part of her Secret Recipe Club assignment. But it was when I was assigned her blog a few months later (as part of my SRC assignment) is when I really took to her blog, bookmarking tons of recipes. I finally zeroed in on an apple crisp recipe from her site and loved it.

A few days later I tried her red wine poached pears recipe, one of the many I bookmarked. And that recipe too was absolutely amazing.

Basically what I am trying to say here is that I just love Jane’s blog and all her recipes.

So when she asked for some help with guest posts, I jumped at the opportunity. I also owed her for the delicious coconut layer cake recipe that she had guest posted on my blog.

I decided to share my mom’s famous date cake recipe, which has got my mom several compliments over the past few years.

Some call it the sticky date pudding, but I have always known it as Date Cake with toffee sauce. The sauce is to die for and the cake is perfect served heated for just a few seconds in the microwave.

Head over to The Heritage Cook for the recipe. This is one recipe you would definitely want to try!

As I started writing this post, I could hear the sounds of fighter planes (going about their routine sorties) in the background. And that was enough for nostalgia to sink in.

My dad is a fighter pilot for the Indian Air Force. My childhood has been spent in air force stations (or air force base as they are called in the US). And growing up, the sound of MiGs up in the sky was a common affair.

Sometimes our dads would have night flying. Those were much anticipated events for the wives and the children as well. For us kids, it meant meeting our friends past the regular day time hours and seeing air crafts take off on the runway at night. A truly incredible sight. Our moms would also pack a little snack or something for their kids and to share with everyone and it used to be a mini picnic of sorts. Those were fun days.

The recipe today has nothing to do with those days. In fact all this nostalgia started after I made this dish and made me reminisce the old days. I thought I would quickly share some of it with you.

Coming to this month’s recipe swap. I was supposed to post this recipe yesterday, as we always do for the monthly recipe swap. But somehow couldn’t.

This time Christianna had given us a vintage Ham snails recipe to play with.

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