INDIAN CUISINE
-
The Masala Dabba #4 & Chettinad Chicken Curry. Chilies, as hot as hot can be!
“Chili, spice of red Thursday, which is the day of reckoning. Day which invites us to pick up the sack of our existence and shake it inside out. Day of suicide, day of murder.” Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Mistress of Spices Time for The Masala Dabba #4 & Chettinad Chicken Curry. Both very delayed yet finally here. This time I’m lagging behind royally. Chilies was the pick for the month of April, and we’re well into May now June. I can’t say I didn’t try because I began writing this in May, but life happened! One month ran into another, time racing at an alarming pace. It was just yesterday,…
-
C is for Chettinad, Chidambaram Vilas & Chettinadu Cuisine. Off the beaten track to Karaikudi, South India
Karaikudi, South India. We managed much more than we could ever imagine. 2 days can never be enough for a place as beautifully, and as historically and culturally rich like this. There's so much to explore, so many heritage sites in the region, ongoing ASI excavations, forts, temples, artisans, kitchens. Also so many more doors and windows, small things that fascinate me. Come share my journey deep into South India.
-
The Masala Dabba #3. As we journey on, the colours pop for Spring and Holi
The spices we cover for The Masala Dabba #3 are cardamom, whole pepper and turmeric. I think I love the spice journey best. We enter month #3 of our collaborative spice journey with exploring or rather ‘shooting’ spices. March is synonymous with Spring, new beginnings and a whole lot of colour. This March also had holi, the festival of colour, which inspired me to shoot several times through the month.
-
The Masala Dabba #2. Spicing up desserts and journeying further into the spice box
It's strange how often we connect spices to savoury foods, often in India spice is synonymous with a curry! Delightfully enough, as we blog on, reading more, breaking new ground and exploring our palettes, ingredients take on new meaning. For instance, there is always so much more you can do with spices, enough to make them leap out of the masala dabba or spice box!!
-
Lakshman Sagar, Rajasthan. ‘Where all you do is ‘nothing’!!
Nothing quite prepares you for the luxury and peace of Lakshman Sagar. Nothing at all. It caught me by surprise, a place I have been putting off visiting for over a year. Now I can't wait to get back there again!! That's just how good the resort is, the team that delivers their concept of "slow Living" like it should be. And the concept comes with oodles of down to earth luxury. Not rose tinted, not high heeled in any way. It's down to earth good, and just the way I like love it.
-
The Masala Dabba #1… exploring the Indian spice box
The Masala Dabba. A name that paints a spicy picture. A fun food styling experiment born out of a conversation one day in December last year. Spices are something that intrigue us, and are sometimes challenging to shoot. So Dolphia floated the idea, and it was instantly lapped up by Simi and lazy me. It's always great to have something that gives us inspiration, or maybe focus to shoot. The idea was to shoot the spices, in sets of three, month after month.
