Cheese Please

Every time I watch the movie Home Alone, I get a huge craving for Mac & Cheese when I watch Kevin getting ready to eat his bowlful of cheesy heaven before the thieves are about to visit his house.

The last time I watched it, I went around town to different restaurants just to get my fill of Mac & Cheese.

I went to Salt Water Cafe which had replaced macaroni with penne. Eeks.

It was just not the same.

And then I went to Indigo Deli which did a baked version of it.

It was so-so.

Why get creative when the original and simpler recipe is amazing?

And then I went back to Salt Water Cafe hoping that by this time they had bought some macaroni.

But then I ate penne again. And the sauce was also mushroomy. Nooo!

I still remember buying Microwave Mac & cheese in a 3 for the price of 2 pack when I was studying in London. Almost every week. My course was so stressful that I didn't have time to cook.

The truth: I couldn't cook.

Oh how I miss those days.

Anyway I had to make do with something else.

Having given up on my search for macaroni and not wanting to see the face of it's evil and not-so-identical twin - penne, I got myself the Baked Brie at Olive.

Its a mini slab of brie wrapped in filo pastry that's baked and topped with a sweet orangey syrup.

Perfection!

It's amazing how a small piece of cheese can make me so happy. It's like a drug!

And so the current thought that's circling my brain with a rollercoaster-like movement:

via SwissMiss.

Shabbat Shalom

When I travel to a new country, I always look forward to enjoying their cuisine.

This time it was Levantine.

In a land where McDonald's is Kosher, you know the people take their food seriously.
And in Israel, the portions are larger than life.
Everywhere there was hummus and pita and foods laced with za'atar.

Most of my meals were pasta, sandwiches, shawermas, salads or bagels accompanied by a glass of freshly squeezed Orange juice.
And then there were those weird moments where I'd ask for a mango milkshake and they'd ask me whether I'd like it with milk or orange juice.

While Daniela was away, her friend Horin invited me for Shabbat dinners with his family.

Shabbat marks the weekend and is the day of rest in Judaism.

This means one doesn't use their computer, phone, elevator, car, kitchen or touch any switches.

Instead you spend this day resting at the beach, reading and eating meals with your family.

Doesn't that sound super?

It all started with a little prayer followed by the blessing of wine and bread followed by the meal itself.

And the food? Well, there was everything from rice, noodles, fish, schnitzel, baked beans, fried brinjal, sweet potato, some more veggies and fruits and even a special tea.

I felt so lucky to have been included in this intimate family dinner and to have been able to have experienced Shabbat in Israel.

Walking for 30 minutes from Daniela's house to Horin's house on the other hand was maybe not as fun as the meal itself.

While I was there, I even managed to learn some Israeli cooking.

So, here's how you make Ptitim.

You find a nice Israeli boy and get him to cook it for you.

Just kidding. 

That's only what I get to do.

The rest of you mortals can cook it yourself like this:

Delish!

(I came back to Bombay and tried to re-create this wonderful preparation with all the wrong ingredients. Couscous instead of Ptitim, spring onions instead of white onions and a Maggi chicken cube instead of Knorr soup powder. It wasn't the same but was close enough).

And for dessert - A Mango.

It was time for me to stop pretending to live in the Blue Lagoon and learn to cut and eat a mango. Just incase I find my ship back to San Francisco and civilisation someday.

Horin taught me how. And I decided to illustrate it for my fellow cavemen.

You can eat it with a fork.
And if you're lazy/ not ready to let go of your aboriginal habits, you can use your teeth.
Enjoy!

For me, the Mango tasted even better when it looked like a flower.

Presentation is everything.

Shabbat Shalom.
Have a super Friday.

The Making of

I've changed the look of my blog and I think the new look says so much more about what my blog's all about.

What's that?

I have no idea.

Here's how it all happened.

When: 14 June, 2011

Where: My room. Between my bed and TV.

How: With a lot of enthusiasm.

I was ill and had bunked my Yoga class. But then I got so restless and thought it was time to change my blog header. I started out with a few ideas and all of it changed along the way.

The team:

Concept & Design : by me.

Photographer: my sister, Akshaya.

Ladder holder: my grandmother.

Refreshments, prop supplier & encourager: my mother.

The idea:

I wanted to fake a mid-air shot.

So I got dressed up in the first outfit that fell out of my cupboard and dragged Akshaya away from her MBA homework. That wasn't hard.

Then I made myself lie on the floor and played the role of Art Director/ Control Freak (according to my sister).

The Shoot:

I made Akshaya arrange my hair while I was lying on the ground into little twirly designs which I thought gave it a Tim Burton-ish feel. Basically anything unusual/ weird falls into that category.

Next, I arranged my skirt to look the way it does in the photo. I love this skirt of mine. I call it my cow skirt.

The challenge was in getting Aku to climb the ladder without hitting the fan. The ladder was a little wobbly which made her a slightly nervous photographer. Luckily, right then my curious grandmother stepped in. She was immediately appointed as ladder holder.

Of all the questions that she could've asked me, she said "But how are you reading with your sunglasses on?"

Ummm.

Answer: it was a blank page.

Ten minutes later:

Pictures were transferred. One was randomly selected and photoshopped.

Voilà!

Hope you had as much fun viewing it as I had making it.

Pointless projects like these are always the most fun.

And it was all Yellow

Yellow seems to be my favourite colour right now & I seem to be loving everything yellow.

When I think yellow, I think Mango. It seems to be my breakfast, lunch, tea-time snack, dinner and dessert at the moment. It also makes great drinks. It's pretty surprising then how I'm not looking jaundiced yet.

They Draw & Cook

I sometimes wake up and just sniff it and feel like I get a high. Yes, I need to go to Mango rehab.

afternoon photography by me

But, our one month mango season is just wrong. So I'm eating enough to keep me going for the next 11 months.


Once it starts raining which marks the end of the mango season, I'll switch back to cheese.

Cheese is my comfort food. It wins the race to my stomach very often though chocolate seems to be a tough competitor. Maybe I will holiday in Switzerland some day and visit the shrines. And no, I am not a Yash Chopra fan. It's my dream to visit a cheese factory some day and go nuts.

Google image

Cheese makes the impossible possible. When I find something inedible, I just camouflage it with cheese and voilà, its edible.

I could go on. But, I too hungry to start my paragraph on custard.

I'll leave you with a drawing I did 2 years ago.

on coldplay.com

So in life, when in doubt, Go with the Yellow.