Cooking made easy

On March 12, 2006, I took those wobbly first steps into the world of food blogging, without even knowing that there was something called ‘foodblogging’. I just thought it would be cool to have a digital diary of recipes and photos for future reference. And then tracking back comments and visitors, I realized there is a whole world of likeminded people called ‘food bloggers’ out there.

The food lovers and fellow bloggers’ comments kept my enthusiasm to keep the blog going in full steam. It was a wonderful way to make foodie friends from across the world – connecting on chat, later on facebook and some in real life. And when we did meet, it never felt like the first time. We had connected our homes and lives through our blogs and it felt like I was meeting an old friend.

I’ve been wanting to write about the three people I’ve met so far from the blogging world for a long long time – somehow it didn’t happen in my earlier posts and what better time than this post to recapture those moments.

The first one to meet was from far-far away. In June of last year, Nupur of One Hot Stove, St.Louis was in Bombay visiting family and she wrote to me asking if I would be around then. Id always been an admirer of her and her blog (still am) and was only too happy to meet up. We had a nice evening at our place with both the spouses in attendance. We spoke about food, work and family, exchanged some foodie gifts, and I was lucky to have a precious hand-knitted eggplant cap for my little one! It turned out that Nupur’s hubby V had a good friend from childhood who was my classmate in medical college – reconfirming my faith in the fact that it’s a small small world.

After that it was my turn to meet with Raaga and her husband – she made it a point to come visiting even though she was on a tight weekend trip to Bombay. With her, it was another small world thing. On our first call to each other long ago, a lot of family connections were established – my husband’s family and her’s were acquaintances for many years – in fact I had seed her wedding card in my in-laws house when I was visiting them around then, and that time I didn’t know her – but my inlaws had even attended her wedding!!!

My third meet was with Arundati. She and me got along like a house on fire, even as we were chatting and we would imagine that we’d meet someday to sit down over chai and talk in real life– little did I know that my wish would be fulfilled in a grand way. My husband had the chance to meet A and her hubby on his trip to Hyderabad for a meeting – they ended up talking till the middle of the night, figuring out many links between themselves…at that time we didn’t even imagine we’d be moving to this city. When we decided to move here, we had only one couple to call and figure things out – Arundati and R – they were gracious to put us up with them when we came house hunting – helped us find a house of our liking, and settle us in when we finally made the move in November. They still are one of the few friends we have here and I’m very grateful for God’s designs that through food blogging I found such a wonderful friend!

I must mention one other friend, who in the earlier days of blogging sent me a big packet of yeast as I couldn’t find any in Bombay – I continue to use that same yeast with excellent results even after three years. She is an excellent writer and shares her tried and tested recipes on Mad Tea Party. I fondly remember you Anita, with every loaf of bread I bake and break :)

There are a few others I have connected to on chat over these years – and they have been a part of my life despite the distances - girls you know who you are and I sincerely hope we get to meet some day! A big hug to you all.

Apart from the people, blogging has made me aware of so many different Indian regional cuisines as well as some from around the world thanks to people like Shilpa, Cynthia, Home Sick Texan who are so passionate about their native food. It inspires me to dig deeper into my native cuisine and discover more pearls.

On completing four years and some 280 odd posts (yeah, only that many, thanks to prolonged periods of absenteeism) – I’d like to share some of the most popular recipes from the blog –

All Indian Apple Cheesecake

The Traditional TamBram lunch series 

Ajwaini Arbi Ke Tikkey

The easiest brownies

Kaala Chana 

Parsi Dhansak

Upma Kozhakattai with Thuvaiyal

Lasooni Dal Palak