Cooking for Avantika

Having discussed the fear of foods in the last post, I feel the urge to share this recipe of this wonderfully tasty Eggplant and Potato Curry. Eggplants are one of those infamous vegetables that many fear or crave yet most of us fail to understand. They belong to the famously infamous 'nightshade family' alongside sweet and white potatoes, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, etc. Why nightshade are so feared is interesting. Some say they contain poison, though in small quantities. 10kg of Eggplants for instance are said to contain nicotine equating to the amount contained in one cigarette. Well, I don't smoke at all but still love eggplants. I eat them almost every time I can manage to get my hands on a good one without any guilt and thats not very young often. So here's one of the many awesome ways to cook 'em. Here's what you need: A long eggplant (around a cup of an inch sized cubes) A medium sized potato (below  1 cup of an inch sized cub...

Because of media hype and woefully inadequate information, too many people nowadays are deathly afraid of their food, and what does fear of food do to the digestive system? I am sure that an unhappy or suspicious stomach, constricted and uneasy with worry, cannot digest properly. - Julia Child This fear of food is a very common yet quite complex an emotion. F ood is considered the sustainer of life, the harbinger of happiness and suffering as our physical bodies are built from the food we eat. So most people who do not acknowledge life beyond the physical or gross body are inclined to believe in 'we are what we eat' and feed their fears while starving their curiosity In a modern society, no one is immune to such fears, we all experience it at some point in life.  Try to find the origin of the fears and ideas that kindle it and you will realize how words can be deceptive and how ideas lose its original meaning when translated. Incase you are wondering about the lectu...

"When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use, when diet is right, medicine is of no need' - Ancient Ayurvedic Proverb On days when my Mind is very active and restless, I usually crave what I call my comfort foods. Everyone has their own comfort foods, foods that balance our mood or the energies that govern our system. Khichadi has always been one of my all time favorites, since I was a child. I grew up being told it's a lazy person's meal & there were a hundred reasons my mother supplied to convince me to eat other things, I was often tagged a picky eater but let that not give you ideas about my eating habits, I love food and would try anything new even today, I taste every thing but every now and then I like to go back to my comfort foods. I rely a lot on junk foods from time to time but nothing besides a proper Indian meal, puts me at peace with myself. Nowadays, no matter how lazy or crazy I feel, a bowl of warm spiced khichadi with plain yogurt will always ...

It's the mid of May and though the Gulmohar tree we see from our window is in full bloom, the tomato plant is showing clear signs of dehydration and low humidity. So, the heat is getting intense and that could be the reason I am craving melons and gourds. Today's Lunch is a very simple and tasty curry with so few ingredients yet so much flavour. Most times, I like to sprout the kala channa rather than just soaking. This is for me a great Spring Summer treat. The picture clearly shows that the Tindi has been overcooked (not the ideal way, its just bad timing - happens sometimes), but the taste was still fine. Channa Tindi Here's what they look like when they are cooked to perfection. The channa soft enough to be squished between the finger and thumb while the tindi soft yet still a little crunch when bitten into. Heres what you need: Little less than a cup of chopped tindi (sliced in thick rounders) Half a cup of kala channa (Soaked overnight and pre...

Food for me was a connecting link to my grandmother, to my childhood, to my past. And what I found out is that for everybody, food is a connector to their roots, to their past in different ways. It gives you security; it gives you a profile of who you are, where you come from." - Lidia Matticchio Bastianich Turiya Sev Tameta ma  A lot of the food I love is Gujarati food though I am not a Gujarati. The everyday foods I grew up with were not traditional gujarati but I still have a special place in my heart for Gujarati cuisine probably because that's what my mom made best (she was brought up in Gujarat and I was born there, have spent a good number of my holidays there) or probably because the people of Gujarat really know how to bring a soul to the food they cook. This recipe is one of my most favorites and would be a controversial one too because of the main ingredient tomato. The tomato is pretty infamous among health circles and every one I know often has one or...

Dear Avantika, This blog is especially for you because I want you to know that you are my inspiration for whatever little cooking I do. I want you to be happy and healthy and know that food is fun and there is no such thing as unhealthy food. All that is edible is good so long as you like what you eat, it won't harm you. Trust your body. I was never lucky enough to have someone tell me this when I was growing so I grew up with a lot of funny ideas about food. George Bernard Shaw once said 'There is no love sincere than the love of food'.  And rightly so, ofcourse I loved food as a child (who wouldn't?) but I never learned cooking from my mother standing in the kitchen (like girls traditionally are expected to) nor from anyone else (never had the desire to learn because of many reasons which are beyond the purpose of this conversation) but I'll share with you my favorite quote on cooking: Cookery is not chemistry. It is an art. It requires instinct and taste...