Chicken dum biryani, Paradise Biryani Pointe, Santa Clara.
I’m doing the January Blogging Marathon this year. I do hope I manage to keep up.
Sunday Breakfast or Brunch? Who cares?! Let’s eat!
Absolutely yummeh masala dosa and vadai, Madras Cafe, Sunnyvale.
Rainy Day Kebab
Cold winds and a cold shake
Chocolate and coffee quake shake, Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco
Weekenders
I love weekends. Long walks, lazy breakfasts, forty eight hours with Jay, movies and lots of awesome food. Last weekend we decided to go to an American joint – Billy Berke’s. It is located approximately a mile away from where we live. We decided to walk to the restaurant, at night (when the characters of San Jose come out to play), in the cold (it was like eight degrees or so). But the reward at the end was worth it. A huge platter of nachos with amazing jalapeno bajjiand the best succulent Louisiana prawns with butter garlic sauce I have ever seen.
Totally worth walking in the cold for.
Totally.
I would do it again.
I cook dinner every week night. A couple of months back I never thought I would do this. I was always very good at eating. Please don’t mistake that for gluttony. I was just very interested in eating. I never thought I would be able to cook. Aunties of the family advised me to go for cooking classes prior to the wedding because, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, girl, didn’t you know that? I knew. But just chose to ignore it.
Here I am now, whipping up dinner every night. Some days its veggies and other times it’s a full on meat fest. It amazes me that I’m able to create something edible. I guess I have to thank my mother’s genes for that. She comes from a family of good cooks. I guess I did inherit a tad bit of that. A few weeks back I would spend an hour and a half cleaning, peeling and cooking. Now I take less than an hour for all that. I’ve never been more proud of myself. All those hours spent peeping over my mother’s shoulder in the kitchen have come to use. Funnily enough, I’m starting to mimic her in the kitchen. It’s funny but it also freaks me out.
I am also very lucky that the man I married is a whiz in the kitchen. Jay helps out a lot around the house and that makes me a very happy cookie. Except that this man, who is the supposed boon of my existence bans cookies in my house. Oh the blasphemy!
But I must applaud him for strongly supporting cupcakes. There’s the reason why I married him!
I leave you with a couple of happy cupcakes from Kara’s Cupcakes in San Fransisco :
23
I turned 23 a few days ago. I managed to have a pretty good birthday in the middle of all the travelling and moving. I also had a fabulous Godiva chocolate cheesecake that was probably the highlight of my life. It’s been four days since I’ve had it and I’m experiencing withdrawal symptoms now.
I don’t want to admit it but Alhamdulillah, I’m honestly enjoying this time. After the stress of the wedding I’m enjoying spending time by myself (okay, and Jay when he is around) eating, sleeping and watching too much of the Kardashians.
Every year my birthday came around I used to get apprehensive and felt like nothing would satisfy me. But this year I didn’t feel any of those things. Maybe it was because I was busy but for the first time in a very long time I felt good about myself and that to me makes this birthday pretty awesome.
Happy birthday, Zarine, you fabulous person you!
BIRIYANI. Now do I have your attention?
Eid. Always synonymous with biriyani, to me, Eid equals new dress. It doesn’t matter if I get a new dress every single day of the year, the Eid dress is the most important and should kick all other dress’ ass. This year I found the perfect dress. But then again, I intend on finding the perfect dress every year.So all the duties on Eid have been done; wear new dress – check, go for Eid prayer – check, collect Eidi from unsuspecting adults – check, get shouted at by mother for not helping – check, stuff face with biriyani – check, distribute biriyani to friends like an MLA collecting votes – check.
Once all the duties have been done, regular programming resumes. It doesn’t matter that we fasted for thirty days and controlled our nafs (desires) ’cause the next day our body wants three meals a day plus snacks. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that a good portion of Ramadan revolves around food. Either making, eating or distributing food. Ramadan teaches you to respect food and not sneer at it if it is something you dislike. It teaches you to make do with what is available when you wake up late for suhoor. The Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) taught us to never say anything bad about the food even if you don’t like it. Waking up late for suhoor to eat the leftovers is a very humbling experience. It makes you think of all those who do not have a morsel to eat and have to keep suhoor with just a date or a sip of water whilst we waste plates of food. So the next time you fuss about how you don’t like a single dish on the table just spare a thought for those whom even three meals a day is a luxury.
We need to remember that every single blessing that we have could be taken away from us at any second. In school we sang a hymn ‘Count your blessings name them one by one’ but I realize that it is impossible to list out the blessings. We just need to be extremely thankful for everything. You and me, we are very lucky people. We don’t have to think about where the next meal comes from or worry that we have people depending on us. Thanks to one of the greatest mercies God has given us, we live in a reasonably safe place where we don’t have to be scared about bombs being dropped on us. We don’t have to worry about shelter or a plaguing disease. We don’t have to fear poverty and deprivation. Considering that we have it easy, that we have none of these battles to fight, we should be the most thankful people.
Although the little devil inside us is unleashed now I hope we don’t go back to our old ways but that we take away some lesson, no matter how small, from this Ramadan. This Eid let us be thankful for our education, for our wonderful families and amazing friends, for food and peace. Let us be thankful for our lives and for the opportunity to mold it in to a beautiful one.
Eid Mubarak.
Craving
I don’t know if it is the fasting or the hormones but this corn cheese toast is all I would like to eat. But since D – Day is in T minus three weeks it’s better that I impose a lot of self control.
Don’t Leave Your Dessert In A Desert
There comes a point in life when you turn around and realize that you’ve been carrying extra baggage. Not emotional baggage but that big butt you’ve been lugging around for a long time. You fall on your knees and pray hard, “God, just make that thing disappear!!”. But right after that you drown all your sorrows in a big bar of Toblerone so that kind of cancels out your plea.
The next morning you decide to put a full stop to your abysmal behavior. “That’s it”, you tell yourself. “No more scarfing down sweets in to this endless pit”. And then you go on a diet till it’s time for the next meal.
I have learnt that crash diets don’t work, fad diets don’t work, the Atkins diet doesn’t work even if all the celebrities are “doing it”, eating five “small” meals a day doesn’t work and depriving yourself of the most important food group – dessert, sure as hell does not work. So I have devised two new kinds of diet plan the “Eat Dessert First” plan aka “I-don’t-care-what-I-eat-but-please-let-me-have-dessert-first” plan and the “One Dessert, Two Spoons” plan.
EAT DESSERT FIRST
This is a very simple plan. All you have to do is follow it literally. Eat dessert first before your main meal. That way your craving is satisfied and you eat only half of your main course.
Disclaimer : This doesn’t apply if you insist on eating the entire meal even after you’ve had dessert. If you do so then you have a problem.
ONE DESSERT, TWO SPOONS
Again literal translation applies here. Just remember that both the spoons are not for you. You order one portion of dessert and share it with another person. The only problem that this plan presents is that both of you have to agree upon which dessert to order.
Disclaimer : This plan doesn’t apply if you order two different desserts and share both. That’s just being greedy and you deserve to be slapped if you do that, you fatty.
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| Tiramisu at Tuscana Pizzeria, Nungambakkam |
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| Fried Ice Cream at Benjarong, Alwarpet |
If you watched ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ then you will remember the line that Drew Barrymore’s cute ex-boyfriend guy tells that neurotic pixie haired girl in the end – “I’m/You’re the exception”, or something along those lines. Anyway, the same concept applies for dessert. Just like how every rule has an exception, every dessert has an exception. In this case it is ice cream. Ice cream is good. Never share your ice cream. If someone approaches you with his tongue sticking out while you are contemplating which side to attack your ice cream from, then punch him. It’s okay. He deserved it.
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| Bavarian chocolate ice cream at Baskin Robbins, Kilpauk |
Maybe In Madras 
