It has been a busy summer - I invited my parents over from India, Anup has been quite occupied with one of his business ventures, and I started blogging! I didn't realize how much work goes into creating a blog, especially if you are full of self-doubt, like I am! I try out a recipe, cook it once, take a bunch of pictures and invariably decide to cook it again differently. Once a post is ready, there is social media. Oh, how it has turned me into a social zombie. Social media is a stream of activities that seem to never end or lead to anything in particular. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest - how these tools have taken over my life. There is so much noise around us that it is easy to get bogged … [Read more...]

Summer is full of surprises at the farmer's market here in Vancouver. We get so much fresh bounty from local farms - plum tomatoes in all shapes & sizes, peas, green beans, cabbage, zucchini, sweet onions, buttery new potatoes, loads of kale and other greens, berries, plums and recently apples. This surprise element is one of the main reasons I started frequenting the Farmers Market. I used to buy my produce at Whole Foods, but somehow, the availability of everything all the time put me in a cooking rut. I would buy the same produce, and cook the same dishes every week. This was unacceptable for a person who quit her full time job to attend culinary school. I had to challenge … [Read more...]