Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I forgot the last time we were in town for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. For those outside United States, Black Friday is the day after thanksgiving, the official start of the Christmas shopping season. Most stores open very early in the morning, some even open at Midnight, and has amazing sales. People line up before the stores open to get to the limited doorbuster deals. I have never been to a Black Friday sale, I always thought people must be crazy to go shopping at odd hours in …

Is anyone else out there in the holiday mood already? My mind is already on vacation. Most people at work have taken the whole week off. I still have a bunch of stuff to finish before we leave for vacation, which I am forcing myself to get to, but this blog is really starting to suffer from my laziness.
We haven’t been cooking much lately except last Saturday night when we threw a dinner party. Siv whipped up this amazing cocktail with tamarind juice, dried ginger powder,  jaggery, lemon juice and vodka. It was …

Let me come out and say it, I am the worst packer in the world! Packing light is not a concept I am familiar with. Normally for each day of the vacation, I pack 2-3 outfits – An outfit for the day time activities, a dress for the fancy dinner, and a backup just in case I don’t feel like wearing outfit #1. Then I throw in a few extra ones at the end, in case my size goes up or down during the trip. And shoes – …

As I mentioned in my previous SF post, the highlight of our San Francisco trip was the dinner at Gary Danko, a Michelin rated restaurant, which just happened to be a block away from our hotel. Our reservation was at a different place, Michael Mina, which was a small drive away. When I called up Gary Danko for reservation (they were completely booked on both nights we were there), they had told me about the walk-in bar, so we decided to just give it a try, before driving to Michael …

Thanks everyone for playing the What would you pick… game. It was comforting to know that most everyone would go for comfort food, if they had to stick with eating the same meal for the rest of their life.  There were a couple of smart alecs who wanted to take a hot guy along for dessert, I have to let them, after all it is a deserted island…
Talking about my comfort food I realized that I haven’t blogged about one of my favorite dishes of all times! A simple …

I came across a foodie group in a social networking site today, where they talked about how the group is for Foodies and not for Gourmets.
I had always thought of foodie as a person and gourmet as the type of food. Isn’t Gourmand the word for people who love gourmet food? But apparently I was wrong, gourmet is also a person!

This was my first ever trip to San Francisco, but it definitely won’t be the last. You know how after a vacation you feel like taking another vacation to get over the exhaustion? Well, this one was not like that at all, if I can call a barely three day trip a vacation! This trip was totally relaxing for the mind! I felt so refreshed after the trip, totally rejuvenating – retail therapy really works.
We literally spent almost all the time at Union Square, a shopper’s paradise!  Zara is my favorite shop, and …

I am one of those people who love the bone better than the meat. I actually eat the entire bone, especially soft bones like chicken.  With tougher bones like lamb/goat, I can chew on a piece of bone for hours on end, and have been compared to a dog on many occasions. Siv loves bones too, but he knows how much I love those, so he always leaves his bones for me to work on, isn’t that romantic?  When we eat at fancy restaurants, this is my biggest dilemma. I love biting on …