Giveaway Announcement – Win $100 or a Cookbook!
A chance to win a $100 gift certificate or one of four copies of my favorite Kerala cookbook!
Category: Random Musings
A New Year and a Milestone
Another new year and a new decade is here! While the past decade was a really good one overall – possibly the best of the almost three and a half of what I’ve lived through- the year 2009 was one of the worst ever. I don’t want to sound too ungrateful, I do have a [...]
A Culinary Journey through Italy
The title of this post is not that accurate, as we didn’t cover the entire gastronomic landscape of Italy in this trip, especially the country side. Yes, it was in the original plan, but a last minute illness caused us to cut down a few precious days from our much awaited trip to the culinary [...]
Wrapping Up the Hunger Challenge
I just remembered that I never wrapped up my Hunger Challenge daily recap. The last day on the hunger challenge was very uneventful, with some quick and easy sandwiches with sautéed ground chicken and spinach for lunch and a meal out of various leftovers for dinner for a total of $6.83. This brings our weekly [...]
Spicy Chicken and Lettuce Wraps and Hunger Challenge Day 4 Recap
I don’t have much to say today. I’ve been blogging daily for the past 5 days, which is a lot for someone who’s been doing just 4 posts per month since February. So I’ll just jump right into the day’s tally and the recipe. It was a really cheap day at $7.20, as the [...]
Brown Rice Salad with Pan-fried Chickpeas and Kale and Hunger Challenge Day 3 Recap
Third day on the hunger challenge and I am beginning to appreciate the cause more and more with each passing day. We both worked pretty late today and normally after a late night like that, we just get some take-out without thinking twice about it. Obviously that wasn’t an option today, we had to come [...]
Pasta with Meat Sauce and Hunger Challenge Day 2 Recap
We are on Day 2 of the hunger challenge. This challenge is way harder than I imagined. Apart from having to cook three times a day, keeping track of the ingredient list and not being able to use random ingredients are the most challenging factors for me. I am the type of cook who throws [...]
Egg Salad Sandwich and Hunger Challenge Day 1 Recap
Today was the first day on the Hunger Challenge where we had to spend just $12 on breakfast, lunch and dinner for two. I am too tired to type out the details, but here is the table that shows what we had, and how much each meal came to. Even though the total came very [...]
Hunger Challenge – Preparation
First of all, I want to thank everyone who offered some really helpful suggestions for living on a $7 a day budget. In case you are wondering what this is all about, I am doing the Hunger Challenge this week (04/20-04/24) as part of the Hunger Action Week organized by United Way. The challenge is [...]
Hunger Challenge
A few days ago, a representative of United Way of King County contacted me about a challenge they are organizing for the Hunger Action Week (4/20-4/24). The challenge is to live off of $7’s worth of food a day (more for families, see below) for an entire week. Why $7? Because it is the maximum [...]
Borrowed Greenery!
Whenever I see photos of beautiful green vegetable gardens on someone’s blog, I start dreaming. I picture a beautiful garden filled with rows and rows of colorful veggies, lined with fruit trees. There we are, sitting in the middle of the garden sipping our morning coffee, looking at the crops to decide the day’s menu. [...]
Checking in…
Two sure signs that the weight loss program has been successful: – Parents take one look at you and get really sad! – Relatives and neighbors think recession has hit you really hard! Now I just have to make sure that I don’t get too “prosperous” in these three weeks. Not being able to weigh [...]
Check Please! Restaurant Etiquette
I’ve been seeing this topic creep up a lot lately, in magazines, web sites and in conversations with friends. What is the proper way to settle the tab at a restaurant while dining out as a group? Do you always split the bill equally or figure out who ate what for how much and settle it accordingly?
Happy New Year!!!!!
Another new year is here, time for new resolutions, a chance for a fresh start. Well, at least for just a few days let’s pretend that everything is going to change and we are all going to be better human beings. I didn’t make any new year resolutions this year, I don’t have a great [...]
Seattle Food and Wine Experience
Last Saturday we spent the whole day drinking wine from all over the world and tasting a wide variety of lip smacking food prepared by some of the top chefs in Seattle. All thanks to Foodbuzz – a community devoted to food and dining. Being a featured publisher on Foodbuzz gets you a lot of [...]
A Gingery Pork Belly and a Book Me-Me
Sra tagged me for a book me-me a while ago. The rules for this me-me are-Pick up the nearest book-Open to page 123-Find the 5th sentence-Post the next three sentences-Tag 5 people and acknowledge the person who tagged you. At the time I read Sra’s post, I had five books next to me- two were [...]
The Omnivore’s Hundred
I found this very interesting little activity going on around the blogosphere and wanted to play along too. This was originated by Andrew of the Very Good Taste blog. In Andrew’s on words “Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. [...]
Le Cirque, Bellagio – Las Vegas
I am so behind on blogging that I never finished my Las Vegas restaurant trilogy from the first week of June! I left the best for last; now after almost two months my memory is a little dicey! Same is the case with so many Seattle restaurants in my drafts, but those I can go [...]
Seattle Magazine Best Foodie Blog Award and Bite of Seattle
This certificate came in mail yesterday, along with a letter from the editor of the Seattle Magazine. I don’t have words to describe how I felt, I was in seventh heaven! I have been neglecting the restaurant part of the blog lately, and this one gave me a much needed kick in the backside [...]
Mutton Stew and a Weekend Getaway
Leavenworth – a charming town in WA where we spent a relaxing July 4th weekend. A beautiful house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by Pear orchards and the stunning Wenatchee river in the backyard; lots and lots of food, drinks and games… it was truly the perfect weekend! Inspired by the resemblance of its [...]
