I’ve been on a doctor recommended blog hiatus for the past couple of weeks. Well, he doesn’t know about the blog, but I was asked to cut down my computer time way down. As much as I wanted to cut the time I spend in front of the PC for work, unfortunately that pays the bills, so the so-called leisure activities had to suffer. I am still supposed to be staying away from here, but after a long time I took a look at the dwindling blog stats today and …

I have eaten a lot of papayas in my life. Back home in Kerala, we had plenty of papaya trees in our backyard. They didn’t need any special care or attention; you eat a papaya, throw the seeds out into the backyard, boom.. the next season there are a bunch of new papaya plants sprouting out. During the season, mom would make a variety of dishes with green papayas and we used to eat a lot of those ripe too. I love the crunchy texture of the semi-ripe papaya, but …

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 …

A daiquiri [daiki'ɾi] by definition is a mixed drink made with rum and lime juice. This Cuban drink was invented in 1905 and is known as Earnest Hemingway’s favorite drink (Remember what his second favorite drink was?). These days the term daiquiri is being used for a variety of frozen mixed drinks with or without lime juice and rum. Since I have both rum and lime juice in this drink,  guess I can call it a daiquiri without getting the cocktail police all riled up.
 
Ginger- Star Anise Infusion
Ingredients

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
3 star anise
1 …

French love their desserts, that is why they invented courses like Avant Desserts (pre-desserts) and Petits-Fours (a small cake generally eaten at the end of a meal). Normally the avant desserts are small in size, and contrast the taste of the main dessert to follow. Here is a perfect avant dessert recipe to serve before a sinful chocolate lava cake or some other form of death by chocolate. This will make a nice dessert on its own if you just need something light for that sweet tooth after a …

Is Ginger a spice or vegetable? I’m not sure if Ginger qualifies for the A to Z of Indian Vegetables event, since the instructions specifically says, use a vegetable, and I think of ginger as predominantly a spice. But if I use Ginger as the main ingredient in a dish,  it could be considered a vegetable, right?
Vegetable or not, noone would disagree on the greatness of Ginger, it has been used as a medicine in India for generations. Ginger is a great remedy for a lot of digestive disorders. Ginger in hot tea is a very …