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 countryside to Bavarian Germany, Leavenworth was remodeled as a Bavarian village in the 1960s. The town center is beautiful with its quaint Bavarian architecture, but […]

continue reading......

Catfish Sandwich and a Difficult Week Past

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Filed Under Mains, Seafood | 46 Comments

Do you know what a clear liquid diet is? Do you know there is something called good bacteria in your stomach? Do you know what acidophilus is? Do you know why they call it an Emergency Room if they make you wait for 4 hours before you get to see even a nurse?
These are just a few of the questions we had to ask ourselves this past week. Some knowledge was gained the hard way, some questions still remain unanswered. […]

continue reading......

Past few days might have been the most humdrum foodie days of our lifetime. There hasn’t been any cooking happening in our house, and actually not much eating either. I won’t go into the details today, but it’s really been a difficult time. I might feel like writing about it some other time, today is definitely not the day.
One good thing that happened out of this near starvation was that I got a new found appreciation for an old favorite. […]

continue reading......

I’ve been real busy lately with work deadlines fast approaching, and preparing for a trip coming up in a week or so. I didn’t get time to look at my rss feeds for three days, and suddenly the number of unread posts were in three digits. I have way too many recipes and restaurant reviews waiting in my drafts. If I don’t type those up soon, the details will be forgotten for sure. The to-do pile for blogging is as […]

continue reading......

My birthday is less than two weeks away, and I am so looking forward to it. I love everything about the day, I just don’t understand those people who hate their birthdays! What is not to love - the gifts, the fuss, the food, the gifts, the cake, did I mention gifts? Gifts are the best part of the day, yeah I am a little vain, in case you didn’t know that about me already.
Siv tries so hard every […]

continue reading......

I have been a chestnut fan ever since I tasted the roasted ones a few years ago. Every winter, a small stand opens in front of Uwajimaya (a Pacific Northwest Asian grocery store chain) where they sell freshly roasted chestnuts hot from the pan. First time I bought it out of curiosity, and I was hooked with the first bite.

continue reading......

Wow, have I gotten lazy or what? I don’t know if it is the cold, or it is just the holiday spirit around, I have been a bad bad blogger lately. I rarely visit other foodies, I don’t reply to the comments on my blog, and even though I have a few recipes and restaurants in my drafts to write about, I just don’t feel like getting around to it. And as far as blog events are concerned, I have […]

continue reading......

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 […]

continue reading......

Goat Curry - Sri Lankan Style

Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Filed Under Lamb or Goat, Mains, Sri Lankan | 36 Comments

Last post I mentioned how much I love Thai food. But my love for Thai food is nowhere close to my obsession with Sri Lankan cuisine. The best Sri Lankan food we’ve ever had was at this small little restaurant called Lakruwana in New York City. On our very first trip to NY years ago, we were foolish enough to rent a car, and were driving around Time Square looking for parking when we came across this restaurant on 44th […]

continue reading......

Pan Fried Wide Rice Noodles

Monday, October 1st, 2007

Filed Under Mains, Noodles, South East Asia | 34 Comments

I love Thai food- well, who doesn’t?  Whenever I go to a new Thai restaurant, the one dish I judge them by is Pad Kee Mao, a dish made with wide rice noodles, meat, veggies and a variety of sauces and spices. Good restaurants always get it right, but I’ve been disappointed at a number of places with the oily, soggy noodles with zero flavor! And usually if they get this one wrong, they pretty much get all the dishes wrong. So […]

continue reading......

I haven’t been cooking much lately. After about three months of social hiatus, there was a lot of catching up to do. When my parents were in town, I spent all my spare time with them. I think that is the least one can do for their parents, especially when they visit only once in a blue moon. Luckily all our friends are very understanding, and we could pick up right where we left off. Since most all of our social […]

continue reading......

Sambal Shrimp

Wednesday, September 19th, 2007

Filed Under Mains, Seafood, Shrimp or Prawn, South East Asia | 29 Comments

This recipe is based on two different Sambal Shrimp recipes I found in two of my cookbooks. One is an Indonesian Tangy Sambal Shrimp from the book Fabulous Asian Homestyle Recipes, and the other one is the Malaysian version Sambal Udang from Savoring Southeast Asia. There were some differences between the two, but I didn’t have all the ingredients for either. So I combined both the recipes, and made some substitutions and additions, and ended up with my own version of […]

continue reading......

We seldom have elaborate dinners at home on weekdays, unless Siv is in charge of cooking. The guy doesn’t believe in moderation! If he is making chicken biryani, he has to have mutton curry on the side and vice versa. If he is making fish curry, he will need a chilly chicken to go with it, you get the drift! So if I can, I don’t let him cook on weekdays. He does most of his cooking on weekends.
I try […]

continue reading......

I can see those eyes rolling, another seafood preparation from Kerala? Enough already!!! Well, what can I say, Kerallites live on seafood, and regardless of how similar the ingredient lists look like, each dish is unique.
The common theme for most of the Kerala seafood dishes is an equal mix of spicy and sour flavors! The sourness comes from kudampuli (aka fish tamarind or malabar tamarind) or tamarind or mangoes depending on the season and the region. My guess is that this trend started to […]

continue reading......

Cooking food wrapped in Banana leaves is an age old technique in Kerala. Our fish pollichathu is the most delicious form of fish that I’ve ever eaten! I wasn’t surprised to learn that the same technique is followed in other Asian countries too. Cooking this way keeps the food moist with all its natural juices collected inside the leaf packet. Also the banana leaf itself imparts its natural flavor and fragrance into the food.
Instead of a traditional fish Pollichathu recipe, […]

continue reading......

Chicken Dilruba

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

Filed Under Chicken, India - Other, Mains, Recipes | 26 Comments

I am ashamed to admit this, but when it comes to the myriad cuisines of India, I am more or less ignorant about most regional flavors other than a few. That is why I love the food event RCI - Regional Cuisines of India, brainchild of Lakshmi of Veggie Cuisine. Even though I don’t participate every month, I look forward to the round up to learn more about the cuisine of the month.
This month’s RCI theme is Punjabi cuisine, another great genre […]

continue reading......

We are back from our marathon sight seeing trip. Now I really need a vacation!  It was scorching hot in San Diego and Disneyland, but that felt like North Pole after we got to Las Vegas - 115 degrees! Wow, it was unbearable, even for my parents. Who knew that coming from India, heat is ever going to be a problem!! It really felt like a furnace, we had to get up at 3:00 am to drive to Grand Canyon. In Vegas, we […]

continue reading......

Catfish Curry - Kerala Style

Thursday, June 14th, 2007

Filed Under India - Kerala, Mains, Recipes, Seafood | 39 Comments

It’s been a few days since my last post. My parents finally arrived last weekend, so as you can imagine I’ve been busy with the onboarding process. Its been almost five years since their last visit, also we weren’t living in the city last time they were around, so it took a bit of orientation time. Even though we have less space now, it is less boring for them now that they have places to go to when Siv and I are […]

continue reading......

Veal Stew and a Milestone

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

Filed Under Beef or Veal, India - Kerala, Mains, Recipes | 29 Comments

Wow, I can’t believe I am writing my hundredth post! More unbelievable is the fact that I kept this up for five months! It had become an addictive obsession at one time, but I think finally the honeymoon period is over. Now I am at that stage of life where I don’t need to do it everyday. The romance is still very much alive, I can squeeze in two or three a week, even with the busy work schedule and soon with […]

continue reading......

There is no concept of too much fish in a mallu kitchen. Well, mine is a half mallu, half Tamil kitchen, but the statement still holds true; we are both avid fish lovers. But somehow we did end up with too much fish in the fridge over last weekend! Weather was really nice, so I walked down to the Pike Place Market and picked up some pink snapper and striped bass on Friday afternoon. Same day Siv brought home some Halibut filets […]

continue reading......

Curried Pork Belly

Friday, April 20th, 2007

Filed Under India - Kerala, Mains, Pork, Recipes | 17 Comments

This is a sinful pork preparation to be made with pork belly with fat on. This cut is available in the Asian stores, lean cut pork will not work for this recipe. The good news is, you don’t need to add any additional oil, if that is any consolation. This is one of our little indulgences that we both love, but try to stay away from making that often. Normal people get cravings for chocolate, I get cravings for real […]

continue reading......

One of my favorite fish preparations from back home is Karimeen Pollichathu- Karimeen (Pearl Spot, a type of fish found in the back waters of Kerala) along with spices wrapped in Banana leaves and baked to perfection. The best authentic form of Karimeen Pollichathu is available at the Toddy Shops in central Kerala. Yes, my parents used to take us to Toddy shops, but not the kind that you are thinking of (if you have ever heard about the streetside kallu shaapu in Kerala) ! No, […]

continue reading......

Green Curry Chicken

Thursday, April 5th, 2007

Filed Under Chicken, India - Other, Mains, Recipes | 33 Comments

Indian dishes don’t photograph very well. Okay, let me rephrase that, I don’t know how to make Indian dishes look good in pictures. I had about 30 pictures of this dish, but didn’t really like any, spent about an hour trying to find a decent one, and finally here is one I hope at least look appetizing enough. Let me know if you have any tips on taking better curry pictures. I didn’t want to not publish this recipe just because the […]

continue reading......

Grilling lamb chops is very easy; make a nice marinade, marinate the meat for a few hours, fire up the grill, place the marinated chops, cook one side, turn once, cook the other side, let it rest for a while and delicious lamb chops are ready to serve!  Making an Indian style lamb chops is much more work, since the whole cooking process is done stovetop, and there are several steps to the process. But the end result is so different from […]

continue reading......

Kerala Chicken Masala

Thursday, March 15th, 2007

Filed Under Chicken, India - Kerala, Mains, Recipes | 17 Comments

Chicken Masala is such a generic term, I know. But not sure what else to call this dish, and to make matters worse, I make at least 5 different types of chicken masalas, so will have to just call these CM1, CM2 etc. I made CM1 as a side for Mutton Biryani today. Well, I don’t get the idea of having a strong meat curry with biryani, I personally think that the combination messes up both the Biryani taste and the curry taste, […]

continue reading......

Next Page →