Comfort food has been discussed to death over here and in many other forums. To me, comfort food is what I won’t mind eating every single day of my life if I had to. In fact I had a post about two years ago asking the readers to share their pick if they had to chose one single meal for the rest of their lives. Hey, that gives me an idea, since I’ve met many new friends after that post, let’s play that again! 
 So tell me, If you get stuck …

I am in the second week of my India vacation, though it feels like ages since we left Seattle! The days seem so much longer here! It’s not like I’ve been sitting at home doing nothing, we’ve already traveled to Bangalore and Chennai, finished most of the shopping too. Back in Seattle, my weekends usually go by so quickly. I remember waking up on Saturday mornings and before I blink my eyes it’s Sunday night. Laundry left undone, dirty dishes in the sink, unfinished errands; I sit and moan the …

On my eggplant theeyal post last week, Arundati commented that all gravies were known as “curry” in her house. It was pretty much the same in my house too. Theeyal, Aviyal, Pachadi and Sambar being a few exceptions I can think of! Even Kaalan and Pulisseri were known as Moru Curry in my house. Actually it was more like “kari” than “curry“. There was really not much in common between these curries – the base could be coconut, yogurt, lentils or just ground spices. If we Indians are so confused …

As usual I underestimated the power of laziness while promising a week of vegetarian gravies. I had four different dishes which fit the theme sitting in the draft with recipes, all I had to do was type up an introduction and click the publish button! Well, anyway with the rate at which I am blogging, I can safely say this is going to be a veg-gravy month here.
Theeyal is a generic term for dishes with a brown sauce made of roasted coconut and spices along with tamarind paste forming the …

I ran into an old friend a couple of weeks ago. We were meeting after quite a long time. After the initial pleasantries were exchanged, she asked me a question that shocked me a bit. Don’t you cook any normal food anymore? I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, so I asked her to define “normal food”. Her definition was – stuff I can cook for a weekday dinner. According to her, lately I’ve been only posting party dishes.  I didn’t really agree with this analysis, since all …

We just got back from an extended weekend break in Las Vegas. Yes, the 10th anniversary celebration was in our favorite city in the whole world. What, you don’t think it is a romantic city? It sure is, for us at least! As much as Siv and I love each other, we have totally different hobbies and interests, except for two major ones – food and poker. Where else can you get the best of both these?
We have been to Vegas plenty of times, in fact before 2007 we used …

It’s been raining potatoes here in the blogosphere lately. That is because 2008 is the International Year of Potato. Wow, a whole year devoted to the spuds! Recently Sra wrote that she has used up all her potato memories, but she did have enough memories to fill about a dozen posts… That got me thinking about my relationship with the spud, and I realized that sadly I may not even have enough memories to fill one post!
Growing up, potatoes were these large ugly cubes in sambar with the weird texture …

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 …

Nags of For the Cook in Me blog is hosting a fun event this month – Show Me Your Cookbooks! You don’t even have to cook anything for it, just take a picture of yourself with your favorite cookbook and send it to Nags.
I decided to stay home this Saturday as I’ve been partying pretty hard past three nights. Since there was nothing good on TV and Siv was off to play cricket, I was pretty bored around here. The easiest way to entertain myself was to turn to my obsession, food …

A long time ago, I spent three miserable lonely months in Schaumburg, IL , friendless and car-less. The days were spent working, nights watching I love Lucy and Bewitched reruns on Nick@Night. Food was the last thing I wanted to think about those days. The only store at a walkable distance was a Foodmart at a gas station. So, my regular meal was ice cream and twinkies. But when the cravings for rice gets really bad, I’d put on my chef’s hat and make a big pan of the quickest dish I could whip …

A few weeks ago, I was alone at home on a Thursday night, watching TV in my pajamas when I got a call from my friend M that she and my other friend M were in front of Cascadia restaurant across my house, and wanted me to go down and join them for a drink. Cascadia is kind of a dressy place, especially on Thursday nights. I was in no mood to dress up to go down, so I invited them up for a drink instead. M & M are both my …

It is time for the weekly dose of that authentic Kerala recipe. Pavakka aka bitter gourd aka bitter melon has been my favorite vegetable for as long as I can remember. I know there is a big group of people who absolutely hate this vegetable, it is really an acquired taste. But cooked the right way, most of the bitterness of pavakka can be masked, or it can elevate other flavors in a dish. My all time favorite pavakka dish is theeyal, where tamarind is used to moderate the bitterness. Next …

If you are a regular visitor here, you’d know I am not big into Vegetarian cooking. Growing up I used to like very few vegetables, my mom used to include at least one vegetable dish into every meal. Some of those I truly hated, but we were supposed to eat everything that was on the table, something about building character! Among those dishes that I disliked were anything with eggplants or snake gourd, sambar, rasam, and most types of dry legumes and daals except for chana daal. Olan is made of black eyed beans, which …

This dish is one of my childhood favorites. Mine is a hardcore non-veg family; when we were growing up we used to have fish almost every day and some kind of meat in the weekends.  But on those rare days when there was no non-veg at all, there were 2 or 3 dishes that would get me by. Pumpkin Erissery with rice and papadam is one combination I could forget my carnivore self for. I still make it once in a while when I feel like having a light vegetarian meal …