ayonecan-cook

This was my father's favourite must have for the festive season and I remember mother sitting on a squat stool in front of a very low stove (she did not want to stand for hours) assembled as a temporary stove the night before, probably by my father, and twirling roti jala -s on the morning of raya ..... ....agitated and stressed out..... because she had to make quite a fair bit and then rush to take a shower, put on her make up, do her hair and slip into her prettiest dress so that she looked breathlessly beautiful before the guests arrived. (Pun not intended) I don't blame her. Because to make a fair amount of roti jala takes up quite a lot of time. And in those days you couldn't simply step out the door and buy food. These, however, are sold by the kilo nowadays by housewives who run little home food catering businesses. Very convenient. Or do like I do. Make them ahead of time, freeze them, thaw them and when the day comes steam them, in small batches at a time, a few...

This is the second fortnightly Food for Thought meme the brainchild of the very talented Jain from Once in  Blue Moon and of Food With Style .   The Road Home **** and a half Few things could be worse than losing a spouse to sickness and death, and when it happens and you have loved, it changes your life forever. "Lev pressed a damp towel to his face and prayed that the heartache would pass , like a brief storm, like a nightmare from which it's possible to wake. But it wouldn't pass and so he stood there weeping....." "When men cry it's never for nothing..." It was the premature death of his wife, Mariana, that Lev wept for. Lured by the opportunities of a capitalist country Lev had travelled to London from Auror, a deprived village in Eastern Europe, in search of a new life for his daughter and his mother back home. Lev spends a year in London, with memories of Mariana tucked into his heart, sometimes reliving his past at will and at other times...

She must have been about 17 or 18 and I about 4 or 5 because I remember standing in my grandaunt's kitchen having agreed, with a nod, to a cookie or something when my young aunt had asked me if I wanted a snack. Kneeling in front of me she tried to coax and bribe me out of my shyness so that I asked for it by speaking up. I couldn't.  So I simply stood there, blinking, head down, tongue tied while I felt my lips pursing up, hoping she would give it to me still because I really, really wanted it. And of course she did.  That was my first memory of my Aunt Montel. Thirty years on I found myself coaxing recipes from her instead. Recipes that she would not normally share because those were her trade secrets.  Food was a constant in her home even at the oddest hours.  I think she was born with a whisk and a wok in each hand and landed feet first in the kitchen. She was a foodie in every sense of the word. Sadly, she passed on a couple of months ago, a little too early. Sh...

A 10 mm star nozzle was what I thought I had for these churros. I was wrong. But I had to have it. So I dug, I dig and I dug.  Finally I settled for the disc-cum-spout star nozzle from a cookie press and used a piping bag to sheath the nozzle with. Very awkwardly I might add. I won't even begin to describe how the contraption looked or worked. But for few odd moments it did.  The reason I did not use the whole cookie press thing was because it jammed up and it would not press. However, to cut a long story short the churros turned out looking just the way I wanted them to look.  Long and slender,  long and slender,  Each little churros  A lady's finger. And delicious? ~ Utterly ~ Utterly ~ Utterly ~ Then I made a bitter hot chocolate As a dip or a drink And the sweet little churros  I dipped within.  Were they delicious? ~ utterly ~ utterly ~ utterly~ The recipe..............adapted form Vogue Entertaining and Travel with some necessary  twea...

Food for thought is a blog created by the wonderfully creative and talented Jain, of Once in a Blue Moon . It combines reading and food. The general idea is to read a book, cook a dish mentioned in the book, take photographs and write a review of the book. And finally post it and link. So when Jain invited me to join in it was the highlight of my day. I could never imagine saying no to such an exciting and enthralling idea! So here I am with my first contribution to Food For Thought! To find out more about Food For Thought just click here. The Namesake *** and a half I would probably never undergo the trials and tribulations of being a new immigrant nor would I ever suffer the pain of despising the sound of my own name. On those two counts I've been blessed. And I hope my children feel as blessed as I do. Unfortunately this was not the case for Gogol Ganguli. Like many children of immigrant parents, Gogol straddled two cultures painfully, petulantly and reluctantly; the one pulli...

This dish is like a book with three main characters, all equally important, interesting and with personality. Noodles, sundried tomatoes and prawns. Each one different in flavour, texture and taste. I used whole wheat organic noodles which had a good bite to it, prawns that were full of flavour, succulent and juicy and sundried tomatoes that were quite intense, a little sour and with a sweetness of its own. The little sidekicks were a couple of garlic cloves and some chillie paste to spice things up a little. And some sweet basil leaves to add interest and to humour me. It turned out to be a very simple, interesting and delicious dish. And I loved it. I first came across the use of sundried tomatoes in a noodle cookbook I had bought once upon a time long long ago. Yes ~ that long.  And ever since then I have been meaning to try sundried tomatoes because it was an ingredient that was new to me and it sounded and looked really good. After many many years of meaning to-s I have in the...