Sunday 21 July 2013
I was hooked on to Alexander McCall Smith's 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' series almost as soon as Book 1 had come out. There is something about the slow, easy pace of the book that just evokes long, sunny days under large trees, daydreaming, drinking endless cups of tea, as you watch the hot, dusty summer of Botswana pass by.
I didn't grow up in Africa, but the weather in India was pretty similar and while there wasn't much time during schooldays to do the whole 'lying under a tree' thing, the holidays were a different affair. Most summers, as soon as exams were done, we were packed off to my Mai and Aba's (my maternal grandparents) farm, an hour or so outside Mangalore. It was an idyllic location for two rambunctious kids needing to run off some energy, with lots of woods, hills, ponds and lots of trees to fall out of swing around on. My Mai and Aba were hard workers and were up at the crack of dawn every morning. Us lazybones were up an hour or so later, by which time Mai had made steaming hot coffee or tea and a substantial, hot, cooked breakfast (I've just realised that I don't really have very many Indian breakfast recipes on here, but that's just down to my complete inability to rise at any reasonable hour in the morning, rather than the lack of recipes, per se...) Once breakfast was done, we were then let loose to pretty much our own devices, while Mai and Aba went about their daily routines and that's where the daydreaming and lying under the trees part began.
My sister was rarely interested in any of my games, so my usual day would consist of reading a lot of books, yelling at my little cousins, wandering around the woods with the kids from the neighbouring houses (constantly trying to dodge said younger cousins) and my absolute favourite pastime, sitting on a old tree stump, day dreaming about all the great things I'd do when I grew up (PS - I am still waiting to grow up, so there's still time for doing all said great things :))
One of the few chores we did have to do, during our time at Mai and Aba's, was to head over into the woods and collect cashew nuts. As the fruit ripened on the trees, the nuts matured, and when the fruit was perfectly ripe, it fell off the tree. Our job was to scout around the base of these cashewnut trees and pinch off the nut from the fruit. We would then carry bagfuls of these nuts back home, where my Mai would then spread them out to dry on straw mats in the sunshine. After a few days of drying the nuts, my Aba would sort them by size, and take them to the market to sell to the wholesale cashew dealer. Those were the days Aba would bring back delicious snacks like these Biscuit Ambade, which made all that foraging for nuts pretty worthwhile.
Sunday 7 July 2013
Talk about skipping straight to summer without even time to take a (fresh) spring breath. Well, Edmonton has been having its mini heat wave last week when the mercury hit the late thirties, and I am sitting in the brilliant sunshine,
For me and the non-meat eating members of my family, summer is a time to enjoy nature's bounty at its best. Our farmers markets are heaving with fresh, beautiful vegetables and fruit and Kay's hard work in the back garden is beginning to produce
And what better way to start off what's shaping up to be a pretty delicious summer than with some delicate new nugget or warba potatoes? Last year, I had the honour of being one of the runner ups in the BCFresh New Nugget Potato recipe contest with my delicious Bombay Potatoes (nope, no false modesty here, that is a great recipe that I've been making forever :)) But ever since then, I've been planning this year's recipe... talk about being presumptuous, what? So when the contest finally arrived, I was in pretty good shape and raring to go.
Wednesday 3 July 2013
Ever since I discovered pizza on the barbeque, I've been hooked. The smoky taste and the crisp base never fails to delight me and I love being able to make a simple dough in the morning and head back home in the anticipation of crisp pizza topped with anything my imagination fancied in the evening.
When Mushrooms Canada and Turkey Farmers of Canada asked me to come up with a summer recipe featuring both turkey and mushrooms on the grill, I pretty much knew that one of my recipes had to feature pizza while the other one had to be tandoori.
I threw around ideas with a few friends and one of them suggested a white pizza. I love white pizzas and one of my favourite combinations is a potato and prosciutto with picked rosemary and parmesan shavings. It was only a very quick jump from there to the final ideas brewing up in my head.
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