Post Tagged with "food"

Rajasthani Sweets and Snacks

As much as Rajasthan is famous for its beautiful palaces, majestic forts and colorful folk dances, the state is also a food lover’s paradise. As I write this post, my heart is longing for all the Rajasthani sweets I have grown up eating!

Rajasthani cuisine has a variety of delicious and lip smacking sweets and snacks. So, if you have a sweet tooth, try out “Makhaniya Lassi” or “Mawa ni Kachori“; if you are a brave heart and cannot resist spices, then go for either “Bikaneri Bhujiya” or “Mirchi Bada”.

If you are not aware of any of these, don’t worry. Just read on :-

Makhaniya Lassi

Made up of sweetened yogurt, with a dollop of cream, this is my personal favorite. A pinch of saffron here and butter there – the drink is ready.

Makhaniya Lassi is a cool drink to beat the extreme summer temperatures. For added flavor, a host of dried fruits are sprinkled on the top.

The Lassi is easy to prepare at home – takes a few minutes and is generally had after the meal. Photo credit

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Eating right – The Indian way.

So you have been in India for a little while. Learnt to do the namaste greeting, visited countless historical monuments, sampled fare at most of the ‘must eat’ places. You are now almost ready for the real deal: a meal at an Indian house.

Wrangling the invite

You would have made Indian friends by now. The trick is to lead the conversation to food, then to homemade food and then to the fact that his mother, wife or even the grandmother cooks like no one else you know.

At this crucial juncture, put on a suitably forlorn expression and declare: ‘Oh! I wish, I could have food like that, no restaurant food can compare to a mother’s/wife’s/grandmother’s cooking…’

There, it is done. From then on, matters follow a pre-determined chain of events and one fine day you are invited to lunch or dinner to your friend’s house.

Indian sweets come in a bewildering range of varieties. Enlist local help when buying.

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Feijoada in Brazil

If you ask me which dish is typically Brazilian, I could name a few, but some are, in fact, regional dishes. Feijoada, though, is unanimous. Everybody in Brazil has a “prato de feijoada” (a plate of feijoada) once in a while. Gathering friends on a Saturday, and listening to some live band playing samba, oh, its taste seems to become even better! Just a little advice: no calorie counting allowed for the feijoada! It is almost a sacrilege, and if you are on a diet, don’t get even close to it.

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Calçotada time! The secret is in the sauce

Handsome Catalan man eating a calçot

What are all your Catalan friends doing next Sunday? From November to April, chances are they are meeting for a calçotada, a traditional fiesta consisting mainly of calçots, that is, sweet onions typical from the Valls area (Tarragona).

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A New Zealand Kitchen

Treehouse Kitchen is a New Zealand blog written by Mel in Wellington. While occasionally drifting to one of her other many interests, the blog is mainly based around her attempt to cook through the book Falling Cloudberries by Tessa Kiros. Mel says:

“This blog started from a night of insomnia, and cooking/words/food came to mind. I decided to start it off with a cook-through project for the following reasons:

1. inspired by “Julie & Julia” (the book)
2. to give some direction to my kitchen-adventuring
3. as a fun project this year

My flatmates, 3 kind boys who eat what I cook with admirable courage, are my main champions in the ‘Treehouse kitchen’! Along with sporadic guests, etc. In between I also try to write about what inspires me, friendships, art, good food places, travel, etc.”

Do have a snack before visiting because otherwise her photos will make you very hungry!

Read more:
More New Zealand blogs on Blogs of the World
New Zealand’s volcanic vanilla
Maori craft in New Zealand

Santi (Indonesia) and Nico (France)

It becomes obvious there are two food cultures living in our household. Breakfast is always simple, with some toasts or cereals and fruits. Lunch is reserved for French food and dinner for Indonesian cuisine. None of us made the rule, this arrangement of French lunch and Indonesian dinner appeared out of the blue during our first year of marriage.

Actually, lunch is more Nico’s style than French cause he mixes French, other European and Mediterranean foods all together. Different kind of fresh breads from bakeries are the only ones allowed on our table. Roast beef, turkey and chicken hams, various types of spreads like hummus, fish paste and beef pate, roasted egg plants, salad, raw veggies with dips and of course large variety of cheeses are never missed. Nico likes to experiment with sandwiches by inventing different mixes and matches between the filling/spreads and breads. It’s fun to see our dining table loaded with different foods. Spreading and making sandwiches on the spot are moments we cherish as we often have good chats about everything. Although I mostly eat left over from the Indonesian dinner as my lunch *truly Indonesian I am*, I enjoy the moment whenever I join.

Dinners are my cookings, 99% Indonesian dishes. I began to cook a lot only since we moved to the US. When living in Holland I was spoiled by hundreds of Indonesian restaurants and toko all over Amsterdam so there was really no need for me to master Indonesian cooking. The first months in the US, I had no choice but to try out recipes if I wanted to keep eating my favorite dishes. I became even more motivated to cook when Joseph started to eat table food as I wanted him to enjoy them like I do. He loves eating rice as much as eating bread. Nico skips the rice once in a while, but he always eats the dishes. We still need to help Joseph eating since he’s still learning how to scoop the rice and dishes into the spoon, otherwise it will take him ages to finish his plate. Unlike lunch, dinner table is occupied by our plates and cutleries only. We scoop the meal directly from the warm pans on the stove, and rice is in the electric cooker on the counter top. Dinner is usually faster because everything is ready to eat. I cook pasta and potato dishes whenever only when I’m bored with rice *yes, sometimes I do feel a bit too ricey*.

Celebration dishes are the ones we all look forward to. Not only for their special tastes but also because they appear on occasions only. On Eid-Il Fitr, I prepare specials like rendang, opor ayam and sayur lodeh. Even though we don’t celebrate Christmas, from time to time Nico cooks real French cuisine on some of his family’s festivities. On birthdays we simply buy a nice mini chocolate cake from Whole Foods, sing birthday songs in French, Indonesian and English, blow the candle and enjoy the yummie slices.

To me, foods represent cultures. Having French and Indonesian dishes on our table show that each kitchen has a place in our family. It’s touching to see Joseph appreciates both. We hope Louise will do the same, they both are children of France and Indonesia after all.

The above story is an excerpt (taken with permission) from Santi’s blog Trilingual+1, about living and raising her 2 children, Joseph and Louise, in a multi-cultural environment. Santi and her husband have both lived in several different countries, and are currently in Germany. Read the original post here.

Enjoyed this? Read more stories of cross-cultural encounters from My Partner is a Foreigner.