Cooking Mania

I really have no clue why I love cooking so much, may be because I love to eat too. I did not start cooking coz I had to. My love for cooking starts when I was a kid and I used to watch Sanjeev Kapoor on Doordashan and adamantly fight with my mom to buy all those exclusive groceries that were expensive.
When I started living on my own in Chennai & then Pune, My friends and I (lucky that I had friends who were also sapaduramis like me) were always on a cooking spree trying new things and going to every new resaturant possible. It could be in one end of chennai, in a little tent, but we will be there.
In Pune, we used to try the food from the people selling on carts their famous poha & chai...to die for. Such were my gastronomical adventures.
My favourite past time now is to read recipe books like they are mystery novels and watch food tv, like there in no other channel to watch.
I cook Italian, Mexican, Indian ofcourse and Chinese. Are there crazy one's like me out there?

Rural TamilNadu

Vacationed in India in 2005, and visited temples near Kumbhakonam.

Waiting for the bullock cart to pass at this culvert. It was good to get away from the hustle, bustle of the cities and enjoy the lush green country side where things happen at their own pace.

Life in the United States

I was just thinking to myself, how much our lives change after we come here. I do not mean monetarily, but our outlook towards life.
While I was in India, it never occurred to me that I should call my relatives or friends before I walk in to their houses and invite myself to their family lunch or dinner. No such thing as potluck existed. When invited, I remember my mom buying a couple of packets of bourbon biscuits if there were kids in the house , if newly weds a strand of Jasmine and definitely sweets, a dozen fruits if they were older people. And when you enter their home you are there for the day, having lunch and then tea and maybe even dinner.

Here, though we have family living closeby, we have never visited before calling to see if they are available. So when I went back to India on vacation, my dad expected to take us to all his friends and our relatives houses, and yes, unannounced. Though I have done that 28 years of my life, when I went back, I refused to step out of the house unless he called them & asked if it was ok.
Funny , how 5 years of my life has changed a simple act of mine and the list goes on.............

This is our wedding in 2000, less people in the background and we dont look as nervous as our parents are in 1961!

Now & Then

The pic in Black & white is that of my parents in 1961 and our wedding in 2000. Look at the difference, a whole lot of people in the background and nervous faces , while we are smiling away to glory......


1961 ----- 2000

I have been thinking of doing this, but never took the effort to do it & today is the D-Day. Rajesh loves taking pictures of everything around him and this blog will have them!