The Kitchen Operas

Kathakali is the traditional dance of India, and tells the stories of the epics.  Usually Kathakali dances last all night, and take place at the temples for religious festivals.  The cultural centre has set up a show perfect for tourists: you get to see the dancers put on their makeup, they explain the traditions, give a little demo, and then do excerpts of a dance.

Our adventures through Kerala (in South India) continued to Kumarakom — land of the backwaters and the houseboats that serenely glide down the waters.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled tour of South India to bring you a recipe.  It’s not Indian breakfast, but it’s supremely tasty.  Also, my twitter peeps were asking for the recipe, so I had to hook you all up.  More on Indian travel, food & recipes coming soon! Happy long weekend, happy Easter, happy Sunday!  [...]

The first official stop on our sightseeing tour of South India, was Chennai (formerly Madras). Chennai is an IT hub, a big city, and the capital of Tamil Nadu.

The inspiration? A line of text on a blog somewhere that said something like: “marinate kale in coconut milk for four hours, then grill”. You know that went to the TOP of my “To Make” List. And then I went researching, and found that there are all sorts of “grill kale marinated in coconut milk” [...]

The last stop on our whirlwind tour through India was the city of Delhi. Delhi was recently modernized for the 2010 Commonwealth Games — the city developed new transit, cleaned up the roads, and did tons of building. The taxis are known as “Tuk-Tuks”, and they are powered by Clean Natural Gas (CNG): It was [...]

I have a new favourite breakfast: baked apples topped with oats, nuts, and coconut. A wonderful thing about this breakfast is that you can make it for dessert the night before, and make leftovers-on-purpose for breakfast the next day.  Then you have slow-cooked, aromatic baked apples for breakfast with no time spent in the kitchen [...]

I love French toast, and it seems to have become my Monday morning treat.  In a change from my regular Almond French Toast, I thought I’d try something new and mix some of my leftover pumpkin puree into the batter.   The French toast was a little bit soggier than usual with the extra pumpkin, [...]

How did I not know how easy it is to make granola? Seriously, this was a fabulous discovery for me — I can customize granola to be exactly how I want it, and in less than an hour?  PERFECT. I think I threw in everything but the kitchen sink here: dried cherries, coconut, almonds and [...]

Seriously?  Go make this now. Crispy squares of puffed Kamut, dark chocolate, coconut, cocoa nibs, and a little bit of vanilla and cinnamon.  How could you not call this perfection? I was inspired by Meghan’s Crispy Rice Squares — ever since I saw this recipe on her blog, I was dying to make them!  But [...]