Food!
Ok, I leave, now, all my whining about the cold at night and move on to something waaaay more interesting and a big important part of life here (or life ANYWHERE, if you are me, heehee)... FOOD!
Before... After.....
So, without a doubt, hands down, the food here is AMAZING! Especially the food made here at home.
Everyone in the family can cook. Of course Ritu and mom, but also the boys, Nakul and his brother and his cousin, all are excellent cooks. The food has a sweetness that tastes like the result of the love, care and attention that goes into the food.
WATCH VIDEO HERE:
So what do we eat?
Well for breakfast it is usually either roti (flat bread) with vegetables, or parantha, which is like a fried roti that is often stuffed with something, potato or paneer etc. Chai, of course.
Lunch is usually rice, dahl (lentil soup) and a vegetable. The vegetables are all nicely cooked with Indian spices like turmeric, coriander, cumin, garlic, ginger and chili etc.
Dinner is usually roti and vegetable again.
The food is like medicine, with all those good spices in there.
And the food that is prepared at home, with love, is the most delicious, most nutritious and fabulous. It is such a treat to eat this food. I honestly don't know how Nakul survives in Canada on what we eat there. I am sure he barely does (survive).
So the food is very healthy and very, very tasty. Of course there is chili in it, so you have to like that, which I do. It is so good for digestion and I usually lose weight when I am here (unless I hang out in the cake shops too much). lol.
Sometimes I eat out, when I am craving something different like pasta, salad or momos (Tibetan dumplings) but it's not long before I am back home, appreciating Ritu's home cooking.
One of my favourite drinks when I am out is the salty lime soda below. Fresh lime, soda water and a dash of salt.
The other day we got take out from a famous restaurant in town. We got like 3 or 4 different dishes, a mushroom curry, a dahl, a paneer dish, and some naan. We did it for a little treat, and also to give Ritu a break from cooking, but the restaurant food is really sub-par compared to anything that gets made at home.
She made a palak paneer the other day that was to die for (spinach curry with soft cheese cubes in it).
I think, too, not only is it that food is made with the utmost skill and love, but also... the ingredients here are superior to Canada.
Even if you buy organic in Canada, you are not going to get such flavour from your tomatos, your onions, carrots and other veggies. Maybe if you grow your own, but even then, there is something about the earth here or the way the food is grown, that causes the food to taste so incredible.
So, hats off to my sister in law, for her magic in the kitchen.
This is only one of the reasons she is one of my favourite human beings in the whole world.
Deep love for you, sister-ji. xo
