Around the world people have been celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi this week. Holi marks the beginning of spring and huge parties and processions take place with everyone throwing coloured powders and coloured water at each other in an epic paint fight – hence the popular name, a festival of colours. Everyone wears white...Read More

Today is the start of Holi and many people celebrate with bonfires, prayers, popcorn and mithai (sweet desserts) before the main event of throwing coloured powders all over each other tomorrow. Our family traditionally makes Mithi Sev this day and when my Nanima was growing up in Kenya, she would make the vermicelli from scratch;...Read More

Today I’m going to share with you my all-time absolutely favourite shak; Aka Ringra Buteta Nu Shak. Yes it takes a bit of time to prepare, but boy is it delicious and nutty and full of flavour. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water… (even though I’ve literally just had some leftovers…) We generally...Read More

As a dish that’s so easy and requires very little effort, I make this quite a lot, serving it either with rotli or pitta bread. It’s very simple but a lovely way to enjoy fresh aubergine without overpowering it with tons of other flavours. My nanima cooks them directly over a gas flame which really...Read More

Indian families are generally very large and complicated so I wanted to write a little post on what the different family relationships are called. Whereas in English there’s just one word for ‘uncle’, in Gujarati we have five different names to more clearly explain the relationship. There’s this bit in the movie Bride and Prejudice...Read More

Siro is a delicious semolina dessert and a real treat that we often have around diwali time. Here’s my Nanima’s recipe… Ingredients: 1cup soji (semolina flour) 1/2 cup ghee (clarified butter) 1 cup sugar 1 pint milk 1 heaped tbsp pistachios, plus some for decoration 1 heaped tbsp almonds, plus some for decoration 15 cardamom...Read More

Today is Bhai Bij – the fifth and final day of the festival of Diwali and it celebrates the special bond between brothers and sisters. Traditionally sisters invite their brothers for a jamvanu (special meal) and blessings and gifts are exchanged. For those who don’t have a brother, like myself, we do a little prayer...Read More

Happy New Year! Or as we say ‘Sal Mubarak’ or ‘Nutan Varshna Abhinandan’ meaning best wishes for the new year. Traditionally we visit family, particularly our elders to pay our respects. We have mithai (my favourites include googra, burfi, biscuits…. Mmm, my mouth is watering just thinking about it!) and nastho (delicious savoury snacks such...Read More

Today is the day of Diwali so happy Diwali everybody!! It is a day of happiness and celebration and lots and lots of food. Today celebrates the return of Rama and Sita to Ayodhya after defeating the ten-headed demon and you can read the full story of Diwali here. Traditionally, we have a big family...Read More

Today is Kali Chaudas and I’ve always thought of it a bit like an Indian version of Halloween. We light up the divos to ward off evil and as a reminder that good always triumphs over evil in the same way that light always triumphs over darkness. There’s a lot of superstitions that people follow...Read More