The last few days of 2014 are upon us. The vow to do better in 2015 is on many lips. Resolutions are being drafted, and plans to keep up with them shaping up. And I am pretty sure a few of you have vowed to eat healthier after a month of decadence.

I know the thought crossed my mind, it does every year.

I'm not much for resolutions myself. I don't really keep up with them. But, I like the idea of starting with a brand new calendar, and a brand new planner. There is something really amazing about holding a diary that is yet to be filled. Filled with appointments, to do lists, events, parties and goals. And the feeling that everything is possible because it hasn't been written yet.

In truth, I rely on a calendar on my kitchen door to write all these important date, school ones in particular. And if you haven't done so already, go check and download the free printable calendar I created for you guys this year.
But, spending more and more time on my blog, the use of a day planner arose again, stronger than ever. For these, I am fairly old fashioned, I need them bound, and compact enough. It has to be a one page a day one, because I inevitably end up jotting down a lot more than a few lines. And, it needs to feel pretty enough (don't judge).

I tried these new age digital calendar, planners and what not in the past. And it was an epic fail every time. I simply can't stay focused and on task without weight and volume, preferably of paper in my hands. Appointments, goals and tasks have less weight, less power and less authority on me through a smart phone, computer or tablet. In fact, neither do ideas.
I can't make constructive drafts in the digital dimension. Drafts have to be on paper, where I can strike paragraphs, doodle, scribble and ramble and then scrunch the page away to throw in frustration when it doesn't go my way.

I am 2015 ready, equipped with a printable calendar (well already printed), a day planner, and I even put my Christmas decoration away already.
This post will be the last one of the year, I plan to spend the last few hours relaxing. So, I am wishing you all a Happy New Year.

See you in 2015...

I spent many years trying to get a decent whipped cream out of the standard Amul Fresh Cream, in vain. A certain frustration shared with anybody who like to dabble with continental cuisine in this country. But, alas, the standard cream coming in its oh so familiar blue carton was all that we had on the local market (imported ones did came at a hefty premium).

This is no more, Amul, the well known dairy brand, has finally come with a new cream with a slightly higher fat content. Because, to those of you who aren't familiar with continental cuisine, the percentage of fat is crucial to pull out certain dish. The Fresh Cream we had all along was a 25% cream, which is the one that works best for sauces and gravies, and at the most will do as a runny topping on a fruit dessert.
To pull a thicker sauce, a sour cream, and a whipped cream that will start holding its own, you need at least 30% of fat in it. The higer the fat amount, the stiffer your end result will be, and we usually use 50% cream to get stiff peaks on a cake decorating cream.

This new Amul cream, has the required 30% to start solidifying when beaten. But, don't expect to end up with the type of cream that will work in a piping bag on you cakes. Also, don't attempt to get a decent whip without this tool :


While it is possible to hand beat a cream with a good old fashioned whisk, it takes far more speed, energy and stamina to do so on a lower fat content. If you want a fluff that holds with this particular cream, you are going to have to use an electric beater at the highest speed setting for at least 5 minutes. Which is the time it took me with the hand held model above to get the adequate stiffness one looks for in a whipped cream.

You know your cream is ready once the beater leaves creases and folds that hold their own and when you can cut a line in the cream with a knife without the line fading away. Then you can or scoop it on top of a dessert or freshly cut fruits (in this picture this is pomegranate seed).

In the end, this cream is a fairly decent one that will help you pull basic desserts and dips. We might have to wait a bit longer for a cake decorating whipping cream to make it's entrance on the domestic market. But for the first time, a strawberry and cream dessert is something that can be made and enjoyed at home at a reasonable price. The 200ml pack is priced at 40 rupees and yields enough to generously top 5-6 cups of fruits.

2016 Update

Christmas came and went, like it does every year. And like most years it was a happy one, full of cheers, food, merriment and more food. It never fails to bring a smile to my face when I hear Ishita screaming "Santa came!!!!!" in the wee hours of the morning. And from my state of sleepiness and start element at having been awaken with a a squeal, my "Oh really?" sounds even more credible.

This year, she wanted a rocking horse, and Santa has truly worked some amazing magic (don't you dare saying he doesn't exist). For weeks I looked online in hope of finding one big enough for a 5 years old, in vain. The only ones that would do were imported from the US and came with ridonkulously high price tag. I kid you not I was working ways to tell Ishita that Santa might not be able to bring one because he only make them for small babies and not big girl. This lead to her pointing out that one of our friend has a red plastic rocker for big kids. Alas, from IKEA, and impossible to find in India.
And when I was about to just persuade her to make a wish list for Santa to choose from, one of my friend posted a picture of her own IKEA rocking toy on Facebook, selling it at the very reasonable price of 500 rupees! Needless to say I went for it, brought it home in a covert operation, hid it in a Bathroom and waited to see Ishita's face on Christmas.

A day later, she is still pretty much glued to it, rocking away and loving it.




But that is not all that we did on that day. Christmas is my family is not just about the kids, never has been. In the West, this is family and friends time, and celebrating togetherness. And for us, so it was. I took Ishita out in the morning to Krispy Kreme to buy a box of doughnuts while DH slept the morning away. Simply because I saw during the week that they conveniently came up with holiday themed ones and I wanted to enjoy the day without overworking myself in the kitchen. This was the best move, and we might as well make it a tradition from now on. The short auto ride on a pleasantly cool Mumbai Winter morning was enough to make us in the festive move. Bitting into oven Fresh Santa shaped doughnuts with a steaming cup of tea just about drove the point home.

And of course we exchanged gifts just before breakfast. Ishita got a cute outfit from us, DH got a Spider-Man notebook from Ishita, and a Godfather special edition set from me. While I got a purse from DH.
Then we prepared for our evening dinner, buying chicken, drinks and snacks as we had guests, and I made some Bourbon Chicken this year (except with rum as we had no bourbon around...works great regardless). I caught up with my family on Skype and then we spent the whole evening in good company before calling it a day at 11.30pm

On this Boxing Day, I am just relaxing, and subsiding on leftovers. And this weekend we have some family coming over for a few days. Don't expect too much Blogging from my part until the New Year. I make a point of relaxing as much as Incan during the Winter break.

So once again, I wish you all a Merry Christmas. And for all those not following me on social medias, a belated Merry Christmas.

Year after years, I usually Google and print a one page a month Calendar to keep on my kitchen door. A calendar where I will write down school events, meetings, and birthday parties for me to remember them. I always look for something cute looking, and inevitably end up printing one for a talented lady based in the US.
As a result I always have a patriotic Red White and Blue month of July, a Back to School September, and a pumpkin something October, and of course a Turkey or Thanksgiving-y theme for the November page. And I don't have anything wrong with it as such. But, you see, I never celebrated Thanksgiving, the 4th of July has no meaning to me, Summer comes to an end in June in my corner of the world, and school starts in June, not September. When you live in India, a US Calendar doesn't really make much sense at all.

So, this year, I decided to start making my own. It was a long process of figuring out which software to use to design what I wanted. A lot of hours looking for an app to be able to do it on the iPad...in vain. A few hours of really frustrating work in the starter edition of Ms Word on my netbook to finally realise that my creativity levels are not compatible with an office software.
After a few hours of all the aforementioned trials, I went back to my good old Paint Shop Pro software and completely designed a template for my calendar...from scratch! Bubbles after bubbles, toggling with the grid, making proportions work...to finally have something I could possibly work with.

That was only the start. I then had to figure out what look I wanted for my calendar. I wanted it to be as much "Me" as possible, meaning I designed a lot of the backgrounds (but not all) pixels by pixels, spending another few hours at it. I then figured out I could design my own little cute graphics and cliparts in it too. And I tried, I did it as a hobby long long time ago, the task wasn't really new.
But, it was October already, the festive madness was upon us, the end of the year way too close for comfort and I ended up going against that idea altogether for this year. I instead came up with this :




This is 12 different Background, with only a few picked up from royalty free websites. Paired with little tags with the Month which I designed myself, and a paragraph of text in the background highlighting the month ahead. I kept it as secular as possible and did not write any public holidays on the dates they occur, you will have to fill that out yourself. Because not everybody lives in India. But instead of having a patriotic colour theme in July, I have one in August. I did mention things like mangoes, Summer heat, and Monsoon when they roughly occur for me in Mumbai and stayed away from snowmen, Halooween and turkeys.

In total, we are speaking of weeks of cumulated labour that went in this project. And I am offering it to you all. You can download it here, or you can preview and download here.

The file is a PDF file containing all 12 months.

All I am asking though is that you show a little consideration for the humongous amount of work I put into it and DO NOT redistribute it as your own. You can list said Calendar in a list, but people will have to come to my blog to dowload it...it is only fair I get the page hits for my work don't you think?

It also goes without saying that you can't alter my designs, the logo at the bottom of the Calendar is there to give me credit. Like everything on my blog, it's copyrighted.

Last but not least, a word of thanks in comments is truly appreciated if you choose to use and print it.

This week I went digging into my pictures for today's post and found this old one among the picture of our Bangalore flat. The one we stayed in for 5 years in Viveknagar and loved very much. This picture was taken shortly after we moved in, we had no furniture back then and our mattresses rested on the floor against the wall that had this window and view.
As you can see, it is a typical residential layout in Bangalore, with houses of 2-3 storeys and flat roofs. There were shops bordering the main roads and still enough trees.
Over the years we got a bed in there and our heads were almost level with the window, so we had the breeze and sun coming directly on us but still had a nice view. Then our neighbour decided to raise her house by one floor, and her roof top came at the level of our bedroom. Anybody could just peek in if they wanted to.
This close proximity between houses in old neighbourhood is one of the reason why windows still have bars (which we call grills in India). It prevents thieves from breaking in. The other reason they exist is to keep monkeys out. Monkeys which are nothing but a type of thief...

Brunsli means brownie in Swiss German, and is the name given to one of our traditional holiday cookie. Like most cookies, the ingredients are simple, and the technique fairly straight forward (non expert bakers can pull them off easily).
They are like most Christmas treats in my homeland made with ground almonds. What makes these a big favourite is their deep rich chocolate taste and chewy consistency. They are made with the darkest chocolate you can find and afford, and some cocoa powder is added to the mix. They also contain a splash of Kirch, which is a Swiss cherry spirit, but worry not, the alcohol content evaporated during the baking process, so they are completely kids friendly. If you can't find Kirch (not sure it is even possible in India) a splash of brandy or better yet rum will do it too. If you are really against the idea of using any spirits, you can add a splash of lemon juice or a bit of vanilla essence instead.

Also keep in mind that the dough has to be refrigerated for several hours, ideally overnight so that the flavour develops and soaks the almond powder properly, so plan accordingly.

So without any further blabbering, here is how to make said cookies :


Ingredients

500g ground almonds (almonds with skin)
300g sugar
4 egg whites
200g Dark chocolate (I use Cadbury Bourneville, but if you can find darker, do it, the darker the better)
4 tbsp cocoa powder
1 pinch of salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 pinch of clove powder
3-4 tsp of Kirch (or brandy or rum, if not using alcohol, 2tsp of lemon or a few drops of vanilla essence)
A little white flour if the dough gets too sticky to work.

1) Mix the sugar, salt, almonds, cinnamon and cocoa powder in a bowl, add 2-3 tbsp of white flour at this point too, you might need more latter, but the little amount of flour will absorb the excess moisture while mixing the ingredients.

2) add the 4 unbeaten egg whites to the dry ingredients and fold in to have a wet texture. The egg whites act as a binding glue that will harden and keep the cookie together while baking.

3) cut the chocolate in small pieces and put in a microwave oven proof bowl, microwave for a few seconds at a time and stir in between to melt evenly. Add a few tea spoon of hot water once melted to make it more liquid. You can also melt the chocolate in a double boiler by placing the bowl in a pan of boiling water, but it will take a bit more time.

4) Immediately pour your hot melted chocolate in the cookie dough mix and stir immediately adding the Kirch or liquor. Form a dough. This part gets a bit messy, the dough will be sticky, do not look at a non stick soft consistency. It is not supposed to be. But the dough should hold its own without leaving huge clumps on your fingers, so if this happens, add a little flour at a time until you can lift the dough ball of the counter without it breaking apart instantly.

5) once that consistency reached, wrap your dough in a piece of cling film and put it in the fridge for at least 4 hours, overnight being better. The dough needs to steep and develop its flavour. You can also at this point freeze that dough and keep it for months until ready to use.

6) when ready to bake cookies, preheat your oven at 250 degrees Celsius and line your baking trays with baking parchment...you absolutely NEED baking parchment, greasing the pan and dusting with flour won't work too well.

7) roll down the dough which you brough back at room temperature to about 8-10 mm thickness (yes they are thick cookies) and cut shapes out with a cookie cutter of your choice. Place on the baking tray and bake for about 4-5 minutes

You'll know they are ready when the edges will start browning slightly. They are still going to be soft at this point. You need to let them cool completely for them to be hard on the outside. After a few minutes out of the oven, remove them from the baking tray and let them cool on a cooling rack.

Once cool, transfer to a cookie tin or airtight container, enjoy whenever the fancy strikes.

It's not the same.

The very sentence on ever expatriates' lips when the topic of Christmas come on the table. It is not the same, and this is an irrefutable truth.
The problem, is that finding the exact thing that makes it "not the same" is a ghost, a shadow, an endlessly chased but not reached rainbow. Nobody has been able to pinpoint what it is that makes Christmas so different in India.

The Climate might seem like the obvious elephant in the room in this odd game of "spot the difference". But, it isn't so. I have friends who come from tropical areas, or even the Southern emisphere. Places were Christmas hardly means dark, gloomy, cold and possibly snowy time. Yet even for those who grew up in an equally warm climate and evergreen surrounding, it is not the same.
I have been in India for a little over a decade now, and I am just really starting to grasp it.

What is not the same, is the very core of it, it's vital essence and spirit. But what makes that so hard to pinpoint is that said core and spirit is as unique as one's DNA. Just like there are no two snowflakes that are alike, there are no two Christmasses that are the same. Each person has their own, and their own meaning for it. Christmas is a live spirit one that probably live in each celebrating soul.

Christmas is like this old friend you get to see once a year, it is familiar, warm, comforting, and honest. For some, it cannot be without eggnog, for others it is incomplete without a chill in the air or a an 8 feet tall real tree. Some swear by twinkle lights, other prefer candles. it frequently means sharing, and being in a crowd of sorts. Yet some feel more comfortable in solitude.
In truth it doesn't really matter what it is, as long as it makes sense to one, and one alone. My Christmas means Swiss cookies, casual gathering of people and simple yet hearty continental food, and red green and gold decorations. To each their own.

When you are an expat, Christmas, that old friend, suddenly reminds you that your entire world has changed in a very drastic way and over a really short period of time. Christmas cease to be that comforting, rarely ever changing buddy. It instead hand you the mirror that let you see how much you and your life has changed, just like that. As I said, Christmas is an honest spirit, and brutally so at time.
This is what makes the holiday so hard on my lot, this is what takes time to cope. I found out that of all the festivals,many traditions I grew up with, Christmas is the one that forced me to introspect the most. Asking me to ask myself very difficult questions :

Who are you? What's your baggage? What do you want to keep? Throw? What are your priorities? What do you want to become? What's your future like?

These are frightening questions. Questions that most will try to avoid being confronted with. They are very personal, and intimidating questions. Questions that do not have a right or wrong answer, or a quick one for that matter. They are the kind of questions you could ponder over a lifetime, or more.
Having to answer them, or rather attempt to do so, force one to constantly reassess their lives, reinvent things, and create new normals. When you move accross the globe, you change, often not really realising it.

And change is scary.

Over the years, I went from dreading Christmas, hating it for being different and not "right", to finally learn to make peace with it.
One simply cannot stay mad at an old friend for simply mirroring their own shortcomings. That, after all, would not be fair at all.

I did introspect, reflected, and reinvented things. I picked up elements of my culture I could not do without, incorporated new ones I was willing to adopt and created a new version of Christmas I can call my own again. I came to be very grateful for that lesson the holiday gave me over the years.
And, sure, it isn't the same anymore. But enough time has passed that I am not even sure I really truly remember what it once was.
You see, old memories tend to fade away when new more vivid ones take their place.

So, yes, it is NOT the same. But I no longer see it as something bad. It just take time to get to that point to get to appreciate it; and a few coping strategies I will perhaps share one of these days.

The month of December is always rich in events, meetings, parties, gatherings and cooking sprees that I often find myself with a lot of blog posts ideas and too little time to really post it all before the season passed.
I spent all of last week preparing for and throwing a party at my place. And then, recovering from it over the weekend. So much so, I ended up forgetting about an ornament I made for an ornament exchange for an earlier party this year.



I had plan to share this easy little project earlier, forgive me for the delay. The good new is that it is so simple you could still make one, or a few for this Christmas.
All you need is some felt, some fabric glue, and...you guessed it 3D liner paint, aka glitter paint (yes I know, I use it a lot...that's my thing). If you feel crafty enough, and I did, you can even use some glass bead on a threat to finish it, but trust me, the ornament looked totally fine without too.

Oh and yeah you will need a little cotton, I used the make up removal pads, but you can use the surgical cotton available at your chemist too.



Cut two identical shapes in your piece of felt first, I used circle for that one, but I have made a star in the past too.
Then, place the cotton in the middle of the first piece, and apply fabric glue all around. In generous amount might I add, the felt will soak it up and you want to have enough glue to hold the two pieces together. Place the second piece of felt on top of the first one, and use clips to keep them together while the glue dries. Like this :



Once the glue is dry (give it an hour or so), remove the clips, and use 3D liner paint to draw your design. I did a snowflake, but really if you don't like them, feel free to draw just about anything. I did draw on both sides, so I had to let it dry before flipping it over and repeat.
Then if you have some patience, you can threat a string of tiny glass beads and use a quick drying glue like "All Fix" from Pidilite (the transparent solvent based type) to glue it around the edge of said ornaments.

Last but not least, use a piece of wire, string or ribbon ( all work well) to make a hoop to be able to hang it to your tree.

All in all you will spend about one hour of being actively working on said project if you are into details.

The Winter days are slowly settling in Mumbai, it is drier, and mornings are pleasantly cool. Last weekend, it was the perfect time to go for a morning walk by the sea front.
This is a picture taken in Bandra, on the Bandstand promenade. Like all seafront promenade in Mumbai, it sees a lot of activity in the morning, with people going for a job, a walk, a stroll or doing some yoga.
In December and January, people really just go to just catch the chilly sea breeze, be it at sunrise, or sunset.

To conclude this busy week I had, this is my picture of India for this Sunday. A reminder we all need to slow down and enjoy life from time to time.

I got a busy weekend, filled with the usual errands, a morning walk by the shore, and Saint Nicolas. I baked my usual ginger bread cake. And because we were so busy, and Ishita was so exited, we did put the Christmas tree up earlier that the 6th. I took it out of the wardrobe on December 4th, DH came home early, we played the Christmas album from Boney M (don't judge, I grew up on that one...it is as much part of Chriatmas as Milano cookies). I immortalised our 2014 tree edition in picture and swore to find the time to take day light pictures later.


The daylight picture however, never happened. My cat had other plans regarding the Christmas tree. I grew up with cats. Cats who all ignored the tree royally beyond just getting away with one or two paper ornaments. None of the cats I ever had growing up ever felt the need to attack the tree in any vicious ways. So when Mittens started showing an interest in us putting the tree up, it did t really clue me in just yet.


See? Just normal kitty curiosity. Curiosity I nipped in the bud when she tried climbing the undecorated tree. I sprayed enough water on her to leave said tree alone until Sunday night. Then she got bored watching Star Trek on TV with me and attempted to climb it once or twice. I took her away each time and she went back to ignoring it. She attempted the climb again several time on Monday morning, each time we shooed her away, until she made a break for it while I was in the kitchen frantically packing a school bag to make it in time for the school bus (we were running late).
That is when I heard a big crash in the living room, followed by Ishita screaming Maaaaaaaaamaaaaaaaaa. I ran there only to find what I expected to find: the tree on the ground, ornaments everywhere (fortunately all plastic and u breakable), my cat still walking on the collapsed tree and my daughter starting to cry because the tree was down.

This tree was old. We bought it in 2008, and it has been through 4 moves, and rusted through 4 Mumbai monsoons. The stand was plastic, and in the past 3 years I spent a great deal of effort gluing it back together before each Christmas decoration session. This year, I knew it would have been its last Christmas in our home as I was resorting to folded newspapers to prevent it from tilting too much (it was still tilting). What I didn't expect though was my cat climbing it. And when it crashed, I expected to be able to put it back up and redecorated it while Ishita was in school.

That never happened. The plastic stand was broken beyond any possible repair and I had a semi-historical kiddo to get to school. Kiddo that was distraught at the idea that Santa would not come now that the tree was kaput (no idea where she got that idea though).
I did some quick thinking, dropped Ishita in the bus, then ran back upstairs to grab my purse, and hopped into an auto. Direction my favourite craft and stationary store (they sell tree and ornaments for Christmas). I found a nice 6 feet tall tree (a foot taller than the old one), threw in a couple of extra ornaments and tinsels to fill the extra foot of space and made it straight back home to redecorate the tree.

We don't want Santa to ignore our home just because the cat killed the tree right? More than anything I didn't want to deal with Ishita being distraught seeing no tree on her way back home. So I went on working on the 2.0 version of Xmas Tree 2014



Tree that the cat attempted to climb almost immediately and which attempt resulted in getting sprayed with water (memo for next year, keep a small Holi water gun for Christmas...) The new tree has a more sturdy and far more stable metallic stand, which hopefully will mean no fatal crashes. It is also taller and fluffier, which just serve to show how old and scrawny our old tree had become.
Ishita returned home feeling happy the instant she saw that the tree was back. actually relieved was more the way to describe it. Christmas was not ruined before it ever got a chance of happening, Santa will still come, and she gave an earfull to the cat about it, lecturing her on how the tree was off limits...we can hope it didn't fall in a deaf kitty ear...

Meanwhile, I have a busy week ahead, as I already announced on Facebook and G+, don't be alarmed at the possible lack of updates.

Festivals from around the world are as deeply rooted in ones culture as they are in religion, if not more. If you just look at Christmas, you won't find two nations with the same sets of traditions, stories, beliefs, and food. Often, each families have their very own interpretation of cultural traditions that shall be passed down generation and shall not be altered in anyway.

I myself have become even more aware of that fact since moving to India, and heaven knows I did struggle to get it to feel familiar. This is in time of festivities that expats of any cultural background is bound to feel homesick. Give me one expat that hasn't struggled even a little with homesickness during holidays, and I'll show you a liar. This is how it is.
I have had a lot of people ask me if I go to Church on Christmas Eve since I moved to India. They usually are a bit puzzled by my resonant "No" to that question. Because it seems that one has to be Christian to celebrate Christmas, yet I don't consider myself so. I was born in a Christian family, in a Christian culture country, but I am not a believer. Nobody in my family really ever was to be fair.

You see, in most of Europe, traditions such as the Christmas tree, Santa, the Yule log, and lighting of candles are far far older than Christianity, all these were elements of the pagan Winter solstice festival. Our age old mythology just got merged with Christian tales over time to form what is known as Christmas today. This the reason why the holiday is so strongly associated with snow, pine trees and flying reindeers when in fact Jesus was a Middle Eastern guy who grew up in a part of the world that had more sand than greenery, and not even the shadow of a snowman. But to convert Europeans, one had to relate to them.

Yes, many European, myself included do celebrate the holiday in a very secular way. In my family, it has always been a time to celebrate our loved ones, and bond in what is otherwise a cold, gloomy and dark month...the darkest of the year. In Switzerland it is dark from around 5pm until 8am the next morning, and you get lucky if you see the sun at all behind the thick nearly constant cover of cloud. Northern Europe has even less daylight, with areas closer to the North Pole barely seeing any light at all. This kind of environment shapes people, and their culture, this is how deep rooted it can get, no matter what you call it.
When I arrived to India, the difference between the Summer solstice and the Winter one suddenly seemed to have vanished altogether. The climate was different, the seasons too, it was hard to figure out how to make Christmas work in that setting.

But I made it work, simply because I want my daughter to know that half of her heritage lies in a country that sees harsh Winters and dark nights, that half of her is part of a different set of stories, traditions, and culture. A place were we believe in finding beauty in an evergreen tree when all the others seemed to have died. A place where kids are told about a magical entity that will give them goodies in what would otherwise be the darkest time of the year, a symbol that there is good in every situation. But more than everything, that there is more than ONE story on the theme of light vs darkness. That there is more than one way to celebrate family, that there is more than one culture in this world. We celebrate light, family and prosperity with Diwali first, then two month later, we celebrate, light, joy, family and Winter with Christmas.

This is how most interfaith and intercultural families roll. In the "masala" community I belong to, we all have no problem mixing two cultures, and creating a fusion the rest of the year. BUT when it comes to holidays...ANY holidays celebrated by one or both parties, we stick to the classics and do not deviate from the traditions.
For me, like many other masala couples, that means there is absolutelty NO Indian elements in my Christmas menu and munchies. Likewise there is absolutely NO continental anything on the menu for Diwali, or any Western traditions for that matter. My friend Tina explained it quite well on her blog.
This might seem very odd to anybody not being in an intercultural relationship, but this is the kind of very essential balance we need to find.

For many of us, we have absolutely no ambitions whatsoever to shed our own culture, or ask our partner to do the same. I myself always will be from Switzerland, and my husband will always be from India, regardless of what passport we could possibly hold in our future, or where we could possibly live. He has absolutely no desire to shed his Indian culture, I have no desire to snip my own roots. And when it comes to the few festivals we observe, DH is the master of ceremony for Diwali, and I am the master of ceremony for Christmas.

So to paraphrase my friend again, there will be no Paneer at my Christmas table, or dal, or chapati, or masala anything. Christmas came to mean the celebration of my roots on top of celebrating the season and my loved ones.




Read more stories from ladies in intercultural relationship regarding Chrismas: 

My Masala Life: We do not eat Paneer on Christmas or Turkey on Diwali: Things we do not Mix
American Punjaban PI: Christmas in My Intercultural Family

Attached moms: My Christmas in India: Blended American traditions, found

It's that time of the year again! And true to tradition, I am baking batches of Swiss Christmas cookies. Mailaenderli are that big Classic in my homeland, everybody loves them, for their rich buttery and zesty taste and their warm golden hue. They instantly bring back childhood memories of eating the raw dough, and the smell of them baking spreading to the whole apartment.
They also stand for simplicity, they are made with only 5 ingredients, and the dough can be made well in advance and kept in the freezer until one is ready to bake. And you don't need any mad cooking skills whatsoever to pull them off...none!


You don't even need that much space to make them...look at my kitchen above, I have been baking them for years in my small Microwave/convection oven (using the convection mode that goes without saying). I have a knack at having one tray baking in the oven while the other is getting filled with the next batch.

To make the dough you will need :

250g of salted butter (if you are using unsalted one, add a pinch of salt to the recipe)
225g of caster sugar
3 large eggs
the zest of two Indian lemons (or the zest of one regular sized lemon if you live in Europe and US)
600g of plain white flour (maida)

Just before backing, for the egg wash :

2-3 egg yolks

1) Leave the butter at room temperature for a little while, so that you can beat it to a cream more easily. You can do that with a fork, or an electric whip if you have one (if you bake often...buy one, they are cheap and a real time saver)

2) Add the sugar and eggs to the butter and mix well to combine. Grate the lemon zest and mix well again.

3) Sift in the flour and knead to a dough. You should end up with a very soft dough that is greasy, but not sticky, it should stay in one ball, not get stuck to your finger. At this point, you may need to add a little more flour to get the desired consistency.

4) Wrap in cling film and keep in the fridge for an hour. At this point you can also just shove it in the freezer where it can stay until you have the time to bake, it keeps well in the freezer for a few months.



Once you are ready to bake, take your dough out of the fridge or freezer, and let it become soft again. Preheat your oven to 200 C and line two oven proof trays with baking parchment. Get your egg yolks ready in a small bowl.

Roll down your dough to a thickness of about 5mm and start cutting shapes out with cookie cutters of your choice and place them on one of the baking tray



Once a tray is filled, brush the cookies with egg yolk using a pastry brush (or a teaspoon if you don't have one, it works fine too). Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until the egg wash has a nice golden hue.

While one batch of cookie is baking, continue filling the other tray, chances are you'll have that second one ready just when it will be time to get the first batch out of the oven.


Transfer the hot cookies straight to a cooling rack using a spatula or the pliers used to flip chapati rolls, and continue shaping cookies using the now empty tray to process the next batch...keep on going until you run out of dough. This is that easy!

Once all your cookies have cooled down, transfer them to an airtight container or a cookie tin.

December is here, and with it, another edition of my traditional Advent calendar. I posted a teaser earlier last month, showing 24 little paper cups that I painted in copper and gold.
I have now completed the project and the first little present got opened this morning. I initially thought of making little handles out of wire and turn these cups into mini buckets all tied to a string. but then I remembered that push pins do not exactly go easy in these walls, and the weight of the finished calendar could easily pull them out. There was no way I would hunt down a handyman to put two holes in either.

So I put on my thinking cap, and came up with the idea of gluing the cups to strips of sturdy craft paper and tape said strips to the wall :


Before I came to that gluing part though, I decorated each cup with a strip of washi tape, and wrote a number with....what else...glitter 3D glue (yes I know I use it a lot, and no no no I won't sign up for glitter glue anonymous). Once that was done, the cups were ready to be glued to the strips of papers.
I decided to stick to candies and chocolate for this year's presents, and I wrapped them in 24 little bundles and put on inside each cup late last night...after remembering that...crap November was in its last few hours. Seriously, where does the time fly?

And of course because the strips of paper alone looked a bit blah once on the wall, I felt the need to cut out Christmassy shapes out of the Christmas themed craft paper I already used for the wreath. And it goes without saying that I once more took my collection of glitter glue out (seriously Pidilite, I could be the brand ambassador for these...think about it).

In the course of last week I got involved in quite a few Holiday themed projects. and, there is probably more to come, if you didn't know it already (and I am sure you did), I am big on Christmas, this is the only holiday from back home I do celebrate, and the one I really don't want to see dying, hence the madness that goes every year offline, and on this blog.

At the risk of repeating myself; when one think of India, they often have Mugal architecture, deserts, camels, elephants and beaches in mind.
But India is, as I pointed out before, a huge country that is having many different cultures, regions, fauna and flora. A few of the country's Northern States are in the Himalya range, and like it is the case in all higher altitude alpine settings, you will have trees that loose their leaves in the Fall, and the presence of tall evergreens.
This picture was taken in December 2009, we we took Ishita on her first trip ever, at 5 months of age. We spent a week in Manali enjoying the fresh air and beautiful mountain scenery. The Nature Park in Manali has a nice promenade amoung it's tall pine trees and the sound of the Beas river in the background. One of the sign said there was a tree nursery in it too, but we never really made it that far, we just took in the greenery and posed for pictures. Notice how I make a cameo appearance in that one, in my finest 90's parka gear. It came to be in our possession when DH needed a warm jacket in Switzerland, my mom had still some of our old ski gear handy, and he brought it back to India with him.

Manali gets cold in the Winter months, and we were glad to already have a stock of wooden sweaters and jackets before heading there. Back then we were living in Bangalore, so we used warmer clothes, regularly enough. I imagine that if we lived in Mumbai all that time we would have been quite ill equipped. In the past 3 years, our woollens and yep, even that mighty parka, are catching dust and mold in a wardrobe. On a cold January day in Mumbai, we need a hoodie over a long sleeved t-shirt at the most ( though many think otherwise, an no I won't elaborate just yet...)

This week, I am in full on craft mode. It dawned on me that this is the last week of November (can you believe it?). I have to finish the advent calendar by this Sunday. But I did make a special ornament for an ornament exchange at a party I am attending this weekend, and from then onward, the mood was set.
All warm and geared up, I decided to get into a little project I had in mind to decorate the top of that new chest of drawers that sits in our living room.


I knew I wanted a new wreath. We already made one last year, and I plan to reuse it on the same door. I just wanted another one, one more refined and less child-crafty looking. After spending a little time on Pinterest for inspiration, I ended up making the one above. Following several ideas I found and compiled them into one.
I used a big paper plate for the base of my wreath, the cheap type you find in most stores in India. You know the ones that have a silver foil lining inside and are still untreated grey cardboard on the outside...these ones!
I cut out the center following one of the conveniently embossed lines, and because I wanted to take advantage of the silver foil, I pushed the inside out (just reversing the embossing that gives the plate its shape). You can of course take whatever plate you want, and even paint it if you want the base to be a specific colour, after all, some of it will peek through once you are done with the project.


I then used the Christmas themed craft paper I bought last year. I cut long strips in an assorted lot of patterns, and pasted them one by one on the paper plate base. I repeated the process on two rows.


Once I was done with the paper strips and let it dry properly, I used 3D liner glitter glue. You know, to put my usual finishing touches...I use 3D liners a lot, I love them, that is my thing. Finally, once all that glitter got dry, I used some Christmas coloured cable string to conceal the unevenness at the edge of the opening in the middle. I used plain old white glue to do it. I used the same string to make a bow loop to hang it on the wall.


It is then that I realised that I'd better put it up already. instead of shoving it in a wardrobe until next week. And that is the first year I officially have anything Christmassy out before the start of December.


Needless to say I am working on several other small things to make the space below and around the wreath a bit more festive. That will make for more pictures later on...

Momos, dim sums, dumplings...they go by many names and will always remain one of these Asian cuisine favourites. In our home, this is one of Ishita's favourite food. Between her and I we can easily eat a dozen and call it a meal. That is how much we love them, if that means anything.
Sadly, no matter were you go, you will end up spending way too much money for really not much. For the dumplings fanatics that we are, making them home becomes a very viable option. And they aren't even that hard to make.
Time consuming? A little bit. Hard? Nope, not at all. Not with a little practice, and certainly not with this nifty little tool :


This little kitchen gadget is a pasty mould, in India they are often known as Gujiya moulds as they are usually used to prepare the pastry of the same name. You will find it in most stores that sell kitchen items. Mine is part of a set of four in various size, so that I can make tiny dumpling (the one above is the smallest), bigger puffs and pasties, or even giant hot pockets backed in the oven. They make my life much much easier each time I am making some stuffed dough items, and they are just about ideal to make momos without messing everything up.


Before I acquired that nifty little tool, I used to make them round, spent a lot of time making sure the bottom was thicker to prevent the dumpling from breaking in the steamer, and always ended up with stuffing stuck to my hands, and spreading to the whole work surface. They were also taking much more space in said steamer and cooking enough to feed us all became time consuming. Considering we eat these often enough, I am all for simplifying the process as much as possible. Because this is the part that is really the trickiest with dumplings. The stuffing is easy to pull and you can pretty much put whatever you want in it.

In this recipe, I made plain chicken ones, but I made vegetarian one in the past, they even became an instant hit at my in-laws place last Diwali.
I can't tell you how many dumplings this recipe does really, it depends the size of said dumplings. With our little mould, it yields a LOT, enough that we usually don't make them all in one meal, I store the remaining stuffing in an airtight container for the next day.

Ingredients:

For the dough : 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour (maida)

Stuffing :

- 400g chicken keema (ground chicken)
- 2 medium large onions
- a piece of ginger the length of your thumb
- 2 tbsp corn flour (known as corn starch by many)
- a pinch of salt and a splash of soy sauce

How to:

1) in a bowl, mix the flour with enough water to make a smooth elastic dough and cover and set aside.

2) peel the onion and ginger and throw in a mixer grinder to make a paste. Then in a mixing bowl, combine the ground chicken and onion paste evenly, add the salt and soy sauce and mix. last but certainly not least, add the corn flour. This step ensure that the water in the mix is absorbed, this will prevent the dumplings from filling with juice during the cooking stage and prevent the dough from breaking apart once you remove them from the steamer...do not forget the corn flour!




3) I use the steamer basket in my rice cooker for this, but you can use a bamboo steamer, or put a sieve inside a sauce pan. What matters is that the basket does not touch the water and sits high enough above it.

If you are using a plastic or metallic steamer, lightly spray it or brush it with oil first, to ensure the dumpling won't stick to the bottom.

Start making your dumplings. Take small balls of dough and roll them down to a disk shape on a floured surface. At this point, I am giving you the mould technique, because that is the easiest. Place the disk of dough on the mould, and add enough stuffing to fill the center. Fold and press hard to seal the dumpling. Remove the excess dough and repeat. Place each dumpling in the steamer's basket.

4) place the steamer basket into a pan that contains a little boiling water at the bottom and steam for about 4-5 minutes.


Enjoy them hot, with some soy sauce on the side. It goes well with a salad or some steamed veggies.

I sometimes add green peas to the chicken stuffing, or grated carrots, you can really adjust the base chicken stuffing to your taste, the only thing to mind is the water content in the stuffing, so if you feel yours is a bit runny or you see any water in it before cooking, add a little more corn flour.

This picture was taken in May 2010 (16th to be exact). I fished it out of the SD card in the digital SLR after I decided to use it more often, and instantly remembered how we came to take that very picture.

It was while we were still living in our old rooftop terrace apartment in Bangalore. DH had given his one month notice to his previous company, and we knew we were Navi Mumbai bound. We were making our peace with the fact we were leaving Bangalore, and the flat we loved to turn a new chapter in our life.

May in Bangalore sees more and more Summer storms, promising the arrival of the monsoon and much cooler days to come for the remaining of the year. These storms usually develop very quickly and hit with a lot of violence. That one in particular did show as a dark mass of clouds in the distance, that moved toward us at a sudden fast pace. Like in movies, you could see the swirls of clouds growing and moving like greedy hands toward you.
DH only had the time to run inside to grab the camera hoping to catch the creepy mass of cloud opening like a vortex of doom. Alas when he came back out seconds later the mass had exploded into an all dark sky already, and the wind started howling and threatening to flatten a few trees. Minutes later it was thundering, then pouring down. And as quick as the storm came, it left.

We loved watching these storms, the light show alone is usually worth it. And I remember we talked about how we would miss these in our new life in Mumbai. And I do still miss them...years later. How can you not just stop what you are doing to gaze at such a sky? This storm in the picture occurred around noon, our terrace was South facing, the sky turned from bright and sunny to almost night like in minutes. How can you not be humbled by such a fierce display by Mother Nature?

I am glad this picture survived all our computer crashes over the past few years and lived on the SD card instead. It was one good memory to stumble upon in an unexpected way.