Anuradha Sridharan

  It was a cloudy afternoon, with swishing winds and a brief drizzle. I was hoping my 3.5 year old daughter would take her afternoon nap but as always, she had other plans - asking "I want to eat something" for atleast 10 times (though she had a late lunch), telling me "don't be so tired, amma" when I tried to act sleepy and finally declaring "I don't want to sleep" in a strict tone. Around the same time when the negotiations were happening between us, our two visiting cats (they adopted us) were peacefully napping in opposite corners of the house.   It felt so peaceful, to just take a few seconds to observe and admire them. Unperturbed by the noises of a toddler, without any worries or concerns, they were at peace - stretching and cuddling with their paws and taking a perfect siesta. I'm grateful to have experienced more such peaceful afternoons with them in the last 4 years - bright sunshine gently peeking into my living room, qu...

With the food habits of urban, young Indians having turned into a sad state like this - "readymade cereal for breakfast, subway sandwich for lunch and burger/pizza for dinner", this book comes as a wake-up call to all of us to appreciate the vast number of cuisines of India. I have watched many of his TV shows in FoodFood channel and I have found Chef Saransh to be a simple, down-to-earth person - be it his recipes or his friendly demeanor. His book "India on a platter" takes the reader on a journey to the depths and breadths of India, exploring different states, cultures, traditions and most importantly, the cuisines. The book takes you on a journey to Ladakh, Jaipur, Kutch, Goa, Munnar, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Guwahati and many more. More than just a breezy travelogue, the book also dwells into the intricacies and differences in food habits, preparation methods, spices and cooking practices of these cuisines. The thought of such a dream journey to travel a...

“We have so much, too much, that we can buy, yet the basic labor of doing, the making with our own hands, is what enlivens us and makes us feel human." - Dan Lepard I came across this quote in one of the food blogs and it inspired me to write this post. Ever since I started to consciously incorporate healthy eating as a habit, I have been focusing on eliminating various processed/packaged foods from my shopping trips and ensuring I address most of my cooking requirements from scratch. Over the years, this do-it-yourself (DIY) practice has become a habit now and it doesn't take too much of my time as I had initially thought.  Little bit of planning is all that is needed. (1) Pasta sauce I just counted the number of readymade pasta sauce bottles I had purchased over a period of 2 years. There are 14 of them, each used to cost around Rs.350 and a bottle would last for 2 weeknight pasta dinners. Apart from the cost factor, the taste feels artificial. You can't expect m...

It's strange that I haven't written much about one of my core guiding values of my life - "minimalistic living" . Though I have been practicing many of the principles throughout my life, I never consciously thought about a minimalistic lifestyle or tried to improve upon it until a few years back. Now that I see the need and importance of such a lifestyle in today's world that promotes consumerism, let me share my thoughts around how I go about adopting minimalism across various aspects of life. Yesterday evening, my daughter wanted us to take her to a mall nearby. I hate visiting malls, especially on weekends and tried to divert her attention through many ways, even by tempting her with some ice-cream. Nope, that didn't work. She was persistent that we go to the mall. As we entered the mall, I noticed shopping carts with loads of bags (more plastic….sigh!). As we reached the first floor, I noticed there was a flea market happening. There were stalls with peop...

Most of my chutney recipes are standard - either picked up from a recipe book, blog or a youtube video. But the one I'm sharing today is something I "discovered" through an experiment :-) A few months back, I had been to Grand Sweets, Adyar and ordered a plate of kuzhipaniyarams. The chutney that was served was a pale green-cum-orange colored one, spicy, tangy and tasted yum. While coming out of the shop, I asked the lady who was making hot paniyarams off the pan "What's this chutney?". She curtly replied, "pudina chutney". If she was a little more friendly, I would have probed her for the recipe but she sounded busy and in no mood for a conversation. After this incident, I wanted to recreate the same chutney at home for dinner one night. I didn't have mint leaves but I had a big bunch of fresh coriander leaves in the fridge. I tried this new chutney recipe and it was an instant hit. My husband loved it and so did I. It tasted almost close to ...

I have written travelogues for all the trips that I have ever taken since I started this blog. For some reason, the Ooty trip of last year got missed out. Being a stickler for finishing projects, this has been in my to-do list for a while. What better time than now to reflect about this trip! It all started with a casual conversation with my dad when he was visiting me in May last year. He casually mentioned that it's been 19 years since he had visited Ooty. When I was a kid, my dad used to frequently take us to Ooty during summer holidays. I might have done atleast 5 trips with him earlier. So I started planning the trip with my husband, booked a hotel and packed. The night before our trip, I had a spark to check if I could book the tickets for the Ooty heritage train in advance. I quickly looked up IRCTC and was pleasantly surprised that you can reserve tickets for the "kutti" train. I booked a trip from Ooty to Coonoor and was very excited about the train journey more...