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Foodie Books that all foodies MUST own!

October 10, 2012 by manjirichitnis 2 Comments

I am a voracious consumer for all things crime,food and books in general.I left behind many beautiful, old hand me down recipe book with traditional Indian recipes given to me by my mother and one very old tattered book with its pages falling apart ….given by my late grandmother to my mother… I felt heavy-hearted doing that… but little did I know that I would soon have my own little collection here in London.

My tiny flat is now crammed with more books than it can hold and MOST of them being recipe books, any surprises here ? Guess not!

On the day I landed my new PR job I had some time to kill after my interview and I wandered around Angel station and hadddd to go and check out Waterstone’s…. they had this curiously different book called The Vintage Tea Party by a beautiful lady by the name ”Angel” That’s right she is an Angel from Angel,London and her book is a quirky collection of all things Vintage,English and Tea Party like. Of course I had to then start trying out her irresistibly different recipes, the next blog post is also based on a recipe from her book.I love her vintage hair do and bright auburn orange hair rolled into a neat bun- not be missed her picture in this book with her holding Chicken and Bacon rolls near her hair , gawd that’s one awesome pic! Incidentally I started writing this blog article before I went to the FBC’12 where someone shared that she has now got another book in print, ummm , my christmas gift to self (amongst many others 😉 !!! I was so engrossed reading this book  almost forgot to get off the train that day, so enchanting is her way of writing,trust me it’s not just recipes!

P aunty who features in my blog post about the Angel market incidentally started off my recipe book collection with some old but amazing hand me down recipe books, If I haven’t mentioned this before she is a cook par excellence’ and she has passed on those genes to her 2 children who can rustle up some mean dishes themselves ! It was at their London pad that I first laid eyes on one of Jamie Oliver’s cookbook’s , I love his carefree banter on his tv shows and his passion for cooking with basic ingredients and turning them into something totally magical!Since then I had been craving to get myself some cookbooks by Jamie.

Last Christmas, W.H.Smith had some offers on books and I gave into the temptation of buying one of Jamie’s recipe books called -Jamie Does …Spain,Italy,Morocco,Greece,Sweden and France- this book has some stunning photographs by David Loftus,and of course Jamie Looks totally DROOL WORTHY   and a book on Chinese cooking called – Ching’s Fast Food by Ching-He Huang.I have a MAD CRUSH on Jamie Oliver and can watch his 30 Minute meal deal shows over and over again! I have a total LOL moment memory associated with watching one such episode on a lazy autumn afternoon with my mum who was visiting us in London last year and at the start of the show as Jamie walks to his herb garden in his wellies and promptly trips over and falls, totally lol and so candid, I love how his no fuss cooking with well used pots and pans live happily in his kitchen in his beautiful Essex home! In Another episode he explains about different varieties of chillies and after cooking throws some seeds over his shoulder apparently into his neighbour’s garden and at the end of this same show his gardener pops a hot chilli into his mouth and has smoke bellowing from his ears …figuratively !

Another unusual book I posses-The Settlers Cookbook by Yashmin  Alibhai Brown – is aptly called a memoir of Love,Migration & Food- I bought her book from a quaint book store at Kensington after a stimulating visit to the Science Museum exhibition and have throughly enjoyed ”reading” her book of recipes, it is actually incorrect to refer to it as a recipe book as it is an interesting rendering of her family history via food and tradition and more so a take about immigrating and yes last but not the least LOVE. Do treat yourself to this gem and make it a part of your collection.

Below I have posted a few pictures of these gems from my bookshelf, my crammed bookshelf and of course it is followed by 2 blog posts with recipes inspired by these books.

Happy Eating,Happy Cooking and yes Happy reading as well folks!

Cheers!

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Miscellaneous Tagged With: Angel Adoree, Angel market, blogger, blogs, Chinese Food, Ching's Fast Food, Ching-He Huang, David Loftus, drink, eat, food blogs, France, Greece, Italy, Jamie Oliver, Kensington, london, Morocco, quaint, recipe books, Science Museum, Spain, Sweden, The Settlers CookBook, travel, Vintage Tea Party, W.H.Smith, Waterstones, Yashmin Alibhai Brown

Healthy Kale Smoothie

September 9, 2012 by manjirichitnis 3 Comments

Hearing of the contest for winning one of 2 free passes to the Food Blogger Connect UK 2012 sponsored by  Vitamix UK, I had to think up of some unique tasty, and healthy smoothie recipe, Lucky for me that I have sampled this smoothie created by Brian the host of London Real TV!

Vitamix is helping two lucky winners get a free ticket to FBC12 + an opportunity to feature the recipe and participate in the Vitamix Total Nutrition Centre with Chef Bev Shaffer at the FBC12 Market.

This blender can create fresh smoothies, refreshing frozen desserts, and even hot soups – it is a kitchen essential that lets you perform more than 50 tasks quicker, easier, and faster. The entries will be judged by Vitamix Chef Bev Shaffer, and the two winners will get to make their recipes with her at the FBC12 Market! Also, all five Vitamix Total Nutrition Centre machines will be given away to #FBC12 attendees during the closing ceremonies.

This is his special recipe and he drinks it every single day and is FIT as a fiddle, I say! And guess what he USES VITAMIX to make this smoothie, cool I say!

Here are the ingredients, give them a whirr in your VITAMIX and drink up folks! Thank Brian in your mind and me for sharing it!

  1.  1 Apple
  2. 1 Pear
  3. 1 Carrot
  4. Ginger
  5. A lot of Kale
  6. 1 Beetroot
  7. 1 Cucumber
  8. Natural apple juice

Am keeping my fingers crossed for winning a free  Food Blogger Connect full weekend access ticket to FBC12!

Cheers!

Visit Food Blogger Connect, connect to the event via Twitter – @BloggerConnect, Post one of the cute badges from the site to promote the conference to fellow food bloggers. Like the VitamixUK & FBC Facebook pages, announce your submission on the official VitamixUK Facebook and Food Blogger Connect Facebook pages, follow @VitamixUK, and @BloggerConnect and your tweets include all the following:  #FBC12, @VitamixUK, @BloggerConnect.

P.S: London Real TV hosted by Brian and Nick, is a weekly talk show dedicated to challenging the status quo, exploring the human experience, and exchanging ideas and perspectives with a full range of eclectic guests from Miss Universe to Members of Parliament. Check them out on YouTube, and add some zest to your week!

Filed Under: Food, Healthy, Recipe Index Tagged With: apple, blogger, carrot, conference, contest, europe, food, free, kale, original, pass, pear, recipe, smoothie, UK, Vitamix

Of movies and GREAT MOVIES

January 25, 2012 by manjirichitnis 6 Comments

Some movies have such an impact that they make you smile somewhere deep inside , they give us hope , that kind of hope that can stir up a twinkle in the eye of even the most deprived of souls …The Shawshank Redemption is one such movie.

I cannot fathom why I haven’t seen it for all these years …

It’s the kind of movie I would see with my Father , he loves watching war movies ,old westerns and the like .When he and my mother came to visit us last year we had a lovely few weeks together. He made a list of his all time favourite films all old English awesome one really …I would love to share that list will try and find the paper where he wrote it …

We would have an early dinner and then I would download the movie on my laptop using utorrent and my parents and me would crowd around my laptop and watch it only stop if I wanted a break in between I always do, movies make me hungry errr hungrier to be honest …am always hungry 😉 My mum doses off after the first 15 minutes and wakes up after a few more and asks why so and so did this and what is happening and then dose off blissfully again , though she’s one determined person I tell you , she wouldn’t quit halfway would sit through to the end with me and daddy.

Anyway, this ritual went on for about 15 days after which my Laptop crashed due to some bug and when it was done up again it was time for them to go , the weather had changed ,it was much colder than their old bones could handle so they would turn in earlier and stay home most day.

I do miss them, but I miss my dad the most when I see such movies. I almost imagined I was curled up next to him as I was seeing this movie. Will call him tomorrow and tell him about it, of course am sure he has seen it and will have some interesting movie facts to tell me, he always does.

The following lines are ingrained in my mind forever and ever – “Hope is a Good Thing,Maybe the BEST thing and Good Things NEVER Die” – Andy from The Shawshank Redemption.

It’s a movie that will stay with me for a long long time to come ,maybe some day I too shall sit down with my kids and share such moments ….hopefully 🙂

P.S: Baba’s List of Must watch movies , family favourites at ours and anytime watchs for a LIFETIME…

*Where Eagles Dare

*North By North West

*The Bridge on the River Kwai

*The Eagle has Landed

*The man who knew too much – who can forget Doris Day singing “Que Sera, Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)“

*Dial M for Murder

*Psycho

* Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance Kid

*Mackenna’s Gold

*It Happened One Night

*The 39 Steps

* Godfather 1 &2 …. Oh Marlon Brando what he did no one ever has and no one ever can these movies and books are EPIC !

* The Day of the Jackal

*Casablanca

*Rear Window…Irony was I saw this when I was in bed nursing a broken leg 😉

*Frenzy

* One Flew over the cuckoo’s nest

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Miscellaneous Tagged With: awesome, baba, best, bliss, blogger, Butch Cassidy and teh sundance kid, Casablanca, deep, Dial M for murder, die, dinner, download, doze, english, famous, father, films, Frenzy, generation, Godfather, good, hollywood, hope, It Happened one night, laptop, love, Mackenna's Gold, movies, mum, next, north by north west, old, One flew over the cuckoo's nest, person, Psycho, Rear Window, shawshank.where eagles dare, The 39 steps, the bridge on the river kwai, The day of the Jackal, the eagle has landed, the man who knew too much, top, topmost, utorrent, viewed

My 1st Post …Bombay Blues …

January 21, 2012 by manjirichitnis 5 Comments

Deja Vu? Or is it my mind playing tricks with me again ?? sighh….

It’s often times nowadays that I slip out of my body and walk the streets of the city where I was born – Bombay to me and Mumbai to many . It is generally triggered by a simple series of photos that I see on FB of someone in Bombay or some poor soul like me that “lives” abroad but “walks” around in Bombay in their head .

So where am I right now ? I am sipping on a cold watermelon juice, alone , on a bright sunny afternoon , wearing a white gunji n blue denim shorts ,my hair is cut in a blunt cut style,something of a short bob like bouncy and fun , blow dried and I am looking at the hot humid and extremely vibrant Colaba Causeway and watching the usual street stalls hawking over priced goods to unsuspecting tourists, prostitues mingle with the rest of the world and try with no success to merge into the fabric of this vivid picture . Then I am walking towards the gateway of India feeling energised after my cold beverage only to sweat it all out by the time I reach but the sight and sounds of the beautiful Arabian sea , the waves crashing against the beautiful stonework take me far far away to a happy place in my head .

I turn and I am sitting at Café Coffee Day at Bandra Bandstand the wind in my hair feels wonderfull and the light spray of salty sea water hitting my face now n then makes me feel humid yet happy . I down a glass of cold cold yummy coffee topped with some marvellous crumbled cookies and attempt to scribble some thing I feel on a tissue paper , promising myself to one day make a blog 
.

so finally when I am many miles away from my Bombay City and sitting in a tiny flat somewhere in London , when all the familiar sights and sounds have vanished do I make this blog come alive .

I do get these nostalgia attacks often times and each time I travel , if only in my head the busy yet beautiful streets of Bombay city and relive moments of my lovely life .

Oh yes and I must admit when I was in Pune , I used to get these nostalgia attacks too , especially when I was reading Shantaram . I do resent people who think that he exposed the dirty underbelly of Bombay , he merely stated life as it happened to him and his words, so beautiful , so graphic ,like I was watching a film maybe , why wouldn’t then I walk the streets of Bombay through his words ? Why not ? After all a good book does just that, doesn’t it ???

Someday I am also going to gift myself an i-pad or a tablet , I get these mad ideas when I am on a bus journey that I must write down , but they just turn into wisps of invisible threads and slip out of mind like a silent ghost 
. and leave me feeling well, sort of like a person who is reading a gripping murder mystery and just as the end is to reveal all , the door bell rings…. and in comes a painfull neighbour who has to have a cup of TEA and one sided conversation NOW !

OH YES !And, I also get huge feelings of sorrow at not being able to shop and browse through the beautiful outlets of FABINDIA whenever I browse this wondefull blog called Rang dĂ©cor, it’s a visual melange of all things India expressed in pictures and words that is simply a delight for a sore soul

So with this my dear future readers , I present to you humbly my blog , my thoughts at times totally neurotic but mine all the same .

I love attention who doesn’t ? therefore , I welcome bouquets and brickbats alike , but please desist from comments that are rude, racist ,inflammatory or else I shall give u what I call an “e-kick” and banish for evermore 🙂 serious !

I will always always attempt to give due credit if I am inspired by any material written by any blogger or photograph I use from any place – I hate anyone stealing my work and am sure those that I write from or paste from will also hate me if I don’t mention them .

My thoughts, my words , my life experiences and feelings are ALL my OWN and not borrowed , copied or lifted so therefore there is a copyright I reserve over them , ok ?

I may at times attempt to review or comment on movies , books , make up , fashion etc etc etc etc , which does not mean I get paid , if some one is MAD enough to ever do that , well I shall shout it out from the rooftop , NOT of my current rented flat inside a crumbling Victorian era building of course , why do that when London has so many TALL buildings- yes PUN intended 🙂

I also have a twitter id and am fairly technologically challenged and therefore will not be able to smarten this blog up and am under training , rather have forced myself to be trained by a rather sweet buddy of mine and my hubby’s for that matter , so if there’s any hanky panky stealing attempts , BEWARE , I shall catch u and spank ur backside with a LARGE , very large hairbrush . Humpfh !

I will use a lot of hyperlinks to better the understanding of many things I shall crib about and most times I link to Wikipedia which is an abundance of knowledge. If not the hyperlink will give due credit to the owner or writer of the information.

Phew!!!

Filed Under: Lifestyle, Miscellaneous Tagged With: 1st, admit, alivetravel, arabian, attemot, attention, bandra, bandstand, bell, beverage, beware, blog, blogger, blowing, blues, blunt, blunt cut, Bombay, buddy, causeway, Colaba, collide, copied, crashing, credit, crib, deja vu, dirty, door, due, era, FabIndia, familiar, film, flat, graphic, hear, hellow world, hubbyspank, hug, humble, i-pad, ideas, information, inspire, lifted, listen, london, mad, miles, Mumbai, my, neurotic, nostalgia, ocean, photograph, pun, Pune, read, rental, sea, search, see, Shantaram, sights, sleep, smell, smells, sounds, speak, stealing, stonework, tablet, tall, touch, twitter, vanished, Victorian, vivid, water, waves, wind, write

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