Wanderberry Tales

The first segment of our travelogue -  Italy-cised Moving onto our second segment! Rome is an architectural amass of several eras. Few still standing tall and proud and the rest bowing to time. This architectural extravaganza can be thoroughly enjoyed on foot - we know it because that is what we did. (Mainly because we didn’t know where to flag down a taxi or which bus to take) We stayed at an Airbnb accommodation which is 20 minutes by foot from St Peters Basilica. On suggestion of our Airbnb host, we decided to take a bus to Piazza Venezia and begin our adventure there. This is the only time we used a vehicle for our transportation in our two day stay at Rome!  Piazza Venezia is located at the heart of Rome and leads to the most talked of monument in Rome - the Colosseum. Altare della Patria The monument of Altare della Patria Located on the right of the Piazza is Altare della Patria which hosts a museum and the tomb of the unknown soldie...

Mangoes always brings fond memories of summer vacations. After breakfast, we gather around in the backyard of my mother's house where grandmother had ready for us the mangoes. We called the bigger slices mettha (malayalam for mattress) and the smaller slices talayana (malayalam for pillow). Back home in Udupi, summers began with us racing out to drive away the monkeys from taste testing the mangoes on our tree! The monkeys are ever present around the house during summers jumping from roof to tree and the dogs run under the tree hoping to catch hold of one monkey ( if only one would fall) . The monkeys are very choosy, hard to please group! They taste test several mangoes and drop them to the ground with just a single bite. Obviously that renders the mango ill suited for consumption and leaves a broken hearted mom and two children staring at the useless mangoes underneath the tree. If not consuming the mango as is the other popular use of mango were the milkshakes we made in the e...

We first ordered Kozhi Nirachathu at a popular restaurant in the UAE. We ended up with a butterflied chicken in a spicy masala along with a side of egg roast which absolutely did not complement each other that too at an exorbitant price! After almost a year we got to taste this dish again at another restaurant. This time the egg roast stuffed inside the chicken and the chicken was deep fried - it tasted heavenly.  I was skeptical of getting a whole chicken deep fried until I read up a few recipes and saw a couple of videos. Yes, you can actually cook a whole chicken on stove top without deep frying it! It is not all that time consuming either. Kozhi Nirachathu or stuffed chicken with gravy is a dish from Kerala that involves cooking a whole chicken with gravy and egg roast stuffed in the cavity.  Egg roast is made separately and stuffed into the marinated whole chicken before cooking the chicken in the gravy. When you want a whole chicken on table and you do not ha...

With the MENA cooking club giving a free reign to cook something traditional to any of the MENA countries, the ball was completely in our court this month! I kept mulling on it for a few days and then my husband decided to ask one of his Egyptian friend from office - he gave us a list of popular items that included Kousa mahshi, Cabbage mahshi, Koshari and Hamam Mahshi which were popular during Ramadan. The same friend had once suggested a restaurant to try out the Egyptian cuisine. We had feasted on Koshari, Fattayer and kebabs that day. So when this came about, we only thought it was fitting to try out Koshari - an Egyptian dish; as traditional as it can get! Koshari is a popular Egyptian folk food and a look at the dish will definitely reveal the way it has come. Koshari comprises of lentils, rice, pasta, chickpea, crispy fried onions and a tomato based sauce. The influence of rice and lentils is believed to be from Indian cuisine. The pasta and the sauce reflect Italian in...

I always knew of Ramadan but it is only after moving to UAE, I realised how religiously it is observed and what iftar and suhoor mean! The world of blogging introduced me to a lot of Malabar snacks mostly fried but really mouth watering. I tend to stay away from deep fried stuff, primarily because I have pimples popping on my face as soon as I relish on anything fried. Since it is shorter office timings during Ramadan, my husband one day happened to come home with some snacks that he picked up from the local Kerala cafeteria for our evening tea together (that is a rarity too - happens only during Ramadan). It was all deep fried stuff and I could not resist it - pakoda, samosa, irachi petti, chatti pathiri, mulagu bajji, ulli vada. It was all there. I waited for two days after we had this - Yay! No pimples and that made my resolution to prepare a fried malabar snack stronger. That is how I ended up making irachi petti with the minced meat I had in the fridge. Irachi means meat and pe...

India is in the middle of a beef debate and this post is in no way a protest against the ban. I just happened to make beef curry exactly on the day beef ban was declared in India. Yet, if the government of my country decides to ban beef I am liable to obey it, if it were only for the right reasons! Doesn't my country have so many other pressing issues that need attention? Hinduism reveres cows, but doesn't Hinduism and every other religion hold human beings in high value? Aren't Goddess' also worshiped? Then why on earth aren't women in our society held in high regard? Sexual harassment cases are on an unprecedented high and the culprits walk free or are meted with special treatment in jail. But it is ok to take law in hands when someone decides to transport cow? Even if it was not for slaughter? Don't we women deserve a bit more respect in the society and severe actions taken against those who wrong us? Despite all this, fear of punishment will hold us bac...