Wanderberry Tales

The long weekend has heralded a hopefully long winter in Dubai. The winds are chilly and my hands are invariably reaching out to the woolens. The sky is clear and occasional clouds pass by as I look up and pray that at least one would sprinkle showers as they go by. I have not been that lucky yet! It is that time of the year when we reach out to those soothing hot drinks and soups. Yet the crazy part in each of us would want to grab hold of an ice cream or something chilled. ( although the angel in your head would speak of possibilities of falling sick - the devil in you doesn't care) The call for making a cheesecake has been there since the last mango season. The season passed by and no cheesecake was made. While discussing the menu for Christmas, Shibin was quick to suggest a cheesecake and since mango is not in season now, I was left pondering on the flavor. I was quickly taken back to one of the episodes of Dhe Chef - a Malayalam channel cooking reality show where one of ...

Seems like we are past the peak of the summers.The weather still varies between hot/ dry and hot/humid and I hate the later of the two. Such days requires an extra boost of energy to keep you pumped up. On one such day, we walked into a café – Papa Roti and the Passion Fruit Iced Tea was the much needed refreshing punch we got. Ever since, I have wanted to try this at home. The only Iced Tea I had tried earlier was the one marketed by Lipton and I stopped having it the moment I learnt about the sugar content that goes into it. Orange and Lemon with a dash of mint seemed to be the perfect combo for the refreshing Iced Tea and there it was decided. So here is my recipe for the summers. Ingredients ( Serves – 4) Water – 3 and ½ cups Tea bags/ tea leaves – 3 bags/ 3 tsp Fresh mint leaves – a handful Orange Juice – ½ cup Lemon juice – 2 tbsp Honey/Sugar – 6 tbsp/ 3 tbsp Ice cubes Method: Boil 3 cups of water and add the tea bag or tea leaves. Set aside covered ...

I can imagine the reaction of most of you when you hear the name of this cooler. I was witness to a similar reaction from my husband and cousin. I never attempted this cooler before although I was fully aware that something like this did exist. This one is very refreshing and provides the cooling effect you need most in the scorching Dubai summers.  My love affair with this cooler dates back to my camping days in college. We had a mandatory 10 days camp every year where the first half of the day was spent in Sramadan - were we dug up and leveled grounds or dug up drainage around the local school areas. We started off at sunrise breaking for breakfast once and then again for juice at 11 am before we winding up at 1:00 pm. One amongst the hot favorite for the juice break was definitely the green gram cooler - which gave us much needed energy and enthusiasm to work harder. In the ancient times, it was made using the traditional stone mortar and pestle, adding ingredient ...