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I live in Delhi, the pampered capital of India. I have too many interests and not enough time! I love cooking, knitting, embroidery (haven’t done this in the longest time), watching TV, reading, and also my professional work (working and teaching in the design field). I also manage the usual roles (wife, mother, sister, daughter) reasonably well…naturally, I am not on top all the time. I do the best I can…I feel strongly about equal opportunities for all. I think the little choices we make at personal levels are very important, and can make this world a better place. I am passionate about the environment and look carefully at ‘consumption’ and waste issues. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. I practice it.
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Hi Anita,
Nice to meet person with like interest as ours. I love crochet, sewing,embroidery etc.It is a pleasant surprise taht both of us have selected the same wordpress theme.Cheers.
Hi Lakshmiammal. The Internet and the other phenomenon that it has spawned are a great way to find new friends who share your interests. New age, new ways!
Your blog is truly impressive - the combination of passionate commentary and beloved cooking is beguiling.
I live in South Africa (a retired actor/writer/theatre director)and have always been fascinated by both the food and the life of your ancient country.
Thank you.
Thank you, Tjaart! There is so much in this country and the world to be passionate about; a life-time is not enough! Thanks for reading.
Hi Anita!
although, honestly, I take it whenever I get any! I am also a Lewis Carrol fan…and your blog-name caught my eye…”Twas brillig and the slithy toves/Did gyre and gimble in the wabe/ All mimsy were the borogoves/ And the mome raths outgrabe…”
You have a beautiful space…not only your kitchen with its touches of handiwork(btw i like your pottery pieces and i LOVE your windows!), but also the atmosphere you have created in your blog-space. I read all the way through “The Spider and the Fly”…I’ll be certain to watch for false flattery now
I’ll be sure to stop by now and then and see what you’re cooking…I had a great time reading on this visit. Thanks!
Hey there, Pelicano! Thanks for stopping, and would love to hear from a fellow-Carroll fan now and then. And, yes, taking a little flattery never hurt anyone, it can be quite uplifting (such as right now!)
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: According to Penn & Teller on their Showtime TV show “Bullshit”, recycling is just that, at least in the USA. Turns out, recycling is subsidized by the government, and creates low-paying lousy jobs for people who sort through the trash. Whereas in Delhi (where I grew up) it was common to go to the trash guy every few months and drop off your old newspapers, glass bottles, tins et al and get some good coin for it, in the US there really is no economic incentive to recycle. Turns out, it is economically self-sustaining to create landfills, make a lovely park over them, when they fill up, and to boot, extract the methane that’s created by fermentation to drive the whole enterprise. Ah, but it doesn’t feel quite as good as spending your valuable time sorting through your disposables and leaving them on the curbside for pickup.
In India, as in many other developing economies, many people earn their living thru recycling. Even if I throw all my plastic and glass in the trash, my trash collector guy separates it the moment I hand it to him. There is money to be made. But in a country like US, where new things are cheap (even free sometimes) there is no felt need extend the life of a product. Such economies need to first address their consumption. An American uses as much energy as 10 (or is it more) Indians! Recycling is the last issue - first we need to look at how much we need, and how much of it we can reuse.
In India, we rarely buy jars for storing/canning - there are always enough from the products we buy. Very recently I found a blogger write about finding and using jars she had bought years ago. She was glad she didn’t rush to the store for new ones! So was I!
PS: Global per capita energy consumption figures here. Turns out US per capita energy consumption is 26 times that of India!
Hi Anita,
we grow vegetables in summer, compost our organic waste, buy local, buy bulk to cut packaging junk, but, it is truly never enough…
thanks for stopping by, and am glad i could follow back and discover a kindred spirit; i love to sew, crochet, cook as well, among other things
your kitchen photos are nice, sun streaming in, well-organized… mine’s not messy per se, but could use a lot of face-lift
Hello Anita
Lovely site, really warm and uplifting. I always dream of having more time to cook, I used to have some but for now, I only enjoy the delicous gifts from my favortie resataurants and chefs in the city.
One question as I see you are a fellow designer. I’m working on a design for a Labneh cheese packaging and my client refers to it as a Greek cheese, while in most of the web is refer to as a Lebanese one. I got a little confused as you refer to it as chakka or like chakka which would be an indi variety if am not wrong…
Will you clear for me this doubt, thank you very much?
ALmost forgot to praise yoour beautiful photos, styling and your comittment to RRR, live long Mother Nature.
Ricardo
What’s in a name? Chakka by another name is Labneh, which might appear in Greek cuisine as well - with another name!
Hi Anita,
Thank you for the authentic goda masala recipe. I was looking for one. One of our maharastrain friend gave some like two years ago, it looked excatly like yours. Thanks again.
You are welcome, Ruchii!
Hi Anita,
You have a very impressive space out here. I read your post card series on Bee’s and it was very interesting.
Srivalli
http://www.cooking4allseasons.blogspot.com
Thank you, Srivalli!
Hi Anita,
Stumbled upon your blog accidentally while googling for Wholewheat bread recipes. Wow! what an attitude gal. Love all your recipes, especially , the bottlegourd yakhni and the bread with the potatoes sneaked in. I also have my own blog zaayka.blogspot.com. I live in US, also a big vegetarian foodie. Will be regularly visiting your blog.
Pintoo
I love your philosophy of reduce, reuse, recycle. I practice this as well, or at least I try to. Love your blog.
Hi anita
a nice website and wonderfully done. I like your way of presenation. Am living in Botswana with roots in India. I am new to the blog world and am a beginner on sugarcraft, so would like you to just pass by my site and critique me on my site and my works.
Hi Anita - I am a high school classmate of Barbara Lamar, your sister’s mother-in-law. She wrote about the recent wedding and I found her photo in your big, fat Greek wedding album. I am in the midst of renovating an old house and have been without a kitchen for three weeks. Hope to try out some of your creations when it is possible for me to actually cook food again (as opposed to reheating in a microwave). Love to cook and miss it. My (deceased)father,too, loved Lewis Carroll. He would often read passages to us at the dinner table when the meal was over.I remember when he read The walrus and The Carpenter, and the line “it is time to talk of many things, of cabbages and kings, …and now it is time to dine”. I would interrupt my father at that point when the oysters cried, me squealing out “but not on us, but not on us”! I like sewing, embroidery, calligraphy and now am into pottery. But I am also “outdoorsey” - gardening & running (5K).Have taken up Bridge and do volunteer work at church & in the community.I am widow, mother & grandmother.May I comment on a few issues mentioned in your blog. Re canning:I do BUY jars to do canning. They have special two piece lids that serve to create a vacuum and well-threaded caps to insure a good seal to prevent spoilage. Regular jars do not seal as well and invite food poisoning. After several boilings to sterilize the jars & lids, the rubber strip deteriorates. I only replace the small flat lids, not the screw part of the lid and not the jars.And Re recycling: in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where my sister lives, there is a landfill mound of garbage that has been covered with a playground for the past 20 years. Finally, it was considered dormant and safe and was leveled. Now, a low income housing development is being built with plenty of green space. We have several charities that pick up old clothes and household goods and they distribute them to the poor. Recyclable products are used to make marketable things, creating a new business with new job opportunities. Incidentally, our garbage is about 75% leftover construction materials & newspapers, not baby diapers and food.Isn’t it interesting how different cultures operate? And now we have the internet to share our ideas. Maybe someday I’ll get to India. Have read about your country & seen it in films. We elected a new governor last Saturday -Bobby Jindal. He came here as an infant. I expect BIG things from him. He’s 36, very smart, honest and capable of leading us forward from the aftereffects of hurricanr Katrina. God bless you. Fe
Hi, Fe - it is wonderful to hear from you. You are obviously a very aware inhabitant of this planet (what else can be expected from a friend of Barbara’s!
)…the example of the ‘jars’ was more to talk about our tendency to hoard (the consumption issue)…and you do re-use the parts that can be!
Presently, the exploding Indian middle class, is blindly copying the western lifestyle without necessarily being as aware - again, I am generalizing from neighbours and own family, people who are ‘educated’ yet do not actively think about ‘green’ concerns - most of our recycling efforts are by default. If we can afford to be wasteful, we are. It is rare to see the middle class use cloth diapers these days…so that land fill is piling high. Very quickly too, given our overpopulated cities.
I, too, am in the middle of a house extension where we are making deliberate choices about what paints to choose, and how to render the wood…hard choices sometimes when the immediate costs are high…if only there was a price tag to the air we breathe and the water we contaminate…
We read about Bobby Jindal in the papers - any time someone of Indian origin achieves something in the US, it is splashed over all our papers - reflected glory! Sunita Williams too was all over the media. Though I probably wouldn’t have voted for him, I too hope he delivers for you…
Hope to see more of you, Fe, once you are back in your refurbished kitchen! Thanks for reading.
Hi Anita,
I thoroughly enjoyed all the brief details that go into each post. esp. the Goda Masala. I am East Indian from Vasai born & brought up there, now live & work in Muscat, and holiday in Pune so Goda Masala brought back fragrant memories each time I visit home, so did the Puri bhaji brief (which we miss out here esp. kardi and amba). Try to recreate all the foodies we love for my kids & folks out here. Do you have a subsrcibe to this post, each time you post a new one for me to catch up on if u have such a service. Tks - a very good site.
Carol
Welcome to The Party, Carol! Thanks for reading. Let me see about the subscription…
hi,very happy to readabout yourself,your blog and the resonse of the people and your response to people.wonderfuul to know many people share the same taste, hobbies and concerns.i am living in bahrain.Till threeyeaars back i was verymuch ahousewife.noww iam trying to be a partime working woman wwith some success.i love painting, music,movies books fashion and other things.glad to know abot this blog good.bhuvana
Hi Anita,
I love to read about your new discoveries. Every visit to your site and look at the beautiful pictures makes me hungry and wishing for some spicy food.
Anita, I am just possessive never plural. I’ve never met plural so I don’t know what it is. Always possessive.
Your UOAC pal
Hey pal, how are ya?
You mean, OUAC?
hello anitha,
i frequent ur site daily for the past few weeks.i came to know only recently u know.and i am sure i am already addicted to ur site.i should say ,i am fascinated and i wonder how u find time for so many things i mean cooking,knitting & also professional work.i left my job long ago and now i am a loving mother of 2,and still i do not find much time for my hobbies.
good work, keep it up
thanks
Welcome to the Party, Srividya! Wait till your kids are older - you’ll then be able to make time for yourself, you must! I am glad you find the time to visit here!
I stumbled across your site looking for a simple potato curry recipe…I am looking forward to discovering more on your site (having read some of the comments preceding this one)…I was once engaged to a gentleman of East Indian descent (he is from Trinidad) and recently borrowed from my local library a book by Madhur Jaffrey…I am fascinated by the Indian diaspora outlined in the opening pages of her book (until I met my ex, I had no idea Indians lived in Trinidad…I thought it consisted, mainly, of African descendants and those of European ancestry…). I am trying to reproduce for myself some of the flavors I have grown to love…but sometimes am frustrated at finding ingredients (I live in Western Pennsylvania, USA) or not having time to perfect things…I have also enjoyed the two books by Maya Kaimal…thank you so much for being gracious enough to share something so wonderful with the rest of us (who appreciate your culture and food).
Selina, a warm welcome to you here. Madhur Jaffery is an excellent choice - her recipes turn out great every time for me, and she has a wonderful style of writing as well that will inform you on other related stuff.
Look for Asian markets near where you are; you should be able to find most of the ingredients you need there.
Wow Anita! I live in Mumbai. I was just going through your blog. It’s really something! The photographs and everything! Do you write cook books as well? If you don’t I really think u shud. Your presentation, everything is just fabulous! I read ur posts abt the cream cheese with sundried tomatoes and the Sweet Pulao. I would love if you could give something on cheese cakes. I really want to learn how to make them esp coz u don’t get cream cheese in India. Keep up the gr8 work!
)
Cheerio!
Thank you, Khushbu! I have a (very learned) friend who tells me that writing the cook book is the easy part - the difficult (and very important) part is to find a publisher to back you and market you! (You have any publisher friends?
I have been meaning to make myself a cheese cake all these years now. Hopefully, I will get to it one day. But don’t wait for me - now you know what to do about the cream cheese!
Hi Anita,
The first time I came across your blog, I flagged it and thought of writing to you but couldn’t. Till I saw it again today. I love the pictures you take and the way you express yourself with regards to food. Maybe one day I’ll send you my secret recipies. He He.
Cheers
“sudsurf”
Sudsurf, I am so happy you found A Mad Tea Party again. And thank you for writing these encouraging words.
But you can’t dangle ’secret’ recipes and then laugh it off?!
I will be looking out for them…
Hi, I just love your website. For the food ofcourse, but also for the wonderful things you write. Keep posting.
Thanks for reading and the kind words, Rekha!
You have a wonderful website! I can’t wait to try some of your recipes. And I love the stories along the way. India is a beautiful country! I really can’t wait until I can visit.
I hope you have a great visit whenever you do come.
Do let me know if you try out any of the recipes here.
Namaste! I found your site searching for tea. I love all types of Indian tea — Assam, Darjeeling (my favorite), and Nilgiri. Recently I even found some tea that is being sold in New York City as “Kashmiri Green Tea.” I love it!
Badme me lenge,
Nick Gray
Namaste, Nick! A warm welcome to the Tea Party! You will find the traditional Kahva (Kashmiri Green Tea) recipe here!
Hi Anita,
I came across your site when I did a search on “kachri”- lo and behold I even saw the pictures on your site!!! What a pleasant surprise that was…
I am originally from Delhi (green park) but now residing in Southern California. I like to think of myself as a foodie and love to embroider, sew, knit, cook (of course) and entertain my friends and family on a regular basis. I also enjoy designing cards, gift cards and jewelry. I work as a web designer and developer.
After having my son I am finding less time for all my other muses, but feel this penchant to cook dishes I ate in Delhi (as authentic as possible) for him to grow up on and thus was looking for the kachri posts. I am heartened to know that they can be grown out of seeds and specially in the climate I am living in.
Thanks so much for this lovely website - it has such a homely feel and the pix are soooo appetizing!!! (How do I get to see your kitchen photos???) .
Please do keep up the good work- I will be visiting you often.
Take care,
Manisha.
Thanks for reading, Manisha. Hope to see more of you here.
I hope you find kachri seeds for your garden!
Hi Anita
Just visited ur blog a great one and I’ll be a frequent visitor from now on.Reading ur profile,looks like both of us have similar views.Nice to know about you
Hi Anita,
I chanced upon your website, thru the various blogs I visit and I must say that the entire package is wonderful.
I love the recipes you have listed here and also the stories that go with it. Awesome! Keep up the good work!
Hi Anita, this is my 1st visit to ur blog and my 1st comment. I came across ur blog while i was searching for a recipe in my friend’s blog. I had read ur blog title “A mad tea party” many times, but i never got a chance to visit ur blog. you have developed ur blog very well. i love ur blog and im adding it to my favourite blogs list. Do visit my blog.
Tried the recipe for the Cabbage Pakoras
They came out awesome ! I wanted to give my wife a break from the kitchen ….was pretty successfull…hope she doesnt make it a habit 
Thank you !
Hello Anita,
This is a lovely and enjoyable blog. I wounder, are there any new types of rotis/chapatis in New Dehli? I love these and am looking to try new ones.
Best wishes.
Vijay Amin
London
Love your pictures and the layout…very artistic and the read…great to cuddle up with (no longer possible in the computer age) on a rainy day like today.
regards
Manoshi
Hi Anita,
I luv ur Aloo-gobi sabji. I am going to try it soon. I had also made Punjabi Kadi frm ur blog. it was just tangy and awesome…!!!
Thanks Anita.
Keep it up.
Sonu