Mmm. Food. 100.

What started as a shameless display of gluttony, has spiralled way out of control.

There are now ONE hundred posts on this nano-to-the-nano-fraction (femto/pico or way more negative powers of ten whose nomenclature has long escaped my sieve-like memory) of web space.

Honestly, I ought to have been stopped 98 posts back. But there was so much ego-inflating love that I could not, in all conscience, stop posting badly-composed/lit photos of edible deliciousness.

And I do mean it. Unless it's been declared delicious by three unrelated parties on two different occasions, I wouldn't deign to feature it on the blog. Along this journey, I've learned to make my own ricotta and mascarpone successfully and cream-cheese not very successfully.

I've baked a few cakes. I've pretended to be healthy. I've tried developing substitutes. I've around 100 synonyms for "delicious" in my vocabulary.

It is NOT easy. In retrospect, I wouldn't have attempted this if had I known how much time and effort it would take. Medicine is an excessively demanding profession (blood, sweat, tears and happiness. Oh, and time). I've had to forgo an extra hour of sleep or reruns of The Simpsons, in order to make this work.

So why do I do it, right?

I look forward to it, almost as much as I do for the 31st of 31-days-containing months. If I look forward to something as much as I do for Mint-chocolate-chip ice cream at 31% off, then something must be working out, no?

For the hundredth post, I couldn't decide which recipe to actually post.. did not have any spectacular triple-layer cakes or ten-hour pasta sauce recipes to post.

Instead, you get to see the making of the blog; a few photographs taken over the last year and a half.

One of the first "fancy" photographs ever taken for the blog: a decidedly unfancy midnight snack. Dark chocolate yogurt with granola. All homemade.

Quite possibly the best thing I've eaten this year decade. The mother of all birthday cakes. Dark chocolate hazelnut ganache heaven. MMM.

In all honesty, this is what my meals usually are like. If I'm craving Nutella crepes, but feel too lazy to invest all the time and labour: Panini press to the rescue!

Very rarely, food is just the background score for the bigger picture.



You know you're a food blogger/vegan/banana bread addict when you specifically ask the fruit-vendor for "overripe" bananas. You also draw glares when you photograph an Idli twenty times at Ratna cafe.

To the CFO of the blog. You've known him in local blog parlance as the W. Who is responsible for this blog's existence and now orders better food than I do. Thanks for never batting an eyelash when I order a dish that costs 800 bucks and thanks for pretending to enjoy the soggy sandwiches I brought to college.



This blog reminds me of my nephew, Zaad, who has grown up being the guinea pig for the dishes you've seen... he's very honest, even if not quite vocal yet. If he spits it out: BAD food. If he asks for more: GOOD food. It's that simple.

There are many recipes which did not make it past the chopping block. These Mocha pops, for example. Freezing coffee does not make ice cream. Your brain will believe the lie only if you look at a photo of yourself in your "shrinking" skinny jeans whilst you eat.



Not that all healthy recipes suck. My search for diabetic desserts (Dad has a major sweet tooth, funny little thing called genetics passed it down) sometimes proves fruitful... in the form of Wholewheat Orange Ricotta Scones. YUM.

The main reason for the borderline obssession with cooking. I love feeding people; the purpose of my life is six-parts feeder, two-parts healer and two parts eater.

Nigbe and Mum.



I especially love feeding people when paid in bundt-cake tins, Chex Mix and Papaya Body scrubs.

Sarbs/Dumbasssaf and Masterchef Machi.

Sumi's first S'more, thanks to one of Spica's food-parcels!



This blog has also emboldened me to eat butter (after a long stint with pre-anorexia), make mousse and attempt food at a Dhaba midway between Srinagar and Gulmarg. Best cup of kahwa and Pakora this side of the Milky way.

Another one of the main reasons I'd never stop blogging. The publicity! Confirmed narcissist, I am.

For all my relatives who now show me up by making my own signature recipes better than me. Thank you. For all my friends who've publicised the blog more than a paid PR person; thank you. For all the lab animals, who lie blatantly that whatever I make is delicious(even the Vegan desserts). Thank you.



While I'm on this thanking spree; Thanks to all the lovely blogs out there, who have inspired me. Thanks for those who have shamelessly plugged the blog. Thanks for visiting from Latvia/UAE/Texas (thanks, A!)/Azerbaijan, when there a bazillion other better food-blogs in the food-blogosphere. And especially, thanks to the people, who thought I was a Masterchef even when I was 12, had no clue about brown butter (!) and could only make brownies from a box (I have no photos of you posing with baked goods taken this past year).

This one is for you.