Panini. And then some.

You know how Shoppers Stop and Lifestyle Home have a section devoted to kitchen appliances? I behave like a kid set free in a candy store there. Actually, I behave like me-post-diet in a candy store there.

After much grovelling, I made Mum buy us a panini-maker (Morphy Richards). Ever since it made its appearance, the humble triangle-sandwich maker has been hibernating in the dark recesses of the store cupboard. You can grill vegetables and meat, toast bread, cook a burger patty... I don't know if the warranty will be valid after the first couple of crazy tries, but there's a tasty way to find out!

I made this panini on one of those days I had to fend for myself. And since I've got a lousy exam in ten days, I have to pretend I've mugged 100 Multiple-Choice-Questions instead of cooking up a storm. Plus, I was hungry and I needed food. Fast.

There's no set recipe as such. We've all made a version of this sandwich on that hungry day. Open your refrigerator. Find the most appealing thing there. Make a sandwich out of it. Think peanut butter, mustard, tuna, apples, eggs, anything.

My eyes fell on a can of black olives (un-pitted and un-fun). When I pulled it out, I discovered. the holy grail. A nice block of Feta cheese. Feta cheese is difficult to find. Even Nilgris, to whom I'm eternally loyal to, does not steadily retail it. And when it is, you can go home knowing that you spent 125 bucks on a small bar of cheese, but it is money well-spent.

Salty, crumbly cheese; half-a-handful spins the humble sandwich and churns out a Grilled Mediterranean Panini, one that you pay close to 200 bucks for at French Loaf.

Grilled Mediterranean Panini

Ingredients:

Bread-8 slices

1 yellow pepper, cut into strips

1 red pepper, cut into strips

1 small onion, diced

5 cloves of garlic, peeled

2 tomatoes, deseeded and chopped

Spinach- 1 cup, washed very carefully and shredded

Feta cheese- 3/4th of a cup

Olive Oil-1 tbsp

Dried Herbs (Basil, Oregano, Thyme)

Black Pepper, crushed or Chilli Flakes- to taste.

Extra ingredients of your choice- not authentic, but your palate won't complain, will it?

I add olives and jalapenos. You can add mozzarella cheese, capers, an omelette or maybe even sneak in leftover grilled chicken.

Method:

Prep the vegetables. You can substitute the peppers with zucchini or plain old capsicum if that's what you find at the grocer's. Do not use raw eggplant in a quest to get Greek-y. That needs the eggplant to be sliced thin, salted, rested, drained and pan-fried. Try keeping the proportions even though.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Celsius. Put all of the vegetables except the spinach on a foil-lined tray (Yes, I know spinach isn't a vegetable... either way, don't add it here). Toss them with the Olive Oil. Extra-virgin would be a treat. OK. I'm lying. Extra-virgin is a necessity.

You'll notice how salt isn't added here. Feta cheese is naturally very salty so a forgotten addition would lead to a Sodium OverDose. Experience is the best albeit an expensive teacher.

Throw them into the oven and let it roast away for 20 minutes. Make sure the oven setting is on Bake or Broil. You'll know when it's done; the kitchen will smell heavenly.   

When the veggies look blistered and caramelized, take them out. Chop up the garlic in it.

They don't have much of a taste right now. Stay cool.

 Add in the feta, spinach (yes, raw spinach), herbs, pepper, and the aforementioned Additions-of-your-choice. Toss it all again. Taste it. Add extra olive oil, salt (if you need it), chilli flakes (if it's not hot enough).

Place a scoop of it between two slices of bread (butter it if you're lucky enough to be able to afford to). If you're serving it to company, try ciabatta or a honey-mustard bread. I used Modern Multi-grain bread; that'll do nicely for my face for weekday brunch.

 The pre-heated panini maker would do the rest. If you don't have one, any normal griddle greased with a little olive oil would do. As long as it doesn't smell of Masala Dosa.

When it's steaming inside and gorgeously crisp on the outside, it's ready!

You can also stuff the mixture into a roti and call it a wrap. You could place it on top of sliced baguettes and stick them in the oven, and they come out as bruschetta. You can stuff it into Pita bread with Tzatziki. You can make Quesadillas, heck, even triangle-sandwiches, with them. Puristas will cry. But you'll thank me for it.

Never Trust a Skinny Anybody!

The first time I visited Sparky’s Diner was a couple of weeks after it set shop, back in 2005. And since then, I’ve been back there more times than I can remember, but the record for most visits was probably set during my internship. That final year of medical college was largely spent at the portals of the hospital (rite of passage, I called it; you’re not a good intern without a vigorous twelvemonth stint there). Any socializing, if at all, was largely limited to Sparky’s Diner.

Two simple reasons why: 1) it served hot food all day long. A rarity, that. The timings of a lowly intern are limited to non-existent. And here you find food that fills your stomach (medical students won’t sneer at that), sticks to your ribs (the un-fun part) and tastes pretty-darn-good, most of the time. 2) Bottomless iced tea and the southern-style biscuits that comes with your pasta!

The place is conveniently located on Spurtank Road and would have almost gone unnoticed due to its basement location if not for a gorgeously garish sign that yells “Never Trust a Skinny Chef” in shades of neon pink and neon green. A loud, supersized American Diner? Sign me up!

And in case you don’t believe it, three facts get ingrained into you as you walk down the steps and into the diner: 1) it is All-American. Get it? Look some more. Get it? 2) The chef (Thom Petty) ain’t skinny. He will also do anything to ensure that you won’t remain skinny, either. 3) The portions of food are big (I’m saying that). Ask for your favourite booth (this poses a problem during their Barbeque buffet Fridays) and a menu, throw away any residual guilt about the gargantuan consumption of calories and get started!

I’ve tried experimenting there (on the days I’m not on post-duty and hence not raging with hunger) and I’ve stuck to re-ordering my favourites. What I’d suggest is to keep visiting the place and experimenting until you have favourites you could fall back on.

The iced tea makes its appearance along with your friendly waiter five minutes into your arrival. Until that time, you’d keep yourself entertained checking out various American memorabilia (licence plates, baseball cards, pennants ), personalized state-wise at your table or if you don’t mind looking sidey (do people still say that?), you could crane your neck around and gawk at Louis Armstrong, an old-fashioned telephone  and a Native American chieftain occupying places of pride on Sparky’s walls.

 The iced tea is like a moody teenager: tangy and cold on some days, diluted or too sweet on others. The waiters are apologetic when you bring it to their notice and rectify it, though. The chef and his staff are pretty chatty, people complain. Fear not, you do get privacy and laid-back-ness as part of the bargain. And the restroom is usable. Two up.

I’m going to review the things I’ve eaten the most.



Didn't have a photo of the taco salad, but these South-of-the-border Nachos are pretty close!



The taco salad: Tender, well seasoned minced chicken or beef, drenched with cheese sauce and refried beans, adorned with lettuce and tomatoes and encased in a deep-fried taco shell; ranch dressing on the side. This salad isn’t going to feature on any nutritionists’ books any time soon, but it is DELICIOUS. I’ve dreamt about it. Actual, Random-Eye-Movement (REM) sleep stage dream.

Chicken Parmesan: Enough chicken to feed a family for dinner is served in this dish. And yet, I can finish it all (with the help of W). Crumb-fried Chicken breast, sitting pretty on a bed of garlic spaghetti, and drenched with marinara sauce and melted mozzarella that scalds the roof of your palate. Salad (he always asks for the honey mustard dressing) and the biscuit (which plays the role of a bread roll so you don’t miss out on the remains of the marinara) come on the side. Mama Rita’s Lasagne, Pasta Napoli are all must-tries. They are more from the house of The Sopranos/Joey Tribbiani (read Italian-American) than what you’d find at Tuscana or Prego.

The wraps: On the days we want to pretend we’re eating healthy, we order these. The Hippie Special (vegetarians rejoice- breaded zucchini, herbed paneer, Italian dressing are stuffed into a soft tortilla) and The Breaded Chicken wrap are the top picks here. A side of fries are given, but ask for wedges. Those wedges alone can make my lunch. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. They do what they’re advertised for.  Or the mashed potatoes. You won’t regret this. 45 minutes on the treadmill is a fair exchange for a scoop of the mashed potatoes.

I’ve had things that have turned out mildly disastrous as well. Double deep-fried dishes. Oily pasta. Insipid rice. Especially on the days I’ve been on a health kick. But they are spaced far, far apart, and you can’t afford to be that picky, dining at places in Chennai, not at this price.

I will be posting on the Friday Barbeque Buffet another time, just so this blog doesn’t become a non-detailed story. If there’s one thing I will say about it is to MAKE RESERVATIONS. It doesn’t matter if you’ve given regular attendance there over the last five years. Make reservations.

Sparky’s Diner is one of the places I’m proud to say I’ve discovered and made my own.  It remains pretty special to me over the years (my 23-year-old palate and 18-year-old palate are poles apart), because this is where the aforementioned partner in Food Crime and I had our first date. And our fifth anniversary celebration (well, one of the five places we went).

P.S.  Oh, and split The New York Style cheesecake, even if you don’t have any space left. You can take the rest of it home, and eat it over the course of the night, a la Nigella Lawson. Mmm.

Yummy Granola. Yes, it exists.

I've been on so many Bridget Jones' type of cleanses, I could write a book on them. Well, a post at the very least. And if you've read Bridget Jones, you know how the cleanses end. Not the dead-drunk bit; the other one which ends with her diving into a box of chocolates (in recent times, it has been Milano for me).

The worst one was after giving my tenth boards. A and I decided to go on one of our many joint diets. This one allowed a piece of toast, black coffee-no milk-no sugar, a boiled egg (carrots for her, the lucky Vegetarian hippy) et-very-little-cetera. We stayed on it for 4 hours (actually, I think she did three-quarters of a day). She now works out like there is no tomorrow (hippy to Yuppy) and I dream/eat/write about food. You can refer to Freud to see why we've evolved differently.

Still. There are clothes to fit into. So when I feel like a pro-health, smartass Doctor, I whip up a batch of this granola. It's one step above edible: it's actually delicious. Nothing like the sawdust blocks ("thins") Nature Valley makes. Yes, I'm only talking about the Indian made ones. Yumbars are decent, but I'm not throwing 200 bucks on cereal bars. I'm sure sane people would agree (say Hey!). Quaker Oats makes amazing cereal bars, but I guess my foreign relatives/friends don't love me enough to keep me afloat. Hint, hint.
Horlicks and RiteBite were what fuelled me through Internship year, but they're slightly too sweet and have enough calories to swap for a bar of bittersweet chocolate. What would I choose?

The chocolate. And this granola.

The writing in blue is the actual recipe. The rest of it is my incessant chatter.
This Granola.

Ingredients:

2 cups oats

1/4 cup chopped walnuts or almonds

1/4 cup raisins or figs

4 tsps Peanut butter

4 tsps Honey

Method:

Warm peanut butter and honey in a double boiler, until it's smooth. I use Skippy's Super Chunky version, because creamy, homogenous peanut butter is for wusses and babies. Honey, plain old Dabur will do. This is a budget recipe, after all.

That's the consistency you want. It gets there pretty early, so keep on eye on it unless you want unusable peanut caramel (Yum. Delicious mistake).

And that's my extremely un-fancy bain-marie. Mum still does not trust me with the fancy cookware. I don't argue, because she's got good reason to, and I'm almost never in the mood to hear her extended list of my past sins/crimes. Good times.

In a bowl, mix together the oats and chopped nuts. Pour the peanut butter+honey mixture and stir until completely combined. Do not add raisins or figs at this stage as they burn pretty fast.

 Oats, Quaker I'm a slave to, but I saw Saffola on sale the other day, and it is pretty decent. Again, it doesn't have to be a snooty brand since it's just going to get cooked. I used raisins, chopped figs and almonds in mine (altogether, fitting snugly into a half-cup). Substitute the dried fruit with prunes if you want it super healthy. Or skip it all, and add chocolate chips to the final mix (after all the cooking is over).

Spread the mix on a ungreased foil-lined tray. Shove it into a preheated oven (I used 175 degrees C) for roughly 15 to 20 minutes.

Whilst the oven does its thing, I pop on some coffee and look forward to relaxing.

Unfortunately, my sister and nephew have other plans.

No, it's not a paranoid Michael Jackson thing; I'm not trying to protect their identities or whatever. I'm just trying to prevent Grevious Bodily Harm under my supervision.

By now, the smells of burning coffee and just-about-right granola waft out of the kitchen.

While still warm, add the dried fruit. Allow to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

I pour the whole thing into a Ziploc bag and stash it in my bag for emergencies. I manage to invent quite a few and polish it off in a couple of days; I've got a family who helps with the eating. And if you're not on health kick, throw in some M & Ms for colour. I didn't miss them though and not missing chocolate-coated candies is the best compliment I can bestow on this humble recipe.

The PastaBar Veneto.

Alsa Mall is a stone’s throw from where I live. I’ve heard stories about how it was incredibly hip (think Spencer Plaza, 2003-ish) back in the nineties from my parents. There really hasn’t been a reason for me to go there, except when I grab a sandwich at Balaji Sandwich stall (the little sandwich stall outside which makes a mean chilli cheese toast).

Foodie partner, who loves his Italian food, insisted we try The Pasta Bar Veneto. After the terrors of "Italian" food at New Yorker and Pizza Hut, I was extremely hesitant. After a promise that we’d walk out if the "marinara" was made without onion/garlic (ha ha ha), we went there on a rainy Thursday evening.

The second we entered, most of my fears were washed away (with the rain, get it? So punny. Not). The restaurant has the feel of a cozy little coffee shop. Completely unpretentious. Green painted doors, soft yellow lighting, huge glass cookie jars and a blackboard with specials written on it. Perfect for date night. Foodie partner also liked that they play Premier League football on their TV set; there goes date night.

So the next thing I was worried about was being fleeced. Being charged exorbitantly for both lousy food and bad service is too much to take, and an all too familiar feeling. The last of my fears disappeared when I opened the menu.
The first thing that strikes you is that the coffee section is very reasonable, the antipasti and sandwiches reasonable, and that it is open all day (11 AM to 11 PM, I think). I like it already! We ordered a soup, pasta and a chicken steak; all tests of a good Italian restaurant.

The soup was a little bit disappointing. I wanted a full-bodied minestrone brimming with veg, the tomato paste smacking you with the first sip. This was a little watery for me; I like my soup to suffice as a meal. But as a clear soup, it was pretty decent, had parmesan on top and buttery garlic bread on the side. I hoped the grilled chicken would make up for it.

And did it! A plate that was tailor-made for me. Succulent chicken breast, marinated with just enough spice, sitting on a bed of garlicky mashed potato. The veggies were steamed to perfection, and weren’t just there as garnish. Crusty garlic bread was also offered. For the ambience and taste, worth the 200 bucks you pay for it!

Foodie partner (let’s call him W) loved his pasta (?Penne Arrabiata). Cooked al dente, simmering in tomato sauce, flecked with chilli flakes, herbs and minced meat. Oh, with the omnipresent garlic bread (not complaining!)

We were stuffed, but decided to split a dessert. We chose the Caramel Cheesecake. Light, velvety and a perfect ending. Next time, I’m going to insist on a dessert with chocolate, though!

 The staff was pleasant, helpful and was sweet enough to show me their kitchen (which was well-maintained and replete with all the fun tools I want!).
So.
Report card:
Service: 4 stars
Ambience: 3-1/2 stars
Paisa vasool: 4 stars
Taste: 3-1/2 stars.PastaBar Veneto has two locations: one on Alsa Mall on Montieth Road, and the other on Burkitt Road, T. Nagar.

Get me to the Greek!

I’m going to suffer from Withdrawal symptoms when MasterChef Australia draws to a close. Yes, I know the results already. Remember how you felt when a random jackass sent you a text saying Dumbledore dies in the sixth Harry Potter, an hour after the copies were released? You waited years for the book; you saved up for it and stood in the line. Felt a watered-down version of that feeling, when I found out who the winner of Masterchef Australia 2 was.

It does not stop me from watching it every weeknight at 9, however. Masterclass, Celebrity Chef challenge, whatever. Geeky enough to catch them all. I park myself on the couch with an imaginary Do Not Disturb around me and the TV.

George Calambaris is one of my favourite judges. He’s incredibly proud of his Grecian roots (as he should be. I ate at Kryptos by Willi recently). When he made Tzatziki last week, I knew that I needn’t look further. OK. I confess; I upped the garlic and spiked it with vinegar.

Tzatziki is the new ketchup. I dunk my veggies/pita chips in it, make pita pockets with it, dress a salad, layer it in a Greek burger with feta et cetera. It goes with everything (for me) and I feel almost virtuous eating it. Make sure you follow all steps carefully, or you might end up with cucumber raita!

Tzatziki:

Ingredients:

2 cups yoghurt

1 medium-sized cucumber

1 big lemon, zest and juice of

2 cloves of garlic, grated/minced fine

I shallot (Madras onion or spring onion), grated/minced fine

1 tsp white vinegar

Dill/Parsley- I small bunch (I use coriander)

Olive oil, for dressing

Salt, to taste

Method:

1) Hang the yoghurt in a thin muslin cloth for at least 2 hours. I pour Nestle dahi into an old, clean chiffon dupatta, form a little parcel and hang it from one of the kitchen hooks, a bowl placed strategically underneath. It does not measure up to Greek yoghurt, but hanging it overnight in the fridge helps. Try curd made from full-fat milk if you have that at home. Use the leftover whey in your regular chapatti dough. Instant protein-packed, soft chapattis.

2) Grate the peeled cucumber (not with a micro planer and make sure you taste to see if it’s bitter!) into a bowl and salt it. Keep aside for a good 15 minutes. This dehydrates the cucumber. Make sure you drain every last bit of water. Remember, you’ve already compromised on luscious, gourmet yoghurt.

3) Toss drained cucumber with the minced shallot, garlic and lemon zest.

4) Add the drained yoghurt (it almost looks like thick cream cheese now) to the cucumber mix. Add the juice of one lemon and a healthy teaspoon of Extra Virgin Olive oil.

5) Mix well, folding in the chopped herbs. Dress with some more Olive oil. Season with salt to taste.

6) Serve cold.

I served with fluffy pita bread, Chicken gyros, Hummus and a red onion salad. I recommend you make this a day early and stash it in the refrigerator. Tastes better, and your evening gets less hectic. Easy peasy.

The Next Best Thing Since Sliced Bread.

Brownies. Not the toughest thing in the world to find or make. All you do is walk down the Fancy Foods aisle (randomly made that up) at Nilgris and pick up Betty Crocker's Fudge Brownie mix. Or buy a dry rock-like concoction any where. From Barista to Hot Breads. The worst I've had are the ones Cake Walk makes. Ragi puttu mixed with ghee and shaped into a square lump, it tastes like. The Muffin Tree at Courtyard at Marriott makes a delicious brownie; your best bet, at Madras.

If you're baking, Brownies-from-a-box are something you'd make someone as an obligation. Not for the people you love. Won't do.

That, to me, is sacrilege. Unless I melt that luscious bar of butter and chocolate, bain-marie style (double-boiler), they aren't The Brownies.  This snobbery melts away just like the aforementioned bar of butter when I'm broke, and I pull out my alternate recipe.
The brownies have that perfect crust-on-top-chocolate-explosion-below.. beyond Bodacious. I’ll post that recipe sometime soon.


The recipe I'm posting here does not call for a quarter of a kilo of bittersweet chocolate. They deliver on the Chocolate OD-factor, though. So important. Ask any girl with PMS. These simpler ones can be made at midnight, with most of the ingredients hiding in various corners of the kitchen.

If you know me moderately well, I've probably made you a batch of these brownies. I feel almost sad giving up this recipe, but I know it's my way of spreading good karma around. A fitting first post, because brownies are practically my signature dish.

 Nobody has complained about these brownies, except to say that the quantity was borderline meagre. Bake these when you're depressed and plop in front of a miscellaneous episode of Friends. Bake these when you want to impress people but aren't gifted with talents of the artisan patisserie-variety. Bake these when a good friend moves out of Madras or for a new neighbour. Bake these when you want to say Sorry. I do.

The recipe has been modified from Nigella, Hershey's and Allrecipes.

Quick-Fix Brownies.

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter (115 g)

1-1/2 cups sugar (300 g)

 2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

1 cup maida (no need to sift) (190 g)

3/4 cup cocoa (I use Cadbury) (170g)

1 teaspoon baking powder (use a 5 ml teaspoon)

1/2 teaspoon salt (do not skip!)

Miscellaneous items of your liking and/or out of foreign relatives' goodie bags (think M and Ms, walnuts/almonds/pecans/macadamia, Reese's pieces, white/dark chocolate chips)


Method:

1) Powder the sugar. It does not have to be super fine, so do not use caster or icing sugar. Keep aside. I find Parry's sugar perfect for baking.

2) Melt the butter; not so much that it becomes ghee. I do it over the stovetop, because you don't have as much control using a microwave. Stir in the sugar and vanilla whilst lukewarm. Do not waste a vanilla pod (if you're lucky enough to lay your mitts on one) on this. Not worth the expense, where they'd be playing second fiddle to chocolate. Beat in eggs only after the mixture has cooled, because you do not want cooked eggs in your batter.

3)Now would be the time to preheat your oven to 175-degrees-celcius (350 degrees farenheit).

4) Combine all the dry ingredients in a pan - maida, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Salt is something I use fanatically in my baking. It adds another dimension, and cuts through the sweetness. Think salty caramel. If you have sea salt/kosher salt, I hate you. Beat in the dry ingredients into the batter, with a wooden spoon. Yes, I use a hand-mixer, but I only stir with it; it's switched OFF. Do NOT overbeat. Unless you want it to be a cake/brownie lovechild. It should look like this:

4) Throw all worries about raw eggs and Salmonella out the window and have a tiny taste of the batter. Yum. Stir in a cup of random goodies. I use walnuts and chips I make out of whatever chocolate is stashed in the freezer (Kinder, Kisses, Dairy Milk). Get creative.

5) Line a 13 x 9 or 8 x 8" pan (for fat, greedy brownies) with aluminium foil. Grease it with butter, slightly dust it with cocoa powder. You can pour it straight into the greased pan, but washing up? Pass.

 6) Make sure you even out the top and slid it into the middle rack of a preheated oven. Within 20 minutes, check on your brownies. You do not want sad, dehydrated rocks. You want moist, fudgy bars.

7)Set them out to cool. Do not cut them right away, like I do EVERY time. I've the mess to prove it.

8)Do not let them cool too much and stick to the foil though. Making a mess is second nature to me. Cut them up, as pretty as you can, and pack!

These, I made for Diwali. Hence, the cheesiness.

And do not worry about the little bits and pieces that do not look pretty. Here's what I do with them (the ones I salvage from people I cook around, at any rate). Make a sundae! Best had at midnight. That way, you don't have to share. Nigella says so. It must be true. 

Hi. I’m Rabia, and I’m a Food-o-holic.

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You know how people say “Oh, for the love of God” in an exasperated tone? I say, For the Love of Food!

That’s the sole reason for this blog’s existence; it’s that simple. I’m 23, born-and-bred in Madras and I love food.  Reading about it, finding fresh produce, watching food maestros do their thing on TLC, feeding the people I love, looking at, and smelling, and most importantly, eating it. Any place I travel to, I make sure I don’t leave without food memories and indigenous ingredients. A new place opens up in Madras, I have to go try it (and give my two-paise worth on it).

The last 6 years of my life were furiously busy (medical school); it was there that I learnt that anything that is semi-edible and not fully rotten constitutes food. I still get nightmares about my internship year, where I’ve had to make do with Strepsils (throat lozenges) for dinner. Oral Rehydration Solution (yes, the yucky fluid you drink when you have gastroenteritis) also helps when it’s 3 AM and you’re 4 hours away from a meal and 4 minutes away from hypoglycemic coma.

That’s when the food fantasies started. It was always brunch; images of fresh fruit with a honey-yoghurt dip, stacks of pancakes and fluffy omelets danced in my head when I was on call for 2 nights in a row. That’s also when I decided I’d go on a narcissistic journey, a la Julia Roberts in Eat. Pray. Love. Only the Eat part, though.

I’m hoping this blog would be choc-a-bloc with recipes (tried-and-tested and experimental), reviews of the best and worst places to eat at in Madras, how I’ve had to make do without cream cheese/tahina/raw sugar/fleur de sel, et cetera and obviously budget food/food on the go. I’ve quite a bit of experience on the last.

Lastly, why “Mmm. Food.”? Verbose though I am, I feel that particular moniker would suit the blog perfectly, as I’m quoting my three favourite foodies.

1.       Homer Simpson: “Mmm. Donut.” I won’t say doughnut like it should be, in keeping with Homer’s quintessential All-American-ness.

2.       Nigella Lawson: Each time The Domestic Goddess makes something so delectable that you feel like licking the LCD screen, you can be sure she punctuates it with an “Mmmm…”

3.       My Foodie Partner-In-crime: The only other person I know who loves food almost as much as I do, but still makes do with Electrol (the aforementioned fluid) when on duty. Who responds to everything I make, from soggy sandwiches to Chocolate Overdose cake, with an “Mmm.” Who bullied me into blogging, and christened this one.

Here's to delicious beginning. Bon Appetit!