mayurisjikoni

Merry Christmas Everyone   This Christmas I'm celebrating it in the Exotic Tropical Island of Bali... yes the Bali where Julia Roberts finds inner peace and balance of love in the movie Eat, Pray and Love. Spending this holiday season with my eldest son, his wife and her parents. The #124th theme Christmas for FoodieMonday/ Bloghop group has come just at the right time. Last week before traveling I baked an Easy Christmas Cake and some Cookies. So for this post was contemplating whether I should post the cake first or the cookies. The cake won and the cookies will be posted a bit later.    The last time we spent Christmas with my daughter in law and her parents was in Dubai. Family time together is fun and makes any festival more meaningful. My family is spread all over the world and for us to get together as one becomes very difficult because of jobs and number of days they can take off. For quite a while we were planning that the whole family gets together in Bali for C...

FOODIEMONDAY/BLOGHOP &  MEGA BLOGGING MARATHON -SEPT 2017 #80TH BLOGGING MARATHON THEME: PROTEIN RICH DISHES/DURGA PUJA DAY:21    This year Durga Pooja/Puja begins on 26th September and ends on 30th September. On these days the Goddess Durga is worshipped with much reverence. Durga Pooja is mainly celebrated in West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Meghalaya, Manipur and Jharkhand. Months of preparation culminates into these days of Pooja. Pandals are built and idols are made. During this period people also prepare art and cultural programs. Lavish poojas, scrumptious bhog are very much a part of the celebrations.    Ma Durga is a Goddess that was born from the divine powers of the 3 main Gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiv. She took birth mainly to defeat the evil half man half buffalo demon Mahishasura. Because of the boon granted to him by Brahma, no man or deity could kill him. He became evil and started killing men and waged a war against the Devas. Durga Ma appeared o...

A rich cuisine        Every week my blogging scene is a bit like the following - try and prepare and write out the post before or on Monday. I wait impatiently to see what the rest of the #FoodieMonday #Bloghop members have made pertaining to the chosen theme, then I visit the posts and comment on them. Tuesday the group whatsapp goes all haywire as we try and decide on the theme. So basically we get 5 days to prepare the dish. But 5 days just fly and by Sunday I'm thinking "oh dear my dish is not ready". Then its like a storm in the kitchen. Well that's the scene nowadays till my daughter gets married. When I'm in Mombasa I usually have the dish ready before Saturday as usually hubby and I go to our beach apartment to spend the weekend.        Coming to our #67th theme for the #FoodieMonday#Bloghop, we decided to explore the #Mughlai cuisine . We all make something or the other with rich gravy or exotic biryanis, succulent kebabs without giving...

DRASTIC CHANGES - America counts votes as India counts notes    Early this morning as I sat at the computer to write my post for today I was in a dilemma whether to write about Children's Day which is being celebrated today in India or about the shock that the PM Narendra Modi gave the whole nation on Tuesday 8th November 2016 at around 9p.m. My blog being also a sort of diary for me about important events and personal happenings, the issue on demonetisation won.   As usual I was busy watching my Indian series when I noticed on my mobile that our apartment block group going a bit crazy. Checked the first message and read that from midnight all 500 and 1000 rupees notes will be banned. My first reaction was 'is someone sending out a joke or what?' Then a few seconds later hubby dear calls from Mombasa to ask what's happening. That's when I knew that it was not a joke. I asked him to put the phone down and immediately switched to the news channel. I sat there wide eye...