Last weekend I attended the Bay Area chowhound picnic, a foodie potluck set in Tilden Regional Park, in the hills above Berkeley. It was a shame that, having stayed up late preparing my dish and overslept the next morning, I had to rush past the park’s gorgeous scenery to reach the picnic site.
My contribution was […]

Bananas are big in Kerala. I wish I had caught photos of the many small stands selling bananas — green, yellow, short, long, piled in bins, hanging from the ceiling — that we passed as we drove through the state. After we crossed the border from Tamil Nadu state, our driver, Vasanth, pulled over and […]

On the last stop of our whirlwind temple tour, Daveena and I landed in Madurai and decided we were tired of picking up the first random guide who approached our rental SUV. Instead, we asked our hotel to find us a guide for Sri Meenakshi, and braced for the cost. We lucked out: The assistant […]

Logic dictates that when it comes to fried foods, fresh is best - and logically, something that in all probability was fried several weeks ago shouldn’t be that good.
Still, I couldn’t resist these babies when I saw them at Surfas, the gourmet warehouse. I could just picture myself daintily nibbling one with a cup of […]