Vanilla is the best loved flavour in the world today. Vanilla infuses cakes, ice creams, cookies, confections, yoghurts, fragrances, bath and body products, candles, rum, vodka, medicines, Coke, Pepsi…..the list is endless. When you reach for ingredients to bake a cake, inevitably there is vanilla in the list. Never mind the flavour of the cake …
Roman Holiday, 1953! A girlish Audrey Hepburn and a swashbuckling Gregory Peck! A princess making a last bid for freedom before dull matrimony and the burden of the kingdom buries her in boredom. A dashing and gallant journalist (are there any of those anymore?) shows her around breathtaking Rome. ********* Roman Holiday, 2013! A middle …
This is for all you tofu lovers, who’ve been searching for this post! R
I am back after a long break! Back to baking and blogging. Back to Singapore and the start of TWO new Study Groups! Back in the midst of friends and festivals… There is so much to share. A million thoughts racing through my mind. Two fascinating topics to research, and to present on. The festivals …
I have no excuses! None at all. But I’m back to posting now, and you are going to hear a lot from me! On my travel, on cakes and of course our wonderful Study Group on the Silk route, that just came to a close. For the finale, I wanted to surprise my friends with …
I look forward to my Wednesdays! Not just the interactions with like minded people, not only the array of delectable treats, but also the learning that comes from these beautifully pared-down talks. Kabul and Kandahar and their respective roles in the trade along the Silk Route, was our first talk for the day. The story …
The new Study Group has begun! And it’s on a topic that appeals to the romantic, in each one of us- the Silk Route. There was an overwhelming response, and in the space of a mere couple of weeks we had 24 people who signed up to research on myriad aspects of the Silk Route. …
Malacca! ; Once the busiest entrepôt in Southeast Asia. A melting pot of cultures….Chinese, Indian, Arab, African, European- all jostling for trade and power. ; Godowns and bazaars, cheek by jowl with bordellos and opium dens. A babel of different tongues- Tamil, Arabic, Gujarati, Hokkien, Bengali, Teochew. Shrines to Mazu and the Guanyin, elaborately carved …