​My love of "Britishness" extends far before my arrival in this country.

I have been forever in love with the flavour that the British bring to the world.

My romance with the days long ago, when men dressed as proper gentlemen and women in their fancy gowns with hat gloves and fans. 

An era that though is from long ago still lives and thrives deep within the British soul.

Our properness, in any ceremonies, our fuss and pomp with all the uniforms and parades; the spectacular display of the red arrows on special occasions; all the history and heritage that is preserved, lived and relived and cherished in our modern lives.

This is what I love most about the British Culture: we keep the past alive!

 
O My beloved Bihari family, help me bring Bihar back to me… 

It's been lost along our journeys it's been hidden away behind the glossed over Englishes… 

But deny it all one wants, it lives and breathes within our soul...

It shines through our every dish

It laughs with our every story…

Please help me preserve it for our future generations… our ancestral stories are getting lost with every passing of our elders.. 

Our oh so proudly flashed around eclectic taste buds are losing out on culinary treats once our grandmas used to slave away in kitchens to make…

Our lifestyle maybe different now, our fancy gadgetry may save us from the painstaking ways of our ancestral cuisine, but if we don't save it now, dishes which we have once tasted in our childhood or sadly have now only heard names of, will be lost forever….

For our future gens, let's come together and document our heritage together...

Any stories any recipes please help me preserve them and make them accessible for all our children to read, enjoy, use and be proud of…. 

I wish to take no credit for anyone else's work I will accredit each piece with its rightful authors… my dream is to only preserve and spread…

I thank you all in advance, even if you have nothing to share on the site itself, please share and enjoy this space with all your families, this legacy belongs to us all it yearns to be shared!

It's time we brought Bihar into the limelight it deserves….

JEDDAH, KSA
No matter where I may roam there is only one place that my heart calls home… Jeddah


Jeddah is dil ki jaan tu hi hai,
Jeddah you are the soul of my heart!
​

It's not perfect but no place ever is or will be, I grew up in this city it's my “hometown”! 
There are so many memories people who grew up here can relate to, only they can understand. I can't even begin to pen down my memoirs without getting all choked up with nostalgia. 
Where do I start with, do I start with my most awesome school experience I had, or do I start with all my amazing like minded family friend's circle, or maybe the food. 
Maybe I should start with the one thing that is lost. The one thing I use to enjoy and boast about… the one thing I miss most from my childhood when I think about Jeddah when I visit it now, something that would identify it. That one thing was it's array of roundabouts. At every cross roads there would be roundabouts, now someone living in the UK would think "and your point is, London is the city of roundabouts you shouldn't miss it", but these weren't just painted on the ground like UK. There was a unique feature on each and every one. Something that was so Jeddah something that we would identify as us and us as it. You knew where you were exactly looking at the roundabout in front of you. Directions would be given with the reference of these monuments on these roundabouts. All that is now lost. I can no longer say I live near “taiyaara chowk”. Newcomers to the city would look at me thinking I'm coo coo, they just don't know. Bar “cycle chowk” and a few others dotted near the coast, all the rest have been slowly but surely gone. How I miss driving by them!  Or rather being driven by them, because yes soon the next generation will never know days of male only drivers. A New era is at its dawn, the dawn of the female drivers in Saudi. A thought which once was the joke of the town, people in the west would say “when pigs will fly… “ people in Saudi would say “when women will drive…”  it was considered that impossible an ask, but here we stand at the doorway to the world of impossible. A new age for women in Saudi. ​

Every day a day passes, but some days make us stop and think more, some days force us to stop and reflect.
New year's Eve is a day like every day, but one that makes us stop and reflect. New year's day, a day that makes us stop and think; dream, hope and wish. A mer moment separates the two, but turns a day of reflection to a day of hope and reinvigoration.

As the clocks struck 12 bringing upon us the new year and decade, new hope and excitement filled the air. There is definitely something about this new decade that just feels oh so right…


I feel a bit like I am in a Marry Poppin’s movie, thinking and talking in song, quite likely to break out in dance too...


#I can’t quite put my finger on it, don’t know what it is just yet, but I know there is something there, that hasn’t quite shown itself to us just yet!#


...reminds me of when Bert talks about the winds changing and something going to happen thats all happened before…


Let’s hope that this magic that can be sensed can fill our lives to come with all the right ingredients to make the future just as magical as we can imagine it to be.​

As we charge forward towards the new horizon, I thought I should just shed a little light on the weeks just gone before they become but a distant memory. Amidst all the socialising and fun, as always, sat the meals of the day as the focal points of both the gatherings and the day. I normally don’t like to talk much about food that I sample, although I know it to be quite a popular practice, but due to several reasons I tend to refrain from such indulgences. But in the hustle bustle of what is the winter holidays, there was one thing that I was fortunate enough to have been acquainted with amongst many other exquisite dishes. It really caught my eye and shone out to me as something new and different and quite like nothing I had had before that I thought, for this, I must break my rule and give a shout out about it.

Believe it or not but the thing to make me stop in my tracks was a humble peanut butter! Yes you heard me, of all the things that I indulged in, the thing that made me break my rule and write was a humble peanut butter (no it is not the first time I have had peanut butter, if that is what you are thinking).

On New Years day I was out celebrating with my family and although the food was quite, well what one would call, epic on all counts, the complimentary peanut butter is what stole the show. I mean don’t get me wrong, every bite, of the entire evening, was just as scrumptious as I could have hoped for, but peanut butter, ahh!! I mean it’s peanut butter, how different can it be, how can that be the lasting memory from a meal of delectables. Well I will tell you how.

Never in my life have I tasted such a light peanut butter. It was beautiful ivory coloured, silky and light, like whipped butter, with little notes of sweetness in all the right ways. It was not sweet like it has any added sweetness, just a hint of the natural sugars already present in the peanut. It was definitely something on another level! I never thought I could enjoy it so much! Although I must say, it could not be eaten on its own ( yes I did try!) it had to be eaten with the complimentary bread that came with it, fresh hot out the oven these little pillows of delight were definitely the right partner for this condiment to tango with.

Definitely did not see that coming! If you are ever passing through the area, something definitely worth stopping by for!

So enough of my past weeks of indulgent holiday time, back to the present. With school life back in full swing, along with swinging trees in heavy winds, hope you have something nice to look forward to towards the still foggy future, hope that the new decade has got you secretly excited about something. Its an uncertain future for us still in the UK, but I hope if any one thing is certain, it’s hope! Hope for the future, hope for yourself and hope for being blissful yet!

Much love