Pray, Love and Eat

Guest Post written by Baba, my father.

Every child has a lucky day; mine was Thursday. It was the day Agha, my father, would take my brother and I to meet our grandparents and cousins inside Lahore’s Old City. (more…)

Baba tells me that Bobby Darin’s Dream Lover would play repeatedly at picnics with his friends in 1960s Lahore. But for real affectation, there had to be some Françoise Hardy. Baba also tells me that if you didn’t know her hit La maison où j’ai grandi, or at least pretend to know it, then you were essentially a nobody.

And there were no picnic invitations for nobodies. (more…)

Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great was a mere thirteen years of age when he ascended the throne. While still a relatively young Emperor, he commissioned the construction of a new capital, known as Fatehpur Sikri. The buildings, a fusion of Islamic, Hindu and Jain architecture, reflect the Great Emperor’s beliefs of universal religious tolerance. It was under his rule that the Islamic jizya tax was revoked for non-Muslims and a new faith called the Din-i-Ilahi (Faith of the Divine) was created by him in an attempt to bring the diverse religions of the Mughal Empire together. To this day, only 18 people are said to have belonged to this faith, but one cannot help but admire Emperor Akbar for trying to unify his peoples. (more…)

“A monarch, regardless of being a queen or a king, must defend his or her land and treat the people with justice,” declared the Sassanian Empress Porandokht, (AD 630-31). An advocate of sexual egalitarianism, she was the first female monarch to rule over the Sassanian Empire. Under her 16-month rule, before she died, Empress Porandokht signed a peace treaty with the Byzantines and reformed her empire by re-structuring and lowering taxes.

Every era has had their crop of strong women, and Mader, my paternal grandmother, was most certainly one from hers. (more…)

Click here for the winning recipe, and here for my interview, (above).

I am pleased and honoured to share with my readers that my recipe for Borani Esfanaaj won the Food52 competition for ‘Your Best Spinach Recipe’ this week and will be published in a crowdsourced cookbook entitled ‘Food52′ by HarperStudio. (Here is my recipe and the story of inspiration behind it, on my blog). (more…)

La vita è bella

“It’s your last night here, what would you like to eat, Baba?,” I ask my father.
I know he likes the straccetti alla rughetta at Da Francesco in Piazza del Fico.
“A home-cooked meal. Dal and chawal,” he answers. (more…)

This recipe won the competition on Food 52 for “Your Best Spinach Recipe”. It will be published in the Food 52 book by HarperStudio. Here is the link.

In Memoriam- for Mader and the innocent victims who died on Friday, March 12th in Lahore…

Asked what one thing he wanted from the outside world before being hanged, a prisoner once said, “Bring me a bottle of Shalimar, to remind me of the best things in life.”

Feeling a little flat all day, after hearing about the 10 suicide bombings which took place in my hometown of Lahore, I took a little walk after work to our local department store. I went to the Chanel counter to apply Chanel No. 19 to my wrists. Bergamot and sweet cut grass, the scents of my grandmother, Mader, who left us 20 years ago this March. (more…)

Comfort(ed) Food

It’s a grey evening in Washington, DC. The rain, falling heavily, creates a pewter gloss on the road as I am driving home from work. It makes me want to be back in Lahore, during the unexpected Spring showers, when we sit on the veranda in my ancestral home with my paternal grandmother, known affectionately by everyone as Mader; mother in Dari. (more…)

This is a recipe, as promised, from the menu at the Nairobi Reunion dinner I hosted.  (My recipe was awarded an Editor’s Pick on Amanda Hesser -the ex- New York Times Food Editor- and Merrill Stubbs’ Food 52 project). (more…)