Edlyn

Backyard peach sweet tea

August 24, 2016 by Edlyn

These late summer evenings pull at my heart strings in ways I’m unprepared for. As it gets darker earlier each day, I find myself walking out into the golden light to listen to chirping birds and traffic that sounds like the ocean. Just as the light begins to recede, it colours the tops of the trees in fiery hues of yellow and ocre mixed in with the darkest leaf greens. The ground is parched (I refuse to water the lawn) and the sky is blue. The temperature starts to drop after a day of heat and this natural A/C fills the rooms – that were stifling just a few hours earlier – through the backdoor and cracked-open windows. I am floating….

How to be the best.

August 16, 2016 by Edlyn

Here’s what I have to tell you as a blogger who loves food enough to make photos of it and write down a recipe for a post exactly like the one you’re reading right now. Ready? Okay. You don’t need props or the latest wooden utensils. You don’t need to learn Snap Chat. Really. I tried it for a week this year and a week last year and while I had a blast using all the filters (mostly being SIA), I think it’s okay to have a one or zero-dimensional social media presence….

A very belated birthday

August 11, 2016 by Edlyn

Right before I could share photos from my birthday trip to Shelton, WA, I got new that my uncle had passed away in Goa. As sad as it was, I felt silly writing about how wonderful a time I had walking around Matt’s second cousin’s bathtub garden in front of their home. She done a great job with it. It was the peak of spring and everything looked so new, so full of promise. I liked that.

We got similar sad news from Matt’s side of the family and considering the circumstances, it has been even more painful. I had one of my most life-affirming moments with his Aunt Agnes in the most ordinary of times. I don’t know how to describe what might seem like the most trivial thing. It wiped my anxiety slate clean and it keeps doing so when I need it the most. I’ll tell that story when the time comes. For now, here is a healing part of our world. I will miss her so.

…

Stay

August 4, 2016 by Edlyn

The coming week will mark the birthdays of two of my favourite grandparents, who made a huge impact on my life growing up and still do to this very day. They are no longer alive but I see a little bit of them in everything I do. I remember that joy for life I had and that they nurtured every time we visited them. They let us make-believe till lunch and then make-believe some more till it was time to wash away the dirt. That was true freedom. That’s what I will always carry with me….

Summer tomato cucumber salad

July 26, 2016 by Edlyn

I’ve been volunteering making photos for Rain City Rock Camp all week so I have little to say other than my heart is full. I tend to feel things like a blur while I’m at summer camp but once it’s over, I miss all the good feelings. Plus do you know any other camp that has a lunchtime band? We got to listen to Mommy Long Legs, Spinster, Naomi Wachira, Skates! and Charlie and the Rays while eating/grooving. Then there was the showcase on Saturday which will take me a while to recover from. In a good way. Those songs.

Here is a recipe I made on Sunday before camp. I guess it could be classified as a (not) recipe but it’s delicious so WHO CARES. Those are the best kinds. Here is a related recipe from last year, also simple and great for summer lunches….

Spicy salmon kebabs with a creamy cilantro yogurt sauce + fluffy roti

July 21, 2016 by Edlyn

I came this close to asking you to vote for me in the big blog awards thing that sweeps America this time of the year. This close. I thought about when I was in Goa, on one of my walks. I psyched myself up and said I would do it. I said I would list the things that would make me an ideal candidate for “Best whatever”. Of course, I would not be the best. There is no such thing. But for the sake of getting past these inner demons that tell us we’re inadequate, I’d do it anyway….

Fruit salad with cardamom custard and lemon jelly

July 13, 2016 by Edlyn

I feel it sometimes, deep, deep down in the pit of my stomach. I wake up from dreams like I was there through the night. Sometimes I feel the vividness pulling me away from the place where I can walk on the streets and feel the most me. Those are the mornings where it feels like something is missing even more than usual. It does not paralyse but my feet feel a little bit heavier, my goals further away. It is hard to explain that feeling of “other”. It starts right from the way the air feels on your skin and how the light reflects off of it. Over there I’m the same, over here I feel different. Or maybe it’s the other way around….

Choco-cherry granita with coconut whip and cardamom crunch sprinkles

June 23, 2016 by Edlyn

This recipe was just part of an idea typed into the memo app on my phone in March. To see it on my blog right now as a real thing – not to mention the spoonfuls I ate yesterday – is very exciting to me….

Chapati + Garden greens wrap w/ charred shishito peppers

June 15, 2016 by Edlyn

I was walking on the pavement in Bombay in 2008 – a remarkable thing when you’re in the city – past some heritage buildings that the British left us as visible reminders of an imperialist past. It had been a while since I was in that area near the VT train station. Though I lived close by, work was in the opposite direction. This is the part of town where I went to college. It was where we restricted most of our hanging out when we were not in the college canteen. It was here in 2006 when we found out about a series of bombs (seven of them) that went off during rush hour on the Western Railway line. My friend who I was with at the time was setting off to go catch his train home when he got the message to stay where he was. Nothing would be moving that night….

Eggs in dal tadka, 2 ways

June 8, 2016 by Edlyn

I was going to write this whole different story. I was going to say something about how I never order dal in a restaurant in America even though it’s all I always want. I can never get myself to pay the money they ask knowing that this is the food every class of Indian eats but it is a staple for those who can’t afford much more. I was also going to ramble about how annoyed I get when people talk about lentils like it’s a “trend” and I just. can’t. handle. it. when they put coconut milk in dal.

I can’t write about that in the long format because it doesn’t matter. People are going to do what they do to clean out their insides, like they do all over the world….

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