• Accompaniments,  Cheese,  Cooking,  farmers cheese,  Food Trends,  Hotels,  India,  Media,  Travel,  White Cheese

    Paneer to the Action

    The thing about cheese, is that it’s actually really simple. Milk, a souring agent and time is all it takes to produce a simple white cheese. No complications. It’s when you start adding things like flavor, smokiness, rinds that things get complicated. Kind of like relationships. Except they don’t have rinds.Well, you know what I mean. I’m glad to have introduced my friends to the power of paneer and Indian cheese. It’s to the point where we actively seek it out, like DVD copies of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. We had a couple of brushes with this cheese on our recent trip to Mumbai. This included a unique paneer salad…

  • Cheese,  Food,  Travel

    Snacks on a Plane – Adventures in India Part 2

    You have to admire the Indian obsession with snacks. Snacking in this country is an art form from samosas through to the more elaborate chaat featuring all types of fabulous spices and textures. But I found perhaps my favorite snack so far – and it’s a meal unto itself. Behold – the Bombay Vegetable Sandwich. Yes.. a sandwich – bread, tomatoes, cucumber, crushed potatoes (usually cooked with spices) and finally – cheese. Gourmet this is not. Hearty and comforting, that it is. Yes, it’s a toasted sandwich. Potatoes are boiled well in advance, and peeled prior to assembly and sometimes mashed with spices. The tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes and other ingredient…

  • Cheese,  Travel,  Unusual Cheeses,  White Cheese

    Like a Paratha – Adventures in India Part 1

    When I tell people how much I like India, their faces often screw up and they hold their stomachs. I may be jinxing myself, but I have never had a dose of Delhi Belly that originated in India. Pakistan is another issue. Visiting there back in 2008, I was so ill I lay on the floor of my hotel bathroom in Karachi wrapped only in a towel in a pool of sweat and started to write my will on hotel stationery. I stopped because I realized all I had was a German car the bank mostly owned and a nice handbag to offer my loved ones. Back to India. I…