It’s here! 2020: new decade and New Year and new everything. I’m still a #verylazyblogger but quality wins over quantity any time, no?

I have so much to share with you about last year. I never got around to blogging half of my adventures as the year was one long roller coaster on loop, filled with highs and lows and terrifying moments in between.

Here is where I went in one year: Amsterdam, Tallinn, Kuala Lumpur, Langkawi, Goa, Hampi, Chikmangalur, Barcelona, Delhi. They were all different and all exciting places to be.

I ate, walked, shopped, wondered and wandered my way. The year was filled with incredible experiences, delicious food, new friends and many precious moments with people I love and/or adore.

Every moment was clouded and then obliterated by the death, the incredible loss, of my beloved pussycat, Henrietta. It is an ache that will never go away, a hole that is forever dark and frozen in my heart. She drowned in the neighbour ‘s swimming pool, unable to climb out.

One of the few highlights of last year was joining the #IncrEdibles, a cookbook club of food enthusiasts in Pune. They are, well, enthusiastic and fun and incredibly inspiring. Each month the group selects a cookbook and everyone cooks something from it. We meet for long afternoons filled with food and conversation about food. Everyone is an accomplished cook and the table is laden with exciting new things to eat. The WhatsApp chat group is full of cooking tips and experiences and it’s a really great little community I am so happy to be a part of. The one meeting I attended last year was a huge learning curve for me as I have never really attempted Asian food: think wontons, dimsums, gyozas and baos made from scratch ( oh the pressure!). I might miss the meeting itself but the chat includes us all.

A second meeting in 2020 reaffirmed my faith in meeting foodies who are genuinely passionate about cooking, not just eating. Foodies can be incredibly generous and happy people because they have an inherent desire to taste, to savour and to feed. I look forward to hosting the next one, and learning more each month.

Our February meeting veered towards South America or….Burma…or China! And we selected the gorgeous cookbook “Sichuan” by Fuschia Dunlop. The food was just brilliant.

The Society of Chocoholics continues to pursue our love for the bean in all its forms. It is always lovely to catch up with fellow foodies who eat, joke and laugh when we are not posting photos or planning where to meet next ( one of those impossible social events to plan). We are all bound by the bean and the quest for the newest and best bean and bar experience continues to be the the focus of our gourmet aspirations!

Knowing how lazy I am and knowing how much I overthink my writing or shy away from it completely, I was thrilled to be featured in Goya Journal’s end of the year round up, “The recipes I mastered this year compilation https://www.goyajournal.in/blog/the-recipe-i-mastered-this-year where my mother’s super delicious crab curry made the list. Until recently, I always relied on her to make the crab so this is one feather in my cap I am hugely chuffed about.

Keto vs vegan is an on-going debate and one I am very clear about. Keto may work wonders for Keto-bhakhts but it is just wrong to eat so much meat for your health. Vegan is the other extreme, but infinitely healthier. However, both throw up issues of sustainability and I would urge you to read this article from Goya Journal that addresses eating locally, sustainably and consciously in India.

https://www.goyajournal.in/blog/the-ugly-underbelly-of-veganism-in-india

Balance would be a plant- based diet with the occasional non-veg. So while I continue to cook for everyone, I focus on fish and chicken, interesting veggies and new ways with menus and dessert. I absolutely loved eating and cooking strange new vegetables like this weird junglee potato, finger ginger, pandanus, colocasia, tender jackfruit, soursop, wild lemons and more. My year end visit to the family home on a coffee estate in Chikmangalur was filled with many happy moments around delicious and new ways (for me) with food.

The entire year was spent debating diet and anti- diet culture and I followed some amazing women online in their quest to end negative body image and diet culture that damages so many women (and men), their self-esteem and self-respect. Struggling with my health and my weight for decades ( I will never again be 60 kilos and positively skinny, but I made my peace with being my version of the Goddess Marilyn Monroe – with whom I share my birthday- and am happy to be a sexarta-bombarta- curvy- chubby Goddess). I am more concerned about my internal health and fitness levels as weight is not an indicator of health. My skin has to glow, my hair and teeth must shine. I have no desperate urge to run a marathon but I would like to feel energetic and happy every morning. Finding out I have a huge vitamin B12 deficiency and taking the shots regularly was a huge breakthrough in my health graph last year and I am finally feeling less miserable.

The passionate and very inspiring crusader, my beloved Hannah Tunnicliffe, writes the most beautiful novels about food, all the way in New Zealand. Outraged by a sticker she found in a ladies changing room, Hannah took up the battle agianst body- shaming with a vengeance. Her humour, her passion and her own struggles make everything so real. I found her common sense so comforting, and she has three beautiful children whose antics and joy spill over to us all.

Just as amazing is the zen Laura Jean, a fitness guru and anti-diet expert. She is so amazing and so inspiring with her mantra of “Eat with awareness” that I made a huge shift inside and a big commitment to myself over the year that was to eat with AWARENESS. and stop feeling silly, stupid or ashamed. And I will not allow anyone to shame me anymore about whether or not I have something. Have you ever paid attention around you and realised how invasive people are with their opinions and advice and judgements??

Please do consider followed Laura Jean of http://www.eatwithawareness.com and Hannah Tunnicliffe, author and anti-diet crusader, and the ever practical Rujuta Divekar. The lissom Rashi Chowdhary is also full of good sense. Functional nutritionist Mughda Pradhan has sworn to reduce my medication and I hope to begin with her soon.

The definitive book I read about the current food movement was the incisive and insightful “Eat Up” by Ruby Tandoh ex -model, cook, celeb and recovered anorexic. She speaks to my heart when she describes how and why we MUST eat!! This is one book to treasure.

Other favourite food books were Ruth Reichl’s evocative retelling of her time at the iconic Gourmet magazine in ‘Save me the Plums.’

I enjoyed Kay Plunkett Hogge’s autobiography, ‘Adventures of a terribly greedy girl’ and…… We must be kindred spirits leading mirrored lives.

An unusual book was ‘The Land where lemons Grow,’ by Helena Atlee and needless to say, my next trip must be to Sicily. Friend and fellow-foodie Ishaan Sadwelkar was actually in Sicily while I read this and obligingly walked the pages of this book for me and even brought me back some fantastic blood orange marmalade.

I should definitely write more about the food and travel memoirs, the cookbooks and the gastronomy newsfeeds that are such an integral part of my life.

Mentally my health took a huge beating and I only actually dealt with it less than a couple of months ago. I spent a large part of 2019 immersed in a mind frame of, “When I die” or “When I’m gone…” And spoke of it so normally. It’s like I had already given up on being alive. I didn’t notice or realize how moody and depressed I actually was. How sad and melancholic. And listless. I could spend hours in a fog and not even know it. I would cancel on plans and never step out, content to drift in more fog. I slept badly. I cut down on my daily walks, again in a fog, this time from the teapot. I made the tea tray my focus and missed my walks completely.

Or I binged on Netflix and Prime, anything that helped me escape from where I was.

My daughter (roundly and rightly) accused me of being “judgy.” In my defense, I suppose it comes with age and was part of the the whole “When I die,” mindset. Also the YOLO and the what-the-heck attitude and really, just being candid and honest. Not to hurt, but to not waste precious time on fake emotion and flowery empty words or bullshit.

Honestly, I was not doing well at all. Travel helped me escape but I was reeling internally from feeling like a failure with work and from losing so many animals. It was taking it’s toll. My animal communication came to a halt. I couldn’t read as much as I normally do. Books sat around, unread or barely skimmed through. My kitchen moods were on again, off again. Cooking and entertaining were a HUGE effort, physically and mentally, stressing me out more than ever before. I settled for throwing smaller and fewer parties with friends I really want to meet. My besties I have over any time as they bring with them dollops of laughter and joy and much needed sarcasm.

Exploring and eating abroad on all my travels provided  temporary respite but I also spent days walking in the mall across from my hotel, tears streaming down my face, missing my Etta. Her death broke my heart. I have never felt so lost and so fragile except when I lost Bambi, and Hunter and Stormy and Chintu and Lupin and Henry. ……you get the drift. I should be used to the pain by now. I still grieve. And I keep bracing for impact from the next loss.

This long- held grief was finally dealt with in a support group I initiated at the Rain Tree Veterinary Clinic, that belongs to my friends Vets Leila and Phiroz Khambatta. I was diagnosed by a doctor with mild clinical depression, so I asked them to let me work at the clinic, and just being around people and animals helped me hugely. It made me get up and tackle the day, not drift off in my sanctuary ( home).

When I initiated this support group after seeing so many equally devastated pet parents, I knew only Psychologist Yajyoti Singh would do. She has five dogs and is one of the most radiant souls I know. She readily agreed to come in and counsel us. Eight of us showed up and we had the first Rain Tree #Buddy meeting. And I realised how much I had pushed down and bottled up. I spent the weekend recovering from the emotional toll and now I feel buzzing and bright and alive. Henrietta is with me, and my animal communication practise is buzzing with humans and animals who need my help. And how rewarding is that??

If I have to describe the year that was and the year that will be, it is Gratitude. Gratitude for Life. For love. For the Time. So very much to be grateful for: my husband, my daughter, my mother, the wonderful people I get to travel with, friends and colleagues and new friends. E- friends online who contribute so much richness to my world. Who says instagam doesn’t bring joy ?! As long you are not driven by FOMO, instagam is HUGELY positive and profound.

I spent the year enjoying myself being TWIG and cooking new things, trying new experiences and sometimes wondering what a 45 year old me has to offer you all! There are cooler, skinnier and hipper women out there brandishing spatula and working that apron compared to me babbling on about cats and dogs and my conflict with eating animals.

And now , February 2020, I took the plunge with my beloved friend Vicki Daswani and we started our very own catering company, Lemon Blue Culinary. And here begins a new journey……

If you are still here reading this epic, long love letter to the world, thank you!