Search #BrunchBookChallenge: Sonal Ved is plating diversity through her cookbook From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Sonal Ved’s beautifully-illustrated recipe book Tiffin features 500 recipes with the real tastes of India brunch 19:55 IST Drishti Vij Hindustan Times Sonal Ved’s a member of a family of self-certified food nerds
A member of a family of self-certified food nerds, Sonal Ved’s reading list unapologetically traverses from ‘What does eating pineapple do to your tongue?’ to ‘How to make your own kombucha at home’. And on any given day, her family spends more time “discussing meal preparations than the national budget.”
“Even my travel is always planned around food,” says Sonal. “Trekking in Kashmir in search of the guchchi mushrooms, road tripping in Tamil Nadu to explore breakfast options, frequent visits around the Konkan coast or the wine region of Nashik in search of flavourful curries, eating in Buddhist monasteries in Ladakh – that’s what my holidays look like.”
On a platter
All this food-related travel led to Ved’s recently released book, Tiffin: 500 Authentic Recipes Celebrating India’s Regional Cuisine , an illustrated tome that celebrates the simplicity, authenticity and diversity of Indian kitchens. A New York Times bestseller, the book features recipes not just from veteran chefs like Floyd Cardoz, Manu Chandra, Thomas Zacharias and Anuj Wadhwan, but also home cooks, wedding caterers, Sonal’s aunts, her friends’ aunts, and grandmothers who have been hoarding secret recipes for eons. “There are no cookbooks with hyper-regional Indian recipes, like food from Bhatinda, or curries from Saraswat Goan community”
“If you scroll through many Indian cookbooks, you will notice how the dialogue usually tilts towards representation of popular Indian cuisines as North or South, and only a few regions within these compartments, such as Punjab, Lucknow within UP, a little bit of Kerala, something of Tamil Nadu and that’s it,” says Sonal. “But there’s nothing about the hyper-regional recipes, like food from Bhatinda, or curries from the Saraswat Goan community. What about cuisine from the deserts of Kutch? Or that cooked by the Memon community in Mumbai or Gujarat? So I set about collecting hyper-regional recipes to put together one of India’s most comprehensive recipe cookbooks.”
Roots around the world
This means that Sonal’s book is truly a global treasure. “Recently, Daniel Humm from 11 Madison Park put a dosa on his menu. This was after his trip in India. Indian dishes, except maybe chicken tikka, naan and curry are very sparingly represented on Indian menus abroad. Now with modern Indian restaurants, pop ups and food trucks, things have changed – people are doing food trucks serving kathi rolls, pani puri, chaats and so on,” says Sonal. “So in that sense these recipes are globally relevant. Indian foods just need the right kind of representation.” Ved’s recently released book, Tiffin: 500 Authentic Recipes Celebrating India’s Regional Cuisine, is an illustrated tome that celebrates the simplicity, authenticity and diversity of Indian kitchens
This is why she feels that the restaurants around the world which are going back to their cuisine roots represent something more than nostalgia — they’re modern. “Everything that has turmeric in it is oh-so-modern. The Ladakhi pastas are quite peculiar, the cold soups like the thanda tamatar ka shorba is a gazpacho equivalent, we have several Indian breads like the Rajasthani Khoba roti and string hoppers, that would be on par with their international counterparts,” says Sonal. “With everyone from Noma to 11 Madison Park to other restaurants in the world going back to their roots, you see how important Indian cuisines can be.”
With a glossary divided into lentils, spices, indigenous fruits and vegetables, and an index that takes you around the country, Tiffin was almost two years in the making. “It was my dream project,” says Sonal. The book is a dream all right! Spicy secrets The North East has lots of vegetarian food. In fact, veggies there are so underrated and beautiful, like the fiddlehead fern and bamboo shoots. In certain parts of India, garlic is used sparingly. Benarasi food uses no onion and garlic. Only ginger is used to flavour food. Cumin is used across the country for tempering, whereas mustard is used extensively predominantly in South India.
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From HT Brunch, March 3, 2019
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First Published: Mar 02, 2019 19:55 IST tags
Women’s Day special: 5 female chefs who are making the world go Indian
Search Women’s Day special: 5 female chefs who are making the world go Indian Meet the ladies whose unique spin on desi khana is making the world sit up and take notice from London to Bangkok and Nashville! brunch Updated: Mar 02, 2019 21:55 IST Romy Gill with additional reporting by Lubna Salim and Sarah Mirza Hindustan Times Only 32 years old, Garima is the first female Indian chef to win a Michelin, an honour she had aimed for from almost the moment she graduated from the famous Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in France(Rohit Chawla )
“I’m hearing more and more stories of female Indian chefs all over the world who are making their mark on the hospitality industry. It’s a fairly new development, though: we come from a culture where it’s perfectly normal for women to be in charge in the kitchen at home, but the concept of men answering to a female boss in a professional kitchen has to overturn centuries of cultural norms.
There are many challenges. For instance, I had to overcome two huge ones when opening my restaurant, Romy’s Kitchen, in Thornbury, just outside Bristol, England. The first: finances. A huge number of banks turned down my request for a loan. Finally, though, NatWest came to my rescue.
And the second? How could I create a great business while still being a great mum? That’s become easier to manage over time, but the early days were tough.
Now, with a book deal, TV appearances and an MBE – and two very proud children – it’s been well worth the stress, the lack of sleep and the upset over the years. Here, five other female Indian chefs share their stories, showing that anything is possible with hard work and persistence.”
Garima Arora Gaa, Bangkok The first Indian woman chef to win a Michelin star thinks gender plays no role in being a good chef Garima whips up dishes like (from top) grilled corn, chilled mango pumpkin soup, potato mochi with pickled chive and mustard flowers and ‘Khap moo’ dipped in Balinese chocolate and floral herbs at Gaa
For Garima Arora, choosing a favourite spice is like figuring out a favourite kid. Fortunately, the Mumbai-born Michelin award-winning chef doesn’t have to play favourites: the menus at her Bangkok-based restaurant, Gaa, play on both her Indian upbringing and her international experience, meaning she can have it all.
Only 32 years old, Garima is the first female Indian chef to win a Michelin, an honour she had aimed for from almost the moment she graduated from the famous Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in France. “I started my career in Bangkok because Michelin does not include India among the places that it gives awards,” she says. “So it’s a good feeling to be recognised; for an Indian to get a Michelin.” “I started my career in Bangkok ‘coz Michelin does not include India among the places that it gives awards!”—Garima Arora
Plenty of Indian chefs abroad now boast a Michelin or two, but till Garima received the award in November 2018, none were women.
“Cooking professionally is physically demanding; the hours are really hard,” she says. “I guess that’s what makes it a difficult profession for women. And so far, the professional cooking scene has been built to suit a certain kind of lifestyle, but I think that is changing.”
You see more women in professional kitchens now, and that has a lot to do with the choices women are allowing themselves to make, muses Garima.
“Man or woman, you need to do the same amount of work if you open a professional kitchen,” says the chef. “Any prejudices that might exist in the culinary world belong only to the prejudiced, not to me. Everybody wants you to fit in a certain kind of mould, but I am who I am, man or woman I don’t care.”
Garima’s approach to cooking is based on the Neo-Nordic philosophy that compels one to think intellectually about food. “It helps you justify why you cook the way you are cooking,” she explains. “Cooking has become the art of the 21st century. It is what people invest in, what they crave. It has an anthropological and even emotional aspect to it, which makes you realise there is more to this profession than simply cooking.”
The chef’s interest in cooking was inspired by her foodie family, particularly her father. After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu, Garima worked with acclaimed Danish Michelin star chef, René Redzepi, who became her mentor. “I’ve always looked up to him for his advice,” she shares.
Though she lives away from her family, she is never homesick because the people she works with are also her family. “I’m really lucky,” says Garima. “At Gaa, we are a group of 30 people from 17 countries. It can be difficult to be away from your husband and family, but the people closest to me sometimes know me better than my husband does.”
Another such ‘family’ member is Asia’s most popular chef, Gaggan Anand, whose restaurant is just a street away from Gaa. “I think we are very cordial neighbours,” grins Garima. “I worked with him once, but he is an extremely busy man and you’d be surprised how little we see of each other. However, when it comes to our kitchens, they are here, borrowing stuff from us, and we are there, borrowing from them!”
—Sarah Mirza
Maneet Chauhan Chauhan Ale & Masala House, Tánsuo, The Mockingbird and Chaatable, Nashville, TennesseeFighting for a visa, this go-getter became a permanent judge on Chopped and Wedding Cake Championship to build her fame Maneet serves up (from top) steak and brussels , Chauhan burger and wok-blistered Shishito peppers
Maneet was born into a Sikh family in Ranchi, Eastern India, where she grew up in a community made up of incredibly diverse cultures and equally diverse food traditions. From a young age, she gained insight into regional cuisines by visiting her neighbours and quizzing them about how they cooked their family meals.
To new beginnings
She began her culinary education in India, before moving to the US to study at The Culinary Institute of America. But her life in the States wasn’t all positive: after witnessing first-hand just how bad the US representation of Indian food could be, she decided she needed to make a difference. “My one bit of advice would be to not be afraid. Once you face the situation, you come up with the most amazing solutions…”—Maneet Chauhan
Her first challenge? Finding sponsorship for a visa to stay and work in the US. In the end, she took a role with her aunt and uncle who were opening a new restaurant, before moving on to Chicago and applying for a job at Vermilion. Her relationship with Food Network began in 2009. She’s a permanent judge on Chopped , and also a judge on Wedding Cake Championship .
Morph Hospitality, Maneet’s venture in partnership with her husband, now owns three restaurants in Nashville, Tansuo, Chauhan Ale & Masala House, and The Mockingbird, and has set up an Indian street food eatery, called Chaatable.
Maneet has appeared in media across the globe, and has also co-authored a cookbook: Flavors Of My World .
—Romy Gill
Asma Khan Darjeeling Express, LondonNot a fan of British food, she returned home to master family recipes, only to become Britain’s most talked about chef today Asma Khan offers a feel-at-home experience with anda curry, a creamy coconut curry, murgh rezala and chilli prawns and at Darjeeling Express
Former supper club host Asma moved to London in 1991 after getting married, having met her lecturer husband in India where she was working as a journalist in Kolkata. Unable to cook, and not a fan of British food, she returned home in 1993 to master family recipes, before starting a pop-up restaurant in her own home. HT Brunch columnist Vir Sanghvi showered praise on Asma in his column Rude Food recently
Opening a restaurant was never Asma’s intention: she didn’t want to go into a business partnership or plunge into debt to be able to pay for premises, and for the costs involved in fitting it out. But then a regular diner at her supper club told her of a property in the heart of Soho that required no non-refundable lump sum to be paid by the tenant – a rarity in central London. “I am hoping my story may change the mindset of more South Asian women who feel a professional kitchen is not a place for them”—Asma Khan
She applied for the property, and was successful after a very competitive bidding process. Her restaurant, Darjeeling Express, opened its doors in June 2016.
Since then, Asma – whose restaurant features an all-female kitchen brigade, serving up authentic royal Mughal recipes – has gone from strength to strength. Her first cookbook, Asma’s Indian Kitchen , is out now, and she will also be the first British chef to appear on Chef’s Table on Netflix next spring.
Ravinder Bhogal Jikoni, LondonWinning Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word led this family cook to master the restaurant business Ravinder Bhogal whips up exotic dishes like (clockwise from top right) Congee with Scallops & Sichuan Oil, Spatchcock Lemongrass & chilli Chicken, Mussel Rice & Sweet Corn Soup and Dashi Braised Broccoli with Roasted Sesame Sauce
Born into a large extended family in Kenya, peace and quiet was something that Ravinder did not know as a child – especially at meal times, where there were always at least 15 mouths to feed. As one of the four daughters, she was always roped in to help in the kitchen – reluctantly at first, but her love of cooking grew over time. And when she moved to the UK aged just seven, food became a way to fill the void of the friends, relatives and memories she had left behind. “I don’t believe in secrets in the kitchen…. The kitchen is a place for generosity of spirit” -Ravinder Bhogal
Her career in food, though, was not intentional. After completing an English degree and becoming a journalist, a colleague encouraged her to enter a cookery contest on Gordon Ramsay’s The F Word – and to her surprise, she won. This was the big turning point, leading to more TV appearances, a book, and a second turning point when she co-hosted a TV show with food critic Jay Rayner, who encouraged her to learn the restaurant trade.
Her true calling
Stages, pop-ups and private catering gigs followed, and after two years of searching for the perfect location, she opened her restaurant, Jikoni.
This, says Ravinder, is her biggest success to date: it’s challenged her to learn finance, manage a team, develop her skills as a chef and run busy services – all a baptism by fire. At times it did – and still does – feel difficult, but she has learned to dust herself off and keep going. Self-critical by nature, she tries hard not to focus on failures, regrets and mistakes, but to learn from them.
Every day is an education, and it’s given her a deep respect for those in the hospitality industry – as well as a way to provide a service for her local community and beyond, and to meet some of her biggest food heroes.
Dipna Anand Brilliant Restaurant, LondonThe Punjabi food expert with a Kenyan twist feels privileged to inspire others to take up cooking as a profession Dipna’s most loved dishes include (clockwise from top right) fried squid tempura to snack on, jalebi cheesecake, strawberry dessert and Dip sea-bass
She has written a cookbook, is a familiar face on television courtesy her show Dip in Kitchen , bagged an award, runs a cookery school, has been praised by former UK Prime Minister David Cameron – and she’s all of 35! “The old belief that professional kitchens are for men only is dead now!” -Dipna Anand
I was raised to believe that a woman didn’t belong in the kitchen, that the cook’s role should be split,” says chef Dipna Anand, whose restaurants – Brilliant in Southall and Dip in Brilliant in London’s tony Chelsea neighbourhood – are where many award-winning dishes are stirred.
Dipna’s grandparents moved from Gujrawala to Nairobi, Kenya, where her parents were born. “The food we serve is Punjabi, and some dishes are with a Kenyan/Indian twist,” she adds.
A woman’s place
Dipna grew up in a household where both her parents cooked. “My father is a chef and at home he also helps mum with the cooking, or gives her any help she may need,” she says. “The responsibility for everyday cooking should be shared.”
The old belief that professional kitchens are for men only, because it is a strenuous and stressful job, is dead now, she says. “I’m an example here,” she explains. “I go into at least two different kitchens across London city every single week, doing pop-up events for up to 500 guests at one time. I cook in bulk in bratt pans, using my long mixing ladles and building my muscles just as well as a male chef.”
It can be challenging to lift 40 kilos of chopped onions, she grins, but then she asks for a little assistance.
“I like to think I can do my role just as well as a male chef can, if not better,” she says. “It’s about having the right can-do attitude and confidence in the kitchen.”
Yes, teacher
Ironic as it may sound, Dipna’s father, a chef, has been her role model and mentor. “While growing up and helping mum and dad in the restaurant business, I’d always aspire to be like dad,” says Dipna.
In the professional realm, she looks up to Gordon Ramsay, who she watched on TV. When Ramsay visited her restaurant, she found herself teaching him about Indian food.
“I got to train him on how to cook our recipes and use the clay oven. He was with us for a good 12 hours,” says Dipna.
Watching Ramsay take up challenging tasks and trying till he succeeded in Dipna’s own restaurant kitchen was a true inspiration, she says. And she knows that she herself is an inspiring figure for Indian women who are beginning to see cooking as a career option.
“It’s very inspiring for me to know I am inspiring others to pursue careers in the cooking profession,” says Dipna. I love it when I am able to pass on my skills and knowledge to others.”
—Lubna Salim
Join in the conversation using #SmellsLikeIndian
Romy Gill is a British-Indian chef and owner at Romy’s Kitchen. She was appointed an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s 90th birthday honours list in 2016. She has written food columns for various publications and regularly appears on various cookery shows.
Restaurants: London
Kricket Brixton, 41–43 Atlantic Road, London, tel +4420 3826 4090, kricket.co.uk
Kym’s, 19 Bloomberg Arcade, London, tel +4420 7220 7088, kymsrestaurant.com
Lina Stores, 18 Brewer Street, London, tel +4420 7437 6482, linastores.co.uk
Private equity funds have a recent history in the United Kingdom of swooping in to rescue a dying restaurant chain that was rolled out too quickly and, as if it were a child, making tough choices on its behalf that doubtless it will not understand until it is older. In 2015 and 2016, the funds feasted on consumer demand for eating out, as the restaurant industry went through frenetic mergers and acquisitions, and chain restaurants were rolled out to places where brands were lesser known. The market quickly became saturated; margins were squeezed by rising rents, business taxes, and staff costs. In 2017, the “casual dining crunch” hit the UK, and many restaurants were restructured or liquidated. The government’s Insolvency Service reported an 11 percent rise in restaurant failures for that year, which translated to three a day. Private equity funds played paramedic. In 2018, the situation worsened. Total restaurant failures in the first nine months of the year already exceeded the total for the whole previous year, an average of four a day, which was the highest level since statistics began to be kept in 2010.
The upfront costs involved in setting up a restaurant in London can mean eye-watering debt before the first meal is served. Lease premiums (one-time payments in addition to rent) can stretch to a million pounds in prime locations. The future is not looking particularly bright either. Brexit threatens the supply of staff coming from mainland Europe on which many restaurants rely, and it will increase the cost of some imported ingredients. Setting up a restaurant in London in 2019 is a high risk move.
One private equity fund is fighting hard to keep restaurants as a sensible asset class. Instead of proposing phoenixlike restructuring, the White Rabbit Fund, since its birth in 2016, has nurtured brands with a combination of capital and advice. The fund intervenes when a restaurant is still just an idea, acting as an incubator for fledgling ventures in London. Chris Miller, founder of the White Rabbit Fund, leverages his experience in corporate finance and in hospitality, including time at the Soho House Group. (Miller may be best known for appearing on the reality show My Million Pound Menu, as a representative from the fund.) When I interviewed him, he was reluctant to describe himself as a restauranteur or even a foodie. He preferred “Excel geek,” as in the spreadsheet program, someone whose passion is growing a business.
This is unlike crowdfunding or silent investors who offer capital but allow chefs free rein. Providing advisory services in conjunction with investment could radically reduce the risk for both investors and chefs, but is there a compromise? Can hurdle rates, dividend expectations, and five-to-seven year exit plans be reconciled with the culinary creativity that chefs and consumers seek?
As a private equity fund, White Rabbit’s aim is to make money, but Miller said, “If your starting point is to make money from restaurants, you absolutely will fail. The starting point has to be customer experience, the touch and feel of a restaurant, and the service. The money comes after that, if you get all of those right.”
Which explains why the White Rabbit process is decidedly collaborative. A start-up restaurant gets support from the fund’s team of operations managers, financial directors, and chefs, all with extensive hospitality experience. Take developing a menu. First, the restaurant’s head chef is tasked with proposing an initial menu. The White Rabbit staff sometimes joins the head chef on menu development trips to foreign countries. (If it’s any indication, on a recent trip to New York, Miller said he ate at six or seven restaurants a day.) After a tasting session of the proposed menu, the options are handed over to White Rabbit to see if they can be converted into a profitable reality. White Rabbit has its own executive chef, Paula O’Neill, whose background is primarily work for Hilton. A normal start-up couldn’t afford that support, including the luxury of research trips. The main role of the brand chefs is to pay attention to the detail of what is going on in the restaurants, so that they never lose sight of quality. It is this obsession with quality and attention to minutiae that Miller said he looks for when taking on a brand.
“The traditional private equity route of taking a brand and rolling out 30 of them a year is dead now,” Miller said. Instead, having several brands that each open one or two new restaurants a year provides significant growth. The team for each brand can focus on one or two openings without losing grip on the attention to detail that is required for quality, consistency, and innovation. In a world of anti-chain snobbery, this could be the future of restaurant empire building.
With Kym’s and Kricket, Miller was looking for a niche within the crowded markets for Chinese and Indian food, and he saw that high end style of food wasn’t accessible at all. He wouldn’t do a high end place, he said, because that is not really his area of expertise or interest, and it’s more challenging because it requires daily-changing menus, expensive ingredients, and highly skilled chefs. White Rabbit restaurant menus change quarterly.
Should all chef-entrepreneurs to turn to private equity funds? Miller said that the best formula for him is a start-up restaurant. He has tended to reject brands that already have four or five restaurants because he sees his ability to add value and make money in the initial growth of a brand. Whilst he may avoid established restaurant groups, he does leverage already established names.
The White Rabbit Fund has consulted with many brands but made investments in just a few operations, now five, spanning the culinary spectrum from grab-and-go Hawaiian poke to Italian. There are, however, some common themes. A White Rabbit restaurant is casual rather than high-end, a chef is attached to the name, and all so far are in London. This is not a restaurant group and certainly not a chain. Currently, it has three sit-down restaurants: Kym’s, Kricket, and Lina Stores (unless you don’t count Island Poke’s swings as seats). Kricket originated as a pop-up inside a shipping container in Brixton, and then launched a successful Kricket in Soho and another in White City serving “modern Indian plates.” With the help of White Rabbit, Kricket has now opened a homecoming restaurant meters from the pop-up where it started. The new location is not quite the original shipping container, but eating beneath railway arches lends a sufficiently Brixton touch.
The succinct menu meant that two of us could enjoy most of it. We opted for the mystery house wine from rotating selection at £23 a bottle. What arrived was an Armas de Guerra red from Spain’s Bierzo region, rich and fruity rather than oaky, which made it a good accompaniment to the food.
Samphire pakora drizzled with tamarind was the perfect bar snack. The sweet-sourness of tamarind was a welcome contrast to the sea salt of the samphire before a delayed wave of chile heat hit our tongues. Wild mushrooms, which included pickled shimeji and whole-wheat puri crumbs, were more subtle than the samphire but no less enjoyable. Keralan fried chicken was tender, but there was so little spice that it posed a question as to what about it was Keralan. (Or is fried chicken only allowed to come from places beginning with a K — Kentucky, Korea, Kerala?)
It’s important to say that this is not Indian food as we know it in the UK. The only dish that could have claimed to be curry was a Hyderabad baby aubergine with coconut and curry leaf. The aubergine just held its shape in a thick sauce that was nutty and too rich after what we had already eaten. More delicious than the aubergines themselves were the parathas the waiter recommended as an accompaniment. Like savory croissants, they flaked across the table making the mess indicative of a well-enjoyed meal. Freshly ground spices provide more flavor, and Kricket goes one step further. The spices in a dish are often left whole. Biting into whole cumin and mustard seeds led to a rollercoaster of flavors that gave each mouthful longevity.
Will Bowlby, the chef and co-founder of Kricket, has noted that curry houses are a UK staple but regional Indian cuisine tends to be high end. In an interview with The Independent, he said: “We wanted to offer something that was accessible to everyone.” At around £30 a head for more food than necessary plus a bottle of good wine, Kricket is certainly accessible.
The same can be said of Kym’s, which is not accidental. With the UK’s current economic uncertainty, Miller believes that in a downturn this middle market will be most resilient, while the ends of the spectrum will suffer. Disposable income will disappear for some consumers and for them low-price eating out will be the first thing to go. Bankers and lawyers will no longer be able justify £500 expense claims at, say, a Park Chinois but will come for a Kym’s. Miller calls it the “good but not crazily priced” market.
Kym’s is the casual-dining brainchild of Andrew Wong of the Michelin-starred London dim sum restaurant A. Wong. That had long been on my list of places to visit but was always slightly out of my price range and too special for any special occasion I was having. I dithered long enough for the demand for Wong’s food to grow to the extent that he opened the more affordable, less formal Kym’s. My patience was rewarded on my first trip there when I saw Wong himself in the kitchen preparing the food.
The menu says Kym’s takes its inspiration from London’s Chinatown, which may be true of the food but the interior is anything but red carpets and lazy Susans. A common theme of White Rabbit restaurants is memorable design. Lina Stores is pastel green and cozy, while Kricket is grottolike and edgy. Kym’s, however, is the most striking, for its chic combination of wood and baby pink with a floor-to-ceiling cherry tree in full (artificial) blossom.
Roast meats, particularly the “Three Treasures,” are the star of the extensive menu. The trio of meats arrives on one plate, each paired with a separate sauce. The portions are generous enough for you and your dining partner to have a lengthy debate about which meat is your favorite. After much “No, actually I think this one,” the winner was declared to be the Iberico pork char siu. The soy-poached chicken with moist meat, deliciously slippery skin, and a spring onion sauce was a close second. The pork belly, third by default, was let down by its honey and mustard, which I poured on my rice like soy sauce and found was dynamite to the senses.
Despite being known for meat, Kym’s vegetable options were impressive. The stand-out was the pickled daikon. Instead of the usual beige, it came as fluorescent yellow half-moons covered with dark red circles of crispy chile oil. Mushroom buns, made of sweet briochelike dough and dusted with cocoa powder to look like real mushrooms, were filled with diced wild mushrooms and oyster sauce. Finally, the tofu of Silken Tofu with 100-year-old egg was wonderfully slimy and deceivingly buttery (though dairy-free) and served in a herby, lukewarm broth with crispy onions.
You could argue that a lot of the food tasted similar — a leitmotif of soy, sesame oil, and spring onions. But you could also say it’s like when someone criticizes your favorite band because all their songs sound the same: it’s a great sound, so who cares? Still, we might have been more tactical in ordering from the large menu. But to focus on flavor is to miss Kym’s play with textures and temperatures: the room-temperature broth with tofu or the crunchy pork belly mouthfuls served alongside the smooth soy-poached chicken.
Lina Stores is the offshoot of the eponymous Italian deli a few blocks away. While the other two restaurants can claim to innovation, good pasta in London is a crowded market. Nevertheless, Lina’s pasta, originally handmade in its deli and now in the restaurant, is rumored to be nonpareil. In an interview with Eater London, Lina Stores’ head chef Masha Rener referred to the importance of the deli to her when she first arrived in London. At 19, she would visit it on her way home helping her through homesickness. She said, “To be able to present an authentic piece of Italy in London is a very special thing.”
Arancini, the fried rice balls, were golden and stuffed with strong, peppery Gorgonzola dolce. Aubergine polpette, equally hot from the fryer, were topped with a red splodge of tomato sauce. It was a hopeful start. Next came a variety of pasta dishes ordered following guidance from the friendly waiters. There was no denying that the fresh pasta itself, yellow with egg and appropriately al dente, was superb. Pumpkin ravioli with hazelnuts oozed bright, sweet orange, like an egg yolk. Ricotta and herb gnudi with sage and brown butter were feather light. Porcini and sausage pici, homage to Rener’s Umbrian upbringing, was a dish of beige brilliance; long strands of pasta swam in cream and herby mince.
But crab linguine were oversalted, and the salt cod sorprese with artichokes and anchovies lacked clout and texture; it was hard to distinguish among the elements by sight or flavor. Some of the pasta dishes arrived at room temperature, which on a cold January night was unfortunate. Besides, we were squeezed onto a table which swung in to lock you into your seats and consequently had to be swung out anytime someone needed to excuse themselves, to the amusement of the whole restaurant. Considering White Rabbit’s attention to design, it was strange; it felt as if someone was trying to cram in two extra covers.
Lina Stores, the deli-cum-Soho institution founded in 1944, holds a place in the hearts of many London foodies, and the news of the restaurant opening was well received, but it was not universally well reviewed. A review in The Evening Standard criticized “imperfect sauces.” Tim Hayward in The Financial Times called the food “competent, on brand but soulless,” suffering from a “surfeit of corporate strategizing.” Amidst central London’s chains, consumers like the idea of a family-run restaurant with a long heritage. And it could be that a family-owned place, serving food that is not innovative, is less compatible with White Rabbit tactics.
But Kricket and Kym’s offer something fresh by rendering dishes and cooking techniques usually found in high-end places more affordable and accessible. With respect for the traditions of their chosen cuisines, the food manages to be creative. A private equity fund provides capital and support to reduce a dizzyingly high fail rate. This is surely a force for good.●
Bridges Nepali Cuisine to Open Second Location on Court Street Downtown
Bridges lets customers build their own bowls Photo: Hailey Bollinger Northside Nepali eatery Bridges is expanding and opening a second location at 133 E. Court Street downtown. Slated to open the first week of April, this second space will feature a similar fast-casual menu as the one found at the original eatery, plus breakfast.
“We are extremely excited about our second location,” says Bridges owner Ashak Chipalu via email.”Our main goal is to serve and satisfy the hungry folks of downtown and introduce them to the wonderful flavors that Nepali cuisine has to offer. All recipes come from my mom, Rose Chipalu, who is very passionate about cooking and loves to explain the food and culture to anyone new.”
The restaurant name — Bridges — encourages diners to use food as a means of connecting to new cultures, which makes sense because Bridges is the first full Nepalese restaurant in the area. Cincinnati is inundated with various styles of Indian and Chinese. Though a different type of cuisine, the Nepalese food served at Bridges strikes a similar chord to those familiar flavors — ginger, garlic, cumin, chili pepper and cilantro — while imparting concentrations of smoky spice that elevates the simple ingredients.
At the Northside location, diners can build their own bowls or combos, with additional soups, sides and samosas — all for under $15. To build the bowls, lentils are poured on top of basmati or a brown rice base before a stew-like entrée is added, acting as a creamy, flavorful emulsifying bond between starch and protein. Diners can choose from meat options like grilled chicken tikka masala or haku chuala (smoked chicken) or vegan dishes including cauliflower and potatoes or aloo wala.
Guests at the new space can expect a similar experience and similar build-your-own options.
“We have been a part of Strauss Troy Market and World Fare event in Fountain Square for the last two years. We have got a really positive response and we are grateful that people love our fast-paced concept and the flavors we served them,” says Chipalu. “We are very excited with the massive development in the Court street area, and we believe Bridges will be able to make a lot of people happy in downtown.”
For more information on Bridges, visit facebook.com/BridgesNepaliCuisine .
Sankalp hosted its annual Fundraising Food Festival ‘Khaan Paan Dhukan’
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Sankalp has hosted its annual Fundraising Food Festival ‘Khaan Paan Dhukan’.The initiative was organized with a view to raise funds for supporting the education of girl children across India, focusing on Hyderabad. The Food Festival served Hyderabadi, Continental, Chinese, and Indian cuisine. While the majority of food was cooked and served by all the employees of the company, the initiative was also supported by Minerva Grand & Sai Charan Catering.
Bright faces and smiles of children from two of the Sankalp supported schools turned the event livelier. The children engaged the audience through their self-created innovative games making the fundraiser event an apt platform to even meet the children for whom these funds are raised.
Speaking on the occasion Ms. Hemalatha Vijayaraghan, Founder of Sankalp said, “The food festival has received overwhelming response from Hyderabadis. The price of all the items on the menu was kept at the minimal making it feasible for the participants to enjoy a variety of food. Since this event was meant to raise money to support girl child education, the guests were more than willing to contribute anything over & above the price range. With more than 300 participants, we’ve raised about RS 3,00,000 which exceeded our expectations. Through this we would be able to support the education of additional 50 children” Advertisements
I moved to the UK from the USA last year. Immigration rules made tough after Trump’s presidency. My EAD card delayed for more than six months. One of our friend who completed MS and got lottery for H1B has been asked his parking ticket receipt from his University years as RFE. The cost of living in the US depends on location. Education and Health care are expensive. Easy transportation. Less pollution. One main thing I don’t like about the USA is the gun culture.
My personal experience. I lived only in California, and It is diverse. First, we were in Northern California; most of the neighbours were Indians. I didn’t get a chance to get involved with the big desi community because we had a small group of friends (neighbours, classmates and former colleagues from India) whom we always hang out and go trips together. A lot of Indian restaurants and shops there as well as other ethnic cuisines. TBH sometimes I didn’t feel like I left India because there is a lot of Indians in the Bay area mostly we hear Bollywood song from our neighbour’s apartment. Then we moved to Southern California. It was a great neighbourhood and people, mainly whites and Latinos. I attended a short course at a University; I was the only Indian and new immigrant in the class, classmates and teachers were so welcoming and understanding especially with my accent and super fast talking. Sometimes they bought classic US snacks and food ask me to taste and give a verdict. Since nobody couldn’t pronounce my simple Indian name my teacher shortened my name (My user name). It was a great experience. Got a lot of good friends from uni, tech-meetups and neighbours. Still in touch and some of them visited us in the UK.
Never experienced racism there. But a few unfortunate events. One time our campus building evacuated due to a bomb threat. Then next month, there was a mass shooting in an apartment complex near our uni. During Northern Californian fire we got fire alert, I still remember nervously packing necessary documents and spare clothes in a backpack and waiting for further instructions. Luckily fire got contained before reaching there, but still could feel the heat and see the smoke, It was unsettling.
Edited by rad_rad – 02 March 2019 at 9:45am
A travelogue, yes A cookbook, yes and a lot more
A travelogue, yes A cookbook, yes and a lot more A travelogue, yes A cookbook, yes and a lot more Vrunda Juwale Saturday, 2 March 2019
Potol Paneer is one of the 56 offerings made to Lord Jagannath. The photographs show the process of how it is made and the final dish
Varud Gupta and Dewang Singh toss faith, food and folklore in the right measure and come up with a delectable read — Bhagwaan ke Pakwaan. Interestingly, these very ingredients ensure that the book doesn’t fall under a specific genre. For the travel junkies among the readers, this is one adventure trip to interesting destinations. For historians and scholars, an insight into various cultures and for foodies, a real feast in the form of recipes — from Cicada Chutney to Akuri and Chitanee to Potol Paneer and lot more.
The writer-photographer duo along with Toni, their Man Friday, journeyed from Udvada in Gujarat to Spiti in Himachal Pradesh and Jagannath Puri in Odisha to Rongmesek village in Meghalaya, also visiting Kolkata. They came face to face with the cultures of some communities, which perhaps not many outsiders have had a brush with or written about, like the Baghdadi Jews of Kolkata, and learnt a good deal about their faiths and cuisines. The same has been shared with readers with the approach of an involved but non-judgemental observer. The reader gets a fair idea about the geographical location of the place and the customs prevalent in the community, a brief introduction to the local language and an in-depth information about their signature dishes. But the tone is always of a curious explorer. As Gupta explains in the Epilogue, what they had not anticipated was that they would also ‘become a part of a narrative’. And therein lies the appeal of the book.
Each chapter opens with an introduction to the place, the description of the journey to that place, introduction to its people — one or two among them specifically, then the traditions, evolution and lastly, the talk about food followed by recipes.
Singh and Gupta use their respective forte — pictures and prose — to the hilt. The images of the landscapes of Rongmesek and Spiti, the structures in Kolkata and Udvada are quite striking and so are the captures of humans — the young monks of Spiti, the cooks of Puri or the Karbi men and women. But it’s the food photographs, whether clicked in various stages of preparation or of the finished products, that take the cake.
And then Gupta spices things up further by adding a pinch of fun here and there. Sample this: “Next to us sat Dr Fabian Lyngdoh — also with a bamboo mug of rice beer — translating the local Khasi dialect of the man to his right (he wasn’t having any rice beer so we question his judgement)” or “Jagannath condones the millennial motto: Work hard, play hard. Since he didn’t have Netflix to unwind at night, Geeta Govinda, his favourite song about the relationship between Krishna and Radha, would be performed.” His headline for a passage on the Jhum tradition of cultivation of the Karbis is ‘Zara sa Jhum Loon’ while ‘To Pea or Not to Pea’ is how he begins talking about the shift in pea cultivation in Spiti and he calls the small chapter on Esther Victoria Abraham, ‘the badass chick’ who proves how ingrained people from the Jewish community became in Indian culture ‘Miss India’.
He in fact sets the tone for the book in the Prologue when he explains why despite ‘one of them being a confused atheist and the other a procrastinating agnostic’, they decided to write a book about faith. No wonder, noted Indian academic, food critic and historian Pushpesh Pant has said about the book, ‘If there’s a God and He lays his hands on a copy of Bhagwaan ke Pakwaan, he would I am sure roar with laughter, working up a healthy appetite’.
BHAGWAAN KE PAKWAAN Author: Varud Gupta & Dewang Singh Publisher: Penguin Random House Price: Rs 599 Tags
Adrift on the Ganges | get lost Magazine
India Adrift on the Ganges While most visitors tend to focus on the Golden Triangle of Delhi, the Taj Mahal and Jaipur, West Bengal seems to have remained almost totally overlooked. Mark Eveleigh sets sail for a fresh insight into India.
We are standing on the bridge of the Ganges Voyager looking out over a sunlit morning on the sacred river. “When we talk about Mother Ganges we always get sentimental,” Captain Biplob Majumber warns. “It’s because the Ganges River brought us life and she nourishes us. I’ve made this voyage many times but it’s so beautiful and I never get tired of seeing dolphins jumping in the morning.”
Leaping dolphins are not something I had expected on a river infamous as the fifth most polluted on our planet. But this is India’s River of Life after all, and Mother Ganges has a habit of coming up with the unexpected, just as India itself rarely fits into the clichéd pigeonholes that people instinctively try to slot it into: noisy, crowded, impoverished, dusty… Click to view gallery
With the great glowing Ganges floodplains spreading endlessly out from the riverbank it seems I can see halfway across India and yet few of those clichés fit the view. It is a perfectly peaceful country morning, with little to break the silence beyond the thrum of the engines. Smoke from a distant hamlet curls into the air like a swaying cobra. While life in these rural villages would be far from luxurious, the rich alluvial land guarantees sufficient food and an agricultural lifestyle that is infinitely less desperate than city life down the river in Kolkata.
Only one of those clichéd adjectives seems to fit the scene: there is dust in abundance. It rises in soft billowing clouds around the legs of oxen as they haul carts along the riverbank and it puffs around the ankles of women as they carry water home. During the monsoons the Ganges carries more water than all the great rivers of western Europe combined, yet it seems impossible there could ever be enough to dampen all this dust. It thickens the air as the gleaming Ganges ripples along its 2525-kilometre journey from the source at what the Hindus call the gomukh (cow’s mouth) to the world’s biggest delta in the Bay of Bengal.
Bikash ‘Vick’ Mehra, one of the guides on the Ganges Voyager, helps to untangle my mental map: “The Hooghly River, which runs through Kolkata, is actually a distributary of the mighty Ganges, but is considered by us Hindus to be part of Mother Ganges herself. We call this state Golden Bengal because these great swaying fields of rice feed most of our country.”
Pilgrims bathe in the holy river. Click to view gallery
In fact a BBC programme on the river estimated the Ganges supports almost a tenth of the world’s total population. Sunburned crops, shimmering dust, glowing terracotta temples, the orange tint of flame from the cremation ghats (riverside steps) – there could be many reasons why this area is referred to as Golden Bengal.
It is said 30,000 bodies are cremated on the banks of the river each year and that an estimated 200 tonnes of half-burned flesh slips into its waters. It has also been said the man-eating tigers of the Sundarban islands, lying downriver from Kolkata, developed their taste for human flesh courtesy of the rather gruesome barbecues that are prepared on a daily basis in the city of 15 million.
The 56.5-metre Ganges Voyager made her maiden voyage upriver from Kolkata in 2015 and has become a big hit, particularly with discerning Australian travellers looking for a unique insight into India. A street food vendor fries chapatis in Kalna market, on the banks of the Ganges. Click to view gallery
Our guides unravel India’s complex colonial history as we visit the Portuguese stronghold at Bandel (founded some time in the late 1500s) and the French trading post at Chandannagar (1673), and sail past the battleground that saw the rise of the all-powerful British East India Company in 1757. We ride in a convoy of cycle trishaws to the spectacular terracotta temples of Kalna, and in a wagon train of horse-drawn carts to the old mosque at Murshidabad where our guides tell us bloodcurdling legends about the cannibal princess addicted to the livers of small children. We hear other, more recent melancholy tales about the downfall of the great family that owned the Hazarduari Palace with its thousand doors. “The latest descendent of this once-mighty family can now be seen riding his bicycle around town,” says Vick.
Meanwhile, more recent family fortunes are coming into karmic circulation in West Bengal. At the spot where the Jalangi River flows into the Hooghly, Alfred Ford, great-grandson of Henry Ford, has donated a fair share of his inheritance to what is being heralded as the biggest temple of worship of any denomination in the world. Already a place of pilgrimage for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness – commonly known as the Hare Krishnas – when complete the Sri Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir complex will rival the Vatican in size. When we arrive at sunset, Indian workers are still hard at it, high above our heads on a dome that already soars to almost one and a half times the height of the Taj Mahal. With jackhammer operators wearing flip-flops, hardhats a rarity and insufficient floodlighting on the 106-metre-high dome, it seems labourers are working around the clock in conditions that might have been considered shocking in the USA even at the time when the great Henry Ford – himself an enlightened industrialist – opened his first production line.
“To us Indians it’s bizarre to visit Mayapur,” one visitor tells me. “Sometimes we come here for a day trip because it’s interesting to see so many white aliens dressed like Indians. As a place of pilgrimage it’s too much like a sort of spiritual Disneyland for our tastes though.” A street food vendor fries chapatis in Kalna market, on the banks of the Ganges. Click to view gallery
After the historic sights of the river it seems most of the Ganges Voyager’s passengers feel the same. After each tour the little motor launch delivers us back to a world of chilled face towels, welcome drinks and an opulence that contrasts powerfully with living conditions on the nearby riverbanks. Our suites are as big as the most expansive of hotel rooms and the Governor’s Lounge and observation deck offer ample room for guests to mingle without crowding. The ship’s decor is clearly a nostalgically doffed hat to the colonial era and the meals served in the East India Dining Room are a fusion of Indian cuisine and Western dishes.
The majority of the guests join both of the daily excursions – unless they’re battling Delhi belly. (Even on the most luxurious of Indian trips, this isn’t an uncommon occurrence.) Since we are divided into two groups, however, it rarely seems as though we move in too much of a crowd. There are occasions when it’s possible to slip away and simply drift through the backstreets of riverside hamlets and marketplaces. We stop to sip chai with old men or to try the irresistible street food that, despite fervent warnings from the crew, is a calculated risk worth taking if you want to get the best out of any Indian trip.
As always, by the time we come to the end of the voyage it is the villages and Indian people, rather than ostentatious monuments, that have most captured our imaginations. At Matiari we walk around a community foundry where villagers work in noisy, dusty, dangerous conditions that bring to mind images of Dickensian London. Near Khushbagh we stroll through agricultural lands rich with rice, corn, eggplant, papaya, banana and more than a hundred varieties of mangoes. Everywhere we are greeted by smiles, words of welcome and countless invitations to drink chai. When construction finishes the Chandrodaya Mandir complex will be one of the biggest temples in the world. Click to view gallery
After the rural allure of Golden Bengal it’s a rude awakening to sail back into the maelstrom of old Kolkata once again. Standing on the viewing deck, sipping gin and tonic and watching colourful groups of bathing pilgrims, it is certainly easy to understand the sentimentality that Mother Ganges provokes in the hearts of her children. Get there
airasia.com Get Informed
To find out more about destinations within India, and particularly West Bengal, head to the two official tourism websites. wbtourism.gov.in Tour There
Eight-day cruises on the luxurious Ganges Voyager offer guests an opportunity to explore the remote Indian villages that line the Ganges. Departing Kolkata, the Voyager heads upstream to Bandel, Kalna, Matiari, Khushbagh, Baganagar, Murshidabad, Mayapur and Chandannagar before arriving back in Kolkata. Remaining departures for 2016 are 6 September and 15 December. A Signature cabin is priced at AU$9435 a person, twin share, including all meals, daily excursions and entrance fees.
Uighur restaurants in Tokyo: Finding heaven through food
The Xinjiang region of China goes relatively unnoticed for its distinct cuisine, though it has certainly garnered international attention in other respects.
Xinjiang, China’s westernmost province, is home to some 11 million Uighur Muslims. The province butts up against the borders of multiple countries, including Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Over the past two years, its substantial Uighur population has been subject to an unprecedented crackdown, drawing a sharp rebuke from the United Nations Human Rights Council in November 2018. By the U.N. panel’s own account, in the name of combating religious extremism and separatist sentiment, China’s central government has detained up to 1 million Uighurs in “re-education centers.”
Uighur cuisine had long been popular outside of Xinjiang in China’s coastal cities. “There is a Mandarin expression that ‘Uighur food is food heaven,’” says Sirajidin Kerim, owner of restaurant SilkRoad Tarim, located right next to the glitzy Park Hyatt Tokyo hotel in Shinjuku Ward. “There used to be long queues outside Uighur restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing before the crackdown began two years ago,” he says.
Xinjiang’s halal produce was also highly regarded for its perceived cleanliness, and is said to have become especially popular after several notable food contamination scandals across China. Though the province has become all but inaccessible to visitors, its unique cuisine can still be enjoyed at several restaurants in Tokyo.
SilkRoad Tarim was one of the first Uighur restaurants to open in Tokyo. Its owner, Kerim, originally arrived in Japan in 2001 as an international student.
“When I told the Japanese I met that I was Uighur, they would ask if I meant I was Mongol. It was heartbreaking to me that Japanese people knew so little about the Uighurs,” he says, over tea in his restaurant.
Food heaven: Laghman is a dish of hand-pulled noodles in a hearty lamb and vegetable sauce. | CARLA RODRIGUEZ
“There was nowhere in Tokyo for cultural exchange between Japanese people and Uighurs.” Today, his restaurant functions as a resource center for Uighur residents in Tokyo looking for help with apartments and guarantors, or even just making friends. “They come here, and I make the introductions,” he says.
The paucity of halal options in Tokyo was also a key factor in motivating many of Tokyo’s Uighur restaurant owners to open up shop.
“When I first came to Japan as a student in 2001, there was barely a single halal restaurant. If I wanted to eat out, it had to be Turkish or Indian,” says Kerim. The lack of easily available halal foods is still frequently cited as major issue for Muslim travelers to Japan.
Not far from SilkRoad Tarim, in Takadanobaba, is Hamit Osman’s restaurant, Urumqi. The recent difficulties in Xinjiang indirectly spurred the opening of Osman’s restaurant in 2017. “After 3½ years working at a Japanese IT company, I started a company with my wife to offer support to Uighur students studying in Japan. However, the flow of international students completely stopped last year,” he says.
After the Chinese authorities began seizing passports from Uighurs as part of the crackdown, “the job became a dead end, so I started thinking maybe we could open a restaurant,” Osman continues.
Urumqi offers halal dining with no alcohol served on the premises. Some halal restaurants may offer alcohol to attract Japanese customers but, for more orthodox adherents to the practice, the presence of any alcohol may render the restaurant haram, or inappropriate.
Culinary fusion: Uighur cuisine is a blend of central Asian and Chinese influences and makes heavy use of lamb. | CARLA RODRIGUEZ
For Reyhangul Alim, owner-chef of Reyhan’s Uyghur Restaurant in Sugamo, opening a restaurant in Tokyo was certainly tough, but had long been an ambition of hers. She first visited Japan in 2003 when her husband, Ilham, was studying here. “When I made food for Japanese friends, they kept telling me how delicious it was, and how much they loved Uighur cooking. I decided at that point that I would try to open a restaurant once I had moved to Japan permanently.”
The menus at Tokyo’s Uighur restaurants feature many of the same staples of the cuisine. Drawing on a unique blend of central Asian and Chinese culinary traditions, Uighur cuisine generally makes heavy use of lamb, and features various breads, dumplings and rice pilafs.
Popular dishes include laghman , a dish of hand-pulled noodles in a hearty lamb and vegetable sauce. The dough is slapped on the counter and spun through the air before cooking to give the noodles their unique springy texture.
Nostalgia in a bowl: Dapanji (literally ‘big plate chicken’) is said to have been invented by a Sichuan migrant trying to recreate the taste of home. | CARLA RODRIGUEZ
Another Uighur favorite, dapanji , (literally “big plate chicken”) is a hearty, warming stew of chicken, vegetables and Sichuan chili peppers, said to have been invented by a migrant from Sichuan trying to recreate a taste of home.
Uighur cooking tends not to be especially spicy, but can be at some restaurants due to demand from Chinese customers. Especially popular with Chinese customers is the shish kebab, a skewer of marinated lamb cooked over a grill with cumin, salt and pepper, which gives the meat a pleasing, dry heat.
“I generally tone down the spice when I see that my customers at (Urumqi) are Japanese, compared to dishes for my Chinese customers,” says Osman.
Altogether, Osman estimates that there are roughly 3,000 Uighurs living in Japan, with a fairly tight-knit community in the Kanto region. In the face of all the troubles in Xinjiang, Tokyo’s Uighur restaurants still offer the culture’s unique cuisine and warm hospitality to customers of all origins. For more information about the restaurants in this article, visit: SilkRoad Tarim : oasis-tarim.com Urumqi : urumqi-tokyo.com Reyhan’s Uyghur Restaurant : reyhan.co.jp/restaurant
Things To Do in Arizona for March 2019- Sun and Fun!
Ski Flagstaff and around Arizona in 2019 with a great snow pack If you are getting tired of the “Polar Vortex” action in your home state, there are Arts Festivals all around the state during March. With signs of Summer, major league baseball and Spring Training begins. Major league teams are at baseball camps in the Phoenix metro area Examples here and many more Things to Do in Arizona on this link. For just a sampling of the things happening around Arizona check the following list and the dynamic links that follow the list for even more things to do around the state. Maricopa County Home and Landscape Show: Glendale March 01 to March 03 (602) 485-1691 http://maricopacountyhomeshows.com 1 Cardinals Dr Glendale, AZ 85305 State Farm Stadium hosts more than 1,000 innovative and inspiring displays, including an artisan marketplace, DIY workshops and presentations, a free planting party, canine obedience displays and more. Admission is $8 for adults. Heard Museum Guild 61st Annual Indian Fair and Market: Phoenix March 01 to March 03 (602) 252-8840 http://heard.org/fair Phoenix, AZ The Heard Museum (2301 N. Central Avenue) hosts a best-of-show reception Friday, then an Indian fair and art market Saturday and Sunday, featuring authentic art from more than 600 Native artists, live entertainment, food vendors and more. 8th Annual Tour d’Artistes Studio Tour and Sale: Fountain Hills March 01 to March 03 http://www.fountainhillsartleague.com Fountain Hills, AZ From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, interact with more than 60 artists and watch them create art at 15 studios and galleries in Fountain Hills. Visit website for map of participating locations. 16th Annual Polish Festival: Phoenix March 02 to March 03 (480) 442-9765 http://www.polishfestivalaz.org 2828 W Country Gables Dr Phoenix, AZ 85053 Our Lady of Szestochowa Parish hosts delicious Polish cuisine and beer, folk dances, Polish music and activities for the whole family, plus a souvenir boutique. Hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Free admission and… Apache Junction Gem & Mineral Show: Mesa March 02 to March 03 Mesa, AZ Skyline High School (845 S. Crismon Road) hosts rocks, gems, jewelry, minerals, jewelry supplies, rare and unusual crystals and more from vendors from all over the state. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. $3… Hellraising, Heroic and Hidden Women of the Old West: Phoenix March 06 (602) 495-0901 http://www.pueblogrande.com Phoenix, AZ Pueblo Grande Museum (4619 E. Washington Street) hosts this 6:30 p.m. presentation by historian and journalist Jana Bommersbach on the women who helped settle the West. Free and open to the public. “Airness” at the Phoenix Theatre Company: Phoenix March 06 to March 31 (602) 254-2151 http://phoenixtheatre.com/airness Phoenix, AZ The Phoenix Theatre Company (1825 N. Central Avenue) presents this story of the world of competitive air guitar. Performances are at 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, with matinees at 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets start at $29. Scottsdale Spring Arts Festival March 8 to 10 Scottsdale Civic Center Park https://scottsdaleartsfestival.org/ Art Festivals in the Spring are a great way to get out and soak up sun and have fun Maricopa Music Fest: Maricopa March 09 http://maricopamusicfest.us 42660 W Rancho El Dorado Pkwy Maricopa, AZ 85239 The Duke @ Rancho El Dorado Golf Course hosts this event from 5 to 9 p.m. to raise funds for veterans with PTSD to obtain free services via Maricopa practitioners. Included are live music and an auction. Persian New Year Festival: Scottsdale March 09 (480) 628-0470 http://www.persiannewyearfestival.com/home Scottsdale, AZ From 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., the Scottsdale Waterfront hosts delicious food, drinks, desserts and sounds of Persia. Wild Ones Baby Shower for Liberty Wildlife: Phoenix March 09 http://www.libertywildlife.org Phoenix, AZ From 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Liberty Wildlife hosts this event to help the center prepare for a busy orphan-care season. It features arts and crafts, games and special appearances from Liberty Wildlife residents and their ambassadors. Donations of… 19th Annual Ancient Technology Day: Phoenix March 09 (602) 495-0901 http://www.pueblogrande.com Phoenix, AZ Pueblo Grande Museum (4619 E. Washington Street) hosts atlatl (spear) demonstrations, weaving, roasted agaves and other ancient technologies from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Free admission. 9th Annual Roots N’ Boots Queen Creek: Queen Creek March 14 to March 17 http://rootsnboots.org 20464 E Riggs Rd Queen Creek, AZ 85142 Horseshoe Park and Equestrian Center hosts a PRCA pro rodeo, community competitions, a carnival, live entertainment, a draft horse meet-and-greet and vendors, plus dances and family activities. Tickets are $16.50 to $25. 31st Annual Apache Leap Mining Festival: Superior March 15 to March 17 (520) 689-0200 http://superiorarizonachamber.org Superior, AZ The Superior Chamber of Commerce presents this unique event featuring a parade, a carnival, live entertainment and opportunities to learn about mining and Superior’s rich history. Free admission. Hours are 5 to 11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m…. Cirque du Soleil’s “Amaluna”: Glendale March 15 to April 14 http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/amaluna Glendale, AZ State Farm Stadium hosts this critically acclaimed Cirque du Soleil celebration of love and tribute to the work and voice of women. It’s written and directed by Tony Award winner Diane Paulus. Valley of the Sun United Way Fundraiser, Roger’s Tom Jones with the Motown Blossoms at Tempe Center for the Arts: Tempe March 17 (480) 350-2822 http://www.tempecenterforthearts.com/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/60680/5071 Tempe, AZ This 3 p.m. performance at the Tempe Center for the Arts features a top-notch, unforgettable tribute to Tom Jones and the Motown era. A portion of the proceeds will benefit Valley of the Sun United Way. Tickets are $29-40. Arizona Quilters Guild Quilt Show: Mesa March 21 to March 23 (480) 827-8458 http://azquiltersguild.org 201 N Center St Mesa, AZ 85201 The Mesa Convention Center hosts quilts of all kinds, special displays and demonstrations, plus guest speakers, an auction and vendors. Honors are awarded to the most outstanding quilts. Visit website for complete schedule. Four Peaks Burger Battle: Scottsdale March 22 http://scottsdalefest.org/burgerbattle 7135 E Camelback Road Scottsdale, AZ 85251 From 7 to 9:30 p.m., Southbridge at Scottsdale Waterfront hosts 17 restaurants showcasing their takes on the perfect burger, plus live music, lawn games and more. DC Wonder Woman Run: Tempe March 24 http://dcwonderwomanrun.com 80 W Rio Salado Pkwy Tempe, AZ 85281 Tempe Beach Park hosts 5K and 10K runs designed to empower women, men and children from all walks of life to harness their inner Wonder Woman and unleash the superhero within. Races start at 9 a.m. Yuja Wang at Chamber Music Sedona: Sedona March 24 http://chambermusicsedona.org/yuja-wang-and-nicholas-canellakis Sedona, AZ The world-renowned piano phenomenon performs at the Sedona Performing Arts Center alongside Chamber Music Sedona artistic director and cellist Nicholas Canellakis at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $40 for adults and $15 for students. SHARE Scottsdale, Phoenix and Around the State of Arizona Looking to do some other things in Sunny Scottsdale, Phoenix and Arizona? See these dynamic sources that are constantly updated here and loaded with “Things To Do” in Scottsdale, Phoenix, Tucson, Sedona and throughout the state of Arizona . Check in often for the latest things to do and see in the “Grand Canyon” state. Live, play and explore. Choose among urban activities, festivals, events, sports, recreation, and dining or explore the awesome beauty throughout Arizona. The awesome desert southwest awaits! Arizona Highways- Things To Do Search by date around the state
Arizona Republic- Weekly Things To Do – Dynamic updated daily for the Phoenix Metro area
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