"Fave Memory"

As a five-year-old who stepped into the new town, all I could see was the city lights that completely soaked me in. As years passed, Dubai seemed ever more enchanting. Nothing was more fascinating than the night beauty of the Arabian tale. The shimmer of the colors that lit the calm Creekside waters, cruise rides as a royal treat, the aromatic breeze of Arabic cuisine, the scented air of heritage culture, delights a roughly spend day.

I used to walk with my patents to the Creekside very often. The Heritage village nearby has these sweet goody snacks made by the local Arab ladies. Once, I happen to have these small round golden crunchy balls, an Arab sweet named 'Luqaimat' topped with a drizzle of sugar syrup. Ever since then it was no doubt I never wanted to leave Dubai.  There was nothing more to make me happy than gazing at the Creekside and enjoying my snack.
The very fact that I have to leave the town makes this place even more special.

A golden memory shared with a golden sweet treat.

Fave Memory

One of my favorite food memories is the day when my family got together to make bunch of mandu--dumplings!

My mom would prepare enough ingredients to make about one hundred dumplings and it would take us the whole day to make the mandu.

We'd all gather around a table and talk about what happened at school, work--in life.

We still have this tradition to this day and I look forward to visiting my mom to make mandu together with her and the rest of my family :)

Fave Memory

My grandmother was born in Rivarolo Mantovano, a small village in the countryside near Mantua. When I was a kid, we used to go there (from Milan) to pick up pumpkins, in order to find the most delicious for our homemade tortelli.

Pumpkin-filled tortelli are a very ancient recipe from northern Italy, and a typical dinner for Christmas Eve in my family. My grandfather makes egg pasta on Christmas Eve morning or the day before. The filling, a mixture of pumpkin, amaretti biscuits, parmigiano cheese, mostarda, and nutmeg, is rather sweet than savory. We have them with butter and sage, but my father usually grills them in the oven with parmigiano on top, for some extra-flavour.

Fave memory.
This is my late Mum's recipe for potted smoked trout, the recipe description is taken straight out of an old file that she kept her recipes in. I wanted to keep it as it originally was because the file is very precious to me.
Dad caught the trout as he loved to go fly fishing and I have very happy memories of watching him cast his rod while I lazed on the banks of the river watching and dreaming.
I was never very keen on trout, but the one way I liked it was when Dad hot smoked it, in a smoker he made himself out of an old cake tin. This was my favorite way to eat it when Mum made the pate, its delicious spread on crusty bread or toast.

My Fave Memory with food involves my great grandmother, who was also my next door neighbor when I was growing up. I loved Saturday mornings when I’d see my grandma crossing our backyards, past her laundry hanging on the clothesline in the warm summer breeze and past the lilac bushes that separated our yards. She’d have a foil wrapped treasure for us of banana or zucchini bread, depending on whatever surplus she had in her kitchen. Or it would be a plate of blueberry muffins with farm fresh berries and sugar sprinkled on the top, still warm from the oven.

Sometimes I’d venture over to visit grandma in her tiny kitchen. She always had a treat to share with us. I particularly liked dipping sour blueberries into the hobnail glass sugar bowl, a little trick she taught me. We’d talk about her memories of growing up during the depression or share stories of our family. She was an amazing woman who liked to craft and keep her hands busy. She’d have her daughters look through the Sears catalog to pick out a dress and she’d whip it up, just by looking at the picture.

I can’t eat a slice of banana bread without thinking about her and the cherished times I had with her.

Fave Memories

Ladoo or the famous motichoor ladoo is an all time hit in India.North,South, East or west, this ladoo will have you drooling over in the country.Usually eaten as a dessert, this motichoor ladoo is rich and soft and a favorite of the Indian household during festivals like Diwali.

My kids and I had tea party everyday during pre-school age. On special occasions, we had our tea party before going to bed. My kids had milk with chocolate cookies and I had cup of tea or coffee. This is my “Fave Memory” with my kids.

FAVE MEMORY. I have always loved summer picnics, when we were packing special food and blankets and we were spending the day in the wild, ideally near a river. I have great memories of these picnics as a child, and how organised my step mom was. It didn't look as pretty as in my illustration though, but I like it that way now when I am the one organising a picnic with my family.

My FAVE MEMORY relates to travelling with my family through Europe while visiting relatives, and my 10 year old son had decided that each day was not complete unless he had had a gelato, which was fine with us too as the gelati were so delicious, especially in Spain and Italy. The gelati were presented so beautifully in Spain with fresh fruit and chocolates often placed alongside the colourful trays.