I was unable to post for a long time.

My father-in-law was expired last month. The funeral process of us (Hindus) is very elaborate and ritualistic. We had to take meal one in a day for ten days and the meal was consists of only boiled vegetables and rice without pepper or lemon. My husband and his brothers could not apply oil on any of their body parts and could not comb their hair or had a shave. On tenth day the had to shave their head.

On eleventh day the ultimate process of funeral (shraddha) took place. After that we took fish in our meal (this ritual is called matsamukh ) and the funeral process was over.

Biriyani is my all time favorite dish.

In my student life I asked many of my muslim friends’ moms about the recipe of biriyani. They told me and I had tried preparing biriyani by trial and error method but every time that was a failure.

In this way my student life ended and I myself became a teacher. Then I got a student named Zaheer. His mom became very close to our family and we call her buludidi (bulu is her name and didi means elder sister in Bengali).

One day she invited us in her house in Eid. She prepared excellent biriyani for us on that occassion.

As usual I asked her about the recipe. Not only she told me the recipe but also she showed me the process by herself.

After some practice I became expert in biriyani. Now my DH tell me that, my Biriyani is better than Shiraz (The best restaurant  for biriyani in Calcutta)

In Sankrit it is considered that depending upon the eating process there are four types of dishes namely ‘Charba’, ‘Choshya’, ‘Lehya’ and ‘Peyo’.

Charba is a kind of dish that have to chew, like vegetables. meat fish etc.

Chosya is a dish that have to suck, like some sweet dishes, juicy fruits.

Lehya is for licking, eg chutneys, pickles.

Peyo are the beverages, like serbat, juices.

I can not start my day without a cup of hot tea.

Not only tea is my favorite hot drink but also tea is a very popular drink all over World.

The story of tea start in ancient China over 5,000 years ago.

It is considered that, Gautama Budhha is the first person, who discovered importance of tea leaf in India. One day when he was ending his meditation, he felt very tired and hungry, then he saw a shrub near by. Chewing the leaf of that shrub he became refreshed. That shrub was a tea plant.

Then it was used only as a herbal drink(tea leaf boiled with water). But modern form of tea, which we are drinking with sugar, milk etc are brought by the British.

Assam & Darjeeling tea are famous all over the world. Darjeeling tea is popular for its flavour, whereas Assam tea is for liquor.

There are many varities of tea, Milk tea, Lemon tea, Masala tea, Green tea, Liquer tea etc. Green tea is a good source of anti-oxidant. It is a famous Wel Come drink of every Bengali houses. In Kolkata, to drink the tea in a earthen pot (vaanr) is very common and nostalgic.

But always remember never drink hot lemon tea in polythene or alkathene cup, because acidic lemon tea will chemically combine with alkathene or polythene to produce toxic chemicals.