June 2022 – Lifestyle Today

30Jun

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Lifestyle & Arts

The Dream Catcher

Text by Ranjabati Das. Photographs by Asad Sheikh. Styled by Sarah Rajkotwala. “Less Is More”, her black T-shirt proclaims in contrasting white capital letters, offering a glimpse into her psyche at the outset of our Zoom conversation (she is at her studio in Haripur, a tiny township in the Kangra district of Himachal). It coheres perfectly with the deliberate restraint that marks much of her work – as an actor, painter and writer – lending nuance while avoiding heavy-handedness. In her upcoming memoir, A Country Called Childhood, Deepti Naval continues down this path, steering clear of ostentatious language and, therefore, tedium, even though she packs it with exhaustive details, leaving ...

26Jun

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Food & Nutrition

Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Dip

This 6-ingredient slow cooker buffalo chicken dip is a creamy and spicy mix of chicken, buffalo sauce, ranch, sour cream and cheddar cheese. Just throw everything in the crock pot and come back a few hours later to a bubbly and addictive dip. Today we’re making some slow cooker buffalo chicken dip, which is an appetizer version of the much-loved buffalo wings, reinvented into tiny scoopable bites. This tangy and spicy dip is perfect for bringing to cookouts, game days, parties, or potlucks with the convenience of transporting and keeping it warm in a handy little 3 qt. slow cooker. This dip has finely shredded chicken smothered in a hot and creamy dip made from melted cream cheese, cool ranch dressing, sour cream, cheddar cheese and spicy buffalo sauce. The slow cooker is all ...

21Jun

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Food & Nutrition

The World Spins Around Chorizo

This is likely sacrilege if it were ever uttered within the geographical boundaries of Spain, but I suspect there’s no better place to eat chorizo than in the Americas, and maybe specifically right here in the United States. Bear with me. Yes, this paprika-seasoned sausage came to be around 500 years ago on the Iberian Peninsula, where the chiles arrived after the Columbian Exchange. And yes, regional iterations might be revered as Spanish culinary canon—chorizo there is usually fully cured, hand-sliced, and as celebrated as jamón Ibérico. But this sausage has also left its rust-colored calling card across much of the Western hemisphere. Think of any place Spain or Portugal once brutally colonized—the southernmost stretch of the United State...

A Far-Out Sandwich Cookbook for Generation Shredduce

20Jun

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Food & Nutrition

A Far-Out Sandwich Cookbook for Generation Shredduce

Mason Hereford might be a famous chef from New Orleans—Food & Wine magazine named his first restaurant, Turkey and the Wolf, one of the most important of the last decade—but he would be the first to tell you that he doesn’t do the old traditional cuisine of that wonderful city. What he does do is nail the city’s spirit, which he loosely defines “as a group of people who exist to have a good time.” Hereford’s two restaurants—and his brand-new cookbook, Turkey and the Wolf: Flavor Trippin’ in New Orleans—are all undeniably “a good time.” (He opened the daytime sandwich spot Turkey and the Wolf in 2016 and the breakfast joint Molly’s Rise and Shine two years later.) I believe even a teetotaling vegan would enjoy his stories of creating the perf...

19Jun

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Food & Nutrition

Baked Honey Balsamic Chicken

Try this baked honey balsamic chicken recipe with tender, juicy chicken coated in a sweet and tangy flavor-packed sauce. Serve with sides like rice or mashed potatoes to soak up all that sauce and veggies like broccoli, asparagus, or green beans for a filling dinner. Today we’re making some baked honey balsamic chicken which is a quick and easy answer to simple, fool-proof weeknight dinners. The chicken is fall-off-the-bone juicy with deliciously crisp chicken skins thanks to the use of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs or drumsticks in this recipe. However, if you’re not a fan of thighs or anything with bones in them, you can also make this recipe with the humble chicken breast. The chicken is marinated in a simple sauce of balsamic vinegar, honey, olive oil, garlic powder and ...

15Jun

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Food & Nutrition

A Softer Side of Celery

Celery is most frequently seen as prerequisite garnish, a semblance of health food to pair with a Bloody Mary or Buffalo chicken wings, or juiced to a verdant green. Yet when cooked down and caramelized, celery joins aromatics like garlic and onions as a fundamental base for sauces and soups like French mirepoix, the Italian/Spanish/Portuguese variations on sofrito, or even the Creole holy trinity of onions, bell peppers, and celery. Its snappy, vibrant green fades to a dull pastel, and its bitter, salty bite mellows, becoming sweeter and earthier. This is the softer side of celery that is often overlooked. Celery is a fibrous, long stalk grown in marshlands, predominantly in the Mediterranean. It has been harvested since the days of Greek and R...

We’re Living In a Frozen Pizza Renaissance

14Jun

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Food & Nutrition

We’re Living In a Frozen Pizza Renaissance

For over half a century, pizza has had a welcome home in the grocery store frozen foods aisle. Totino’s and Tombstone began selling frozen pizzas in the 1960s, soon after easy-to-heat TV dinners debuted in living rooms across America. Red Baron got into the game with their own frozen pies in the 1970s, which quickly dominated school lunch menus nationwide. But perhaps the biggest development in at-home pizza came in 1995, when Kraft launched DiGiorno. The aggressively advertised “better than delivery” pies feature a signature “rising crust” that puffs up as it bakes, for a doughy result more reminiscent of freshly made pizza. Within a few years, DiGiorno rose to become the number-one-selling frozen pizza brand in the United States, and it has rema...

At the Salone del Mobile 2022 in Milan, Jaipur Rugs unveils a collaboration with Ashiesh Shah inspired by the mysteries of the universe

13Jun

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Lifestyle & Arts

At the Salone del Mobile 2022 in Milan, Jaipur Rugs unveils a collaboration with Ashiesh Shah inspired by the mysteries of the universe

Travel Text by Mallika Chandra. Images by Hansraj Dochaniya (courtesy Jaipur Rugs) Brahmaand collection One positive change the pandemic effected was to bring city dwellers closer to natural rhythms. For one, we started to look up. No longer was the rising sun just a mundane fixture signalling the start of a hectic workday. No longer was the moon a mere orb in the sky, which one only saw if one remembered to look away from a screen and out of the window. Stars were visible (again) and the clear, pollution-free skies became a daily respite from the harshest of lockdowns. For architect-designer Ashiesh Shah, the starlit night skies inspired age-old questions about the mysteries held wit...

A Champion Pitmaster Has Big Promises for Your Small Grill

13Jun

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Food & Nutrition

A Champion Pitmaster Has Big Promises for Your Small Grill

Initially, Kevin Bludso wasn’t interested in writing a cookbook. “I didn’t think my life was worthy enough of a story,” he recalls. Still, with his debut book, Bludso’s BBQ Cookbook: A Family Affair in Smoke and Soul, Bludso took the opportunity to dive deep into East Texas–style barbecue and his family history. Los Angeles–based Bludso is a fourth-generation pitmaster and a judge on The American Barbecue Showdown (which airs on Netflix). He opened his first barbecue restaurant, Bludso’s BBQ, in his hometown of Compton in 2007, bringing recipes he learned from his grandmother during summers spent in Corsicana, Texas. The cookbook is just as much about barbecue as it is about Bludso’s life and upbringing. This is not necessarily uncommon in a ...

12Jun

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Food & Nutrition

Homemade Garlic Bread

This homemade garlic bread recipe with freshly toasted crusty bread slathered in herbed garlic butter will compliment any pasta meal. Today we’re making some warm homemade garlic bread with freshly toasted slices smothered generously in a drippy, buttery herbed garlic butter. This 5-ingredient recipe uses any Italian or French bread, lots of minced garlic, grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Parmesan cheese and freshly chopped Italian parsley. For best garlic bread results, the key is to keep the recipe simple and the ratio of butter to garlic just right. We’re using 4-6 cloves of garlic per loaf to load up on that garlicky goodness to pair with your favorite pasta meal. It’s perfect for sopping up any spaghetti or pasta sauce or just for dipping in some marinara. Like these Parmesa...