How to satisfy the foody in you

 

Being full time employee to an organization which at times need more than 9 hours of my time a day and being someone who has so many hobbies (which again need some time and attention) is a though thing to manage. To top it all I got married to a foodie, someone who does not believe in the quantity of food but is very particular about the quality of food. My husband loves eating, and he adores it when I make his favourite dishes. He is critical about food so I just can’t boil anything and serve that to him, he needs only Good Food. But with my full time job, blog and other household chaos cooking becomes a tiring job at times for me.

I am not found of cooking but I love serving good food to my family. So on days when I am late from work or do not have sufficient time to put together a good meal it makes me feel bad. On such occasions we mostly order food from outside but as you know for food home delivery first thing which came to our mind is Pizza. But can we eat pizza 3 times a week, not me J We need more options for food home delivery, right? After a long day at work I do not feel like getting dressed to go out for a meal, I just want to eat my food in comfort of my home but I want verity too. And to rescue all the people like me who have no time to cook/go out/ or pick to go Foodpanda is here (for some reasons this site always reminds me of the foodie kung fu Panda J )

 

Foodpanda is site which works as a channel between us and our favourite restaurants. Now for all those who think why do we need this channel, don’t you think opening each restaurant site one by one to find menu or calling them separately will be more time consuming then finding information about all of them at one place. By bringing menu and contact details of various restaurants at one place Foodpanda makes food ordering very easy for customers. Foodpanda serves in many other countries and in India currently it is active in 14 cities. This site also offers lots of verity to end user in terms of cuisines and most of the well know restaurants are available here. This is not all, it also takes care of our pocket by giving us good deals on our meals J Which we cannot get otherwise.  

Ordering process is quite simple too. On the main page we can select our city and area and it will list down all the restaurants available. We can see their menu and by clicking on the add button next to each item we can create our order and once done finally click on place order. Within some time the restaurant people call and confirm the order too in many cases. And in case you have mood to eat some specific food then just select that cuisine on their main page and you will see all the restaurants which serve that food. It’s quite simple and fun. And for families where one like Chinese and other loves Mughlai, Foodpanda works as saviour by bringing details of both types of restaurant at one place. This site takes orders from 11 am to 11 pm, which means whether it is lunch order in office, late lunch on weekends or dinner Foodpanda is ready to serve us always.

In this day and age where time is the  most precious thing, having a site which saves food ordering time is like a boon. It comes as a saviour even when one is in a new city, just few clicks and you get your much loved food without getting lost in new place. With Foodpanda placing food home delivery has become very easy job for me and I recommend this site to everyone who wants to enjoy their favourite food without going out J  

 

 

Smell that I Remember

Pictures take you back to your past but have you ever been taken to memory lane by some smell? I do, I always associate smells with things, places and people and that is how smells always become essential part of my memories.

 

 

That smell of rain always reminds me of my childhood rainy days, when we used to play out in rain, and mom used to give us hot and yummy pakodas to eat J. Similarly the smell of wet cloths during rainy season reminds me of afternoon naps, which mom used to force us for whenever it used to rain heavily during afternoons. She will put the half dried cloths inside one room and switch on the fan and that smell of wet cloths used to spread in whole house. She will ask us not to go out and to make sure that we don’t sneak out without telling her, she used to make us sleep with her. Cosy blankets and some random story from mom and after some time we used to be in our dream lands.

 I also associate a different kind of smell with my dad. When he used to come back from work, he used to have little bit of iron kind of smell on him ( he works for a steel company). So that kind of smell always reminds me of my dad.

Mixed smell of pickles and paratha reminds me of my lunch box in school. As I used to hate eating vegetables, mom used to stuff them in paratha and used to give that with pickle for lunch. And when I used to open that box after few hours during Lunch break, it used to give a delicious pickley smell. I also associate some of my relatives with different smells. Like this one aunt of mine was big fan of cobra perfume, whenever she will pass by one can easily identify her with her perfume smell. That was a strong smelling perfume, now also whenever I smell anything similar it always reminds me of my Aunt. Likewise my Nana ji (maternal grandfather) is using a strong smelling hair oil from ages, he used to use that oil so much that even his cloths used to smell same. Smelling that oil or anything similar brings back the fun time I spent with my Nana ji J While talking about smells how can I forget about mentioning the smell of baby powder. These baby powders smell I associate with so many kids in my family. My siblings, cousins they all used to smell same when they where infants and I being the oldest of them all got to see them all as babies and played with all of them. That smell of baby powder is so transferable that once you carry the baby you too start smelling the same J Recently I went to see my sister’s  new born baby and his smell reminded me of all the babies I played with till now :D. I think,  I am already missing him, see how strongly these smells are associated with us and our memories.

I also connect smells with my mood, a nice citrusy smell reminds me of fresh morning and warm vanilla smells reminds me of cold days. Fresh fruity fragrances make me feel young and happy and woody smells make me feel mature. Flowery smells make me feel more feminine and musky smells makes me feel strong. I guess this connection of fragrance with mood decides our liking of different perfumes.  

Smell can be good or it can be bad, they can take us back to good memories or to bad memories but they are integral part of our reminiscences and we can never deny that. I love smelling good and I like my surrounding to smell great too, it uplifts my mood. And when the smell is related to my good memories, I just enjoy the smell and smile for those good old times’ sake J.

 PS: I wrote this post for "AmbiPur smelly to smiley" on Indiblogger.

 

 

Singapore it is!

“The world is a book and people who do not travel read only one page” I so much agree to this line. Travelling gives us another view of life; it helps us know ourselves better. When we travel with people we love, whole experience of travelling goes to next level, our happiness doubles. If I have to tell about my definition of perfect holiday, it should be a combination of relaxing and sightseeing both. I don’t like going out and spending all the time in my luxury hotel only and I also do not like doing sightseeing on someone else’s pace, it becomes hectic and less fun that way.

I have travelled places mostly with friends and my husband. With my parents I have travelled only when I was very young. As I grew up, due to my studies and other classes we never got chance to have any good holiday together. When I got to travel abroad first, one thing which I missed the most was my parents. I wanted them to see and experience everything that I was doing. From that time itself I have this desire to take my parents on a holiday abroad. I want it to be a place which is different than our country (which we have travelled together many times) yet similar. And after travelling to Singapore, I feel that’s the answer for me.

I would like to take my parents to Singapore, which is a great travel destination. Singapore is the microcosm of Asia. It has something for everyone. I am sure my parents will admire the kind of discipline about cleanliness people follow there. Wide roads, flyovers and well planned city, it is so much fun to drive around in such place. Sentosa island is most famous place among tourists in Singapore. Famous Merlion Statue is there, and there are many other highlights like the Underwater World which I am sure will be something my parents have never seen before. There is this very fun place Dolphin Lagoon, where they conduct dolphin shows ( the kind of tricks they do will make them clap their hands in joy :) ) Last time when I was there I tried taking pictures of same but failed to capture those fun moment well, now when my mom dad will get to see it in real my joy will be doubled by seeing them happy. And now with Disneyland and universal studios also being there, I am sure I would love to see my parents relive their childhood J

Signapore also has China town, which is good to give one a feel of being in china, so I would like to take them there as well. And nothing gives more pleasure then to find your own culture and people in another land, so trip to little India will be there on my list as well. I would do lots of shopping with my mom there and will help keep my dad in updating his travelogue ( he has this habit of noting down some details of new places he goes to for future reference ;) )

All this and so much more is there in my mind but planning trip in real is not as easy as lying on the rocking chair and day dreaming. It is so much of work and efforts but who has time to plan for a break ;) yes the irony of our generation. To rescue us there are these online travel planning and booking sites available. And if it is from a reliable source then it’s like the cherry on the cake. Yatra is one such site which I trust for travel panning and booking. After all with ease of planning the travel the fun and happiness of the travel is also important. When we pull out some days from our busy schedules I don’t want to scratch my head about where to go and how to go. I want someone else to take these headaches of mine and let me have happy time with my family. Long talks, lots of food and laughter, some nice locations and lots of shopping this is what makes a trip memorable and make us happy travellers. So when I will travel to Singapore with my parents I want all of this, so that we bring back lots of lovely memories as Happy Travellers.

PS: wrote this post for Creating Happy Travellers contest on Indiblogger by Yatra.