Christmas is round the corner and everyone definitely are busy with organising everything right from gifts to decorations and planning family meal. In all this excitement, I was quite busy till I saw Joanna’s mail about the incredible event  Menu For Hope which takes place around Christmas. For those of you who are hearing about this for the first time, its a campaign involves Food Bloggers around the world each donating something to be raffled off online for charity. Everyone will get to read about raffle items and then place a bid  and there by entering their name for any raffle prize  they would love to have for Christmas and at the end of the campaign, winners are chosen using a software application, after which the hosts will tell people the good news of what they have won. (More Details at Joanna’s blog)

The money will be going to the World Food Programme (WFP), Have a look at what kind of amazing changes are happening around the world  with the money raised by amazing events like this and with little help from everyone at a festive time like this. This year, the WFP has allowed us to earmark the funds to a specific program and the chosen place is school feeding program in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho which is a place in fellow blogger Jeanne’s home country, South Africa! I know every little help really changes lives of those amazing kids who not only deserve to live by at-least having a proper meal a day. I, a proud mom to my little one makes my heart bleed for those poor kids suffering from malnutrition and disease before they reach five. We are hoping to raise as much money as we can to help them. The kingdom is confronting the triple threat of increasing chronic poverty, rising HIV/AIDS rates and weakened government capacity. This threat takes a heavy toll on the households of the rural poor in Lesotho, who are faced with a limited number of coping strategies to respond to the intensifying hazard. 56% of the population live on less then $2 per day. Its heart wrenching to even think that so please donate whatever you can and win some fantastic prizes.

I AM PROUD TO BE DONATING:

                                                  (PRIZE CODES: UK23 and UK29)

2 of Anjum Anand’s Easy Indian Cooking,  her recipes are clear, straightforward, simple, healthy and concise.I was totally amazed at how easy they were to follow and absolutely loved it and I guess it would be an amazing gift to any Indian Food Lover who wants to try making it home. I am going to add the five basic, authentic ,traditional Spices needed to kick-start Indian Cooking at home. The following prizes make great gifts, and each item will be sent to the raffle winner neatly packed and shipping expenses paid. This particular cookbook is an amazing gift to anyone who loves Indian Food.

Read more…

I was delighted today when Amazing Anthony Worral Thompson who hosts Saturday Cooks cooked my recipe Live today on ITV. What an amazing experience it was to see my dish being cooked live and then those amazing chefs tasting as well. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to him about the recipe and about my family, noel and see him cook through the recipe on phone.  Cracking the coconut bit was the highlight for today’s programmes as many of my friends immediately called me and said that was an amazing technique to crack a coconut.

As fresh coconut goes into many of my dishes, I would definitely follow his tip from now on.

Jilly Goolden, the wine expert recognised me from my other TV show and selected a great Argentinian wine to go with it.

All in all, it was an amazing experience to talk to those Pros’ and to see them cook and taste my recipe while I am talking, it did made MY DAY today.

Here’s the dish he made today, thats King Prawn Curry. You can check the recipe n the show at www.itv.com/cooks.

Immediately after the show, I had many friends calling me and people whom i don’t even know said that  Indian food is new to them but “I inspired them to give it a go”. Its indeed my greatest pleasure to even inspire one person to cook Indian food at home fresh with simple n amazing spices.

Thank you all very much  and really appreciate it and thanks to all who promptly visited my blog immediately after the show to check my website and leave those amazing comments and mails. It really means a lot to me.