A warm welcome to Kitchen Archives! I’m Girija and I live in a remote village in the mountains of Wayanad district of Kerala state, India. This place nestles in the magnificent, biodiverse Western Ghats and is cool, green, peaceful and abounds with lush green forests. An immense variety of edible wild plants, mushrooms, vegetables, fruits and herbs grow around us giving me a beautiful selection of ingredients to choose from to prepare healthy, delicious food for our table.
I was born and brought up in the coastal city of Kozhikode, the food capital of Kerala. Being born into a Konkani family and growing up in Kerala, I delighted in enjoying the dishes of both Konkani and Kerala cuisines. My dear late father was a gourmet and an excellent cooking hobbyist, my mother an enthusiastic cook who delighted in serving tasty dishes to countless visiting relatives and friends.
I was never allowed to cook, for my dear mother was afraid of letting children near the stove. So, I had to be content on being a home sous chef 🙂 . My passion for cooking was such that during my mother’s absence – she would go off to her parents place at Paroor for weeks every year – my father and I would take over the Kitchen, explore and experiment with gourmet dishes.
Later, when I got married and moved to my husband’s house at Thalassery, I realized that my mother in law was a superb cook. She lovingly taught me the basics of delicious Konkani cuisine. It was from my husband’s centuries old ancestral home that I stepped on my endless journey of learning and perfecting dish after dish of vegetarian and seafood preparations for my family. The glowing faces of my dear husband and my two children as they happily tucked in, became my inspiration. As the realization dawned upon us that most of the new generation people knew hardly about healthy, traditional recipes, we decided to share my knowledge and experience to everyone interested in cooking.
My husband, my love, my life! 🙂
Thus, on 7th September 2011, I started my blog, mouthwateringfoodrecipes.blogspot.com. My husband took care of the photography, design and editing of the posts while my son took care of all the web related work. My dear daughter, more of a bookworm than a cook, is nevertheless my best critic 🙂 .
While creating the recipes, every effort has been taken to see that even a novice in the kitchen can cook these dishes perfectly at the first attempt itself. I have posted more than 340 recipes so far in my blog. I am transferring those recipes too, improving them wherever necessary and including beautiful new pictures as well.
Your comments inspire me to give you more and more delightful recipes, to go on. Many of our friends suggested that I start a website for my recipes and thus, today, this new website, Kitchen Archives is born. For the first recipe, I have selected the very same, beautiful first recipe – dudepak – a delicious Konkani milk and rice dessert – with which I started my blog 4 years ago, with a new picture and minor changes. I hope it’ll sweeten our journey through delectable dishes together.
Many marvelous new recipes are here for you to start with. I am sure you’ll like them all.