Food is often the great connection - we cook it and share it with the people we care about and we make it for those in need of comfort. It can be a generation gap bridge and even a culture gap bridge. It can bring us new friends and help us learn new cultures and share our own culture.
Nowhere is this more true than with Michelle Peters-Jones from Food, Football and a Baby. Growing up in India, Michelle was surrounded by a family of women who could work magic in the kitchen. After moving to England later in life, she wound up a competitor on BBC's Masterchef UK (food), became an Arsenal fan (football), and met and married the love of her life, a Canadian (baby).
Finding herself smack dab in the middle of Edmonton facing substantial culture shock and staying at home all day with a very small child, she used food blogging as a way to combat homesickness, make new local friends and connect not only with Canadian culture, but also to connect Canada with a little Indian culture. She's now firmly entrenched in the Edmonton food scene and has started teaching Indian cooking classes to hungry Edmontonians.
Michelle's recipes run the range of cuisines from all the places she's called home with smoked salmon dip, English Baked Beans to the Indian classic, Butter Chicken (which she live blogged with a few other Edmonton bloggers who wanted to learn the right way to make it!). But almost all of the recipes on her blog have her own personal flair and a little south Asian flavour added in.
She freely plays with spices and tries to recreate the dishes of her childhood like Phirni (a sweet Indian rice pudding) and to make the perfect cup of chai.
If you are looking for some authentic Indian spice mixes you can make at home be sure to check out Michelle's recipe index for some that you can put together in your own kitchen, like the classic Garam Masala.
And after reading and salivating over all of Michelle's recipes and photos, it's hard to believe that her family only considers her... a decent...! cook in the realm of their family cooking! That's quite a kitchen heritage!
You can connect with Michelle on twitter @michpetersjones and on Facebook: Food, Football and a Baby
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Thanks so much for featuring my blog on FBC 🙂 A real honour and I am so chuffed!
Yay, Michelle! A great blog to be featured here. Kudos!
How did I miss you featured here??? YAY, Michelle! A prolific Edmonton blogger and vibrant member of our local food community! Some of her posts are simply unforgettable – like her polar bear cookies!
🙂
V