• Recipe notebook

    Steaming goodness

    [ Steaming goodness ] Two years back, during my sons’s activity project I had to learn making Bhapa Pitha. For a strange reason I always thought making Pitha (Bangladeshi desserts) is tough. Now that I can make an entire cake and decorate it too, I know making pitha can be tiresome but never impossible. Hence these days I make pitha at home, and don’t drive my mother in law crazy to make pithas for me. Bhapa Pitha is perhaps the most famous pitha. It is essentially a rice cake filled with molsasses and coconut. But I don’t like coconut in…

  • Traditions

    Stitched dreams…

    [ Stitched dreams… ] Bangladesh is a tropical country, with a mild winter and humid summer. In the northern side, the winter is stronger than the rest of the country. The span of winter is also very little. Thus the use of heavy blankets is limited to only few days of the year. Rest of the year we use Katha. Katha is a light sheet made of 6 to 8 sarees together. Making katha is an art like American quilt, only difference is, we didn’t market it as we should have. The art of Katha could have been a national…

  • Mirror mirror

    Scarf it up

    [ Scarf it up ] Winter is technically here in Dhaka, it is November already. The official season for scarves, shawls and stoles is here finally. Though we Bengali women wear scarves or stoles everyday with Kurtis and we call it Dupatta or Orna. There are so many ways you can wear the scarves. Scarves add value and style to your fashion. Be it a contrast scarf or a matching one, a nice scarf can be gorgeous. I prefer to just loosely hang it from my left side or wrap it around my neck when I wear it with my…