Belated First Birthday & Italy Updates

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Ciao from Italy, as I come to the end of the first leg of my European summer. And I completely missed a very special day - Deliciously Directionless turned ONE two days ago! This wouldn't have been possible without you, dear reader, so thank you for sticking around :) 

A quick round-up of the trip so far. Italy has always been my number one dream destination & whatever I have seen of it has more than met my expectations!

Starting from Venice - the decadently mysterious city on water was as pretty as a picture; getting lost in the calle (back alleys) is the best way to discover hidden churches, squares and bacari (bars). And of course the shimmering beauty of the Grand Canal with the gondolas gliding along; Venice must be seen to believed...

Euro 2013 & Gateau au Chocolat

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Buongiorno, Bonjour and Guten Morgen!! Yes, as you may have guessed I’m off to Europe this summer! In my earlier post on travel books, I had mentioned that I’m heading to 2 of the destinations covered by those books – Paris and Venice. I’m doing about half the boot of Italy (northern bit), then celebrating my birthday in Paris and then off to the hills that are alive with the sound of music – Austria :)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Venice_Gondola_Grand_Canal.jpg

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So this will be my last post for a while, unless I get a chance to write “from the road”. Do follow me on Twitter for the latest updates. Since I’m heading to the ‘city of lights’, I thought I’ll leave you with a tres francais recipe of Gateau au Chocolat. This recipe is from David Lebovitz’s book “The Sweet Life in Paris”. I hope you enjoy it. Au revoir for a bit as I fulfill one of my travel resolutions for this year – to visit a new country and eat local. Watch out for some delicious posts once I’m back!

Have your Challah and eat it too

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Lately, I have been posting quite a bit about bread, haven’t I? What can I do when I have an artisanal bakery in the neighbourhood?! I had written about The Baker’s Dozen earlier in TimeOut Mumbai as well as posted about it on the blog. The bakery has now added another bread to its basket – the Jewish Challah. Challah (pronounced "hall-ah") is braided, egg bread, traditionally eaten on Shabbat, the Jewish rest day. Shabbat is observed from Friday sundown to Saturday night; candles are lit to mark the beginning and three festive meals are eaten – the first one on Friday evening beginning with breaking bread i.e. the challah.

The good folks at The Baker's Dozen sent across a loaf for me to try out over this past weekend. The challah arrived, golden and plump and I couldn’t wait to devour it. One bite and I was sold! A sweet, eggy bread with a gleaming crust; it is definitely going on my favourites list. The bread is priced at Rs. 120 for a loaf.