For the love of food and travel

This year Miss J was celebrating her birthday on a Saturday. Since it was a weekend, I was gearing up for a birthday party with family and friends. I was planning on baking a cake and preparing a menu for our guests. Well that's when my almost teenage daughter, said that she didn't want any of these for her birthday......she wanted to celebrate it in a different way. This time, she wished for a birthday celebration away from home.  And that's when we had an impromptu trip to Mysore.  I've been living in Bangalore for over two decades, and though Mysore is just approximately 150kms from here, I had visited this heritage city in my school days; at around the same age as Miss J is today. Reaching Mysore from Bangalore and vice versa is very easy. There is a 24 X 7 bus connectivity between Bangalore - Mysore. There is a good train facility between Bangalore city junction and Mysore junction. There are good number of cabs which fly between these cities too .  Else,

Some things are just wonderful, like friendship & chocolate cake!!! I love chocolate cake. It's always my "go-to" recipe for any occasion - be it a birthday, anniversary, graduation, promotion, homecoming....any kind of celebrations. I even make it on days when I just feel like having it. Until 1830's-1840's, chocolate was consumed primarily as a beverage. Early chocolate cakes were much lighter because they used significantly smaller amounts of sugar and cocoa. They also used more flour than what we are accustomed to making them fluffier and more like what we would today call a breakfast bread. It wasn't until 1940 that chocolate cake recipes became more rich and decadent, calling for larger quantities of cocoa and sugar than previously. Did you know that there is a difference between a chocolate cake and brownie?? They are both chocolaty and absolutely delicious. And though many people may argue that brownies are simply a smaller version of cho