A few weeks ago, Jennie Perrillo of In Jennie’s Kitchen lost her husband, Mikey, to a sudden heart attack.  Literally – SUDDENLY.  He was helping their youngest daughter ride her bike, told her he needed to sit for a minute and then died.  There were no goodbyes. No heads up. At 5:52 p.m. one Sunday, Mikey was just gone. As I type these sentences, I am brought to tears again at the thought of the devasation felt by Jennie and her girls. I was up late working that Sunday night and saw tweets mentioning Mikey, then went to Jennie’s blog and watched this video of Mikey dancing with their daughter. Without even knowing yet what exactly had happened to him, there I was – tears from head to toe immediately.  I woke my husband up and hugged him.

Since Mikey died, I’ve been following Jennie’s struggle on Twitter and her blog. There are messages of hope, sadness, anger and strength. Jennie amazes me. She seems to have lived her life with Mikey to its fullest. Every moment has a memory – a story. Jennie is a reminder to me to live in the moment, to be present and to appreciate every second of life that I am given here with my husband, my daughter, my parents and family.  It can all be taken away in an instant. I’m thankful for the reminder but wish it could have come to me without such pain for this wonderful woman.

And so I want to give something back to Jennie. A Fund For Jennie is an effort created by Shauna Ahern and Maggy Keet, and it�EUR(TM)s organized by Bloggers Without Borders.  Jennie�EUR(TM)s friend, Shauna sent out an e-mail to the blogging community which initiated a campaign to raise money. She said:

As you can imagine, Jennie is overwhelmed not only by her grief, and the sudden responsibility of raising two children by herself, but she is also struggling with this financially. She just learned that she cannot collect widow�EUR(TM)s benefits from Social Security because she earns too much money each year. The health insurance for her and her kids runs out in December and she just learned that the total she will have to pay will be more than her mortgage. It�EUR(TM)s possible she�EUR(TM)ll have to pay off the entire mortgage in one lump sum because the apartment was in his name alone.

And more than anything, Mikey wanted Jennie to continue living her dream of being a food writer. And he wanted to make sure his kids were taken care of well. That�EUR(TM)s why he worked as hard as he did.

I am hosting an Auction for A Fund For Jennie. The deadline for Bloggers Without Borders program has passed, but 100% of the proceeds from this auction will be donated to A Fund For Jennie.

Here are the details on what I’m auctioning:

• A basket of 12 essential Indian spices and 5 additional “special” spices hand selected by me from Kalustyan’s
• A stainless steel masala dhaba, a traditional Indian spice box similar to this one
• Signed copy of Indian Home Cooking by Suvir Saran (courtesy of Suvir Saran)
• Signed copy of Modern Spice by Monica Bhide (courtesy of Monica Bhide)

Here are the rules of the auction:

• Bidding starts at $125
• Leave a comment below with your bid or email me at nithyadas1@gmail.com with your bid.
• Bidding ends on Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. ET.
• Spice basket and books will be mailed to the hightest bidder to any location in the U.S.

Leave a comment below with your bid or make a donation directly to Bloggers Without Borders.

Photo: Jennie Perrillo

Update: We raised $200 for A Fund for Jennie. Thanks everyone!

We’ve been spending our weekends since August on Shelter Island – which means room for Surya to run and play in between “beach time” and “pool time” (and occasionally “ice cream time”). A few times, I’ve carefully toted my masala dabba along with me  to cook Indian food. Cooking in someone else’s kitchen – especially cooking “speciality” food, in someone else’s kitchen is hard. It meant blending tomatoes for paneer makhani in a smoothie blender and changing courses on certain recipes. I had planned to make a whole spiced potato recipe from Suvir Saran’s Indian Home Cooking, but then realized I left my cookbook back in Brooklyn and didn’t have whole spices handy. I had, however, thrown a pack of Panch Phoron in with my kitchen gear and a blend of spices which I wanted to use for making Til Aloo from Indian Food Rocks.

Panch Phoron is a traditional Bengali five spice blend combining nigella seeds, black mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, fennel seeds and cumin seeds. Each bite is a crunchy mix of whole spices. A little spicy, a little bitter – and in this case, a little nutty and peppery from the sesame seeds and crushed red chili flakes that I threw in.

It was late, I wasn’t in my kitchen and I was missing a few ingredients here and there – the result though was tender nuggets of potatoes coated in crunchy whole spices and generous flecks of sea salt.

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As a new mom, I often find myself stuck in ruts. And yet, I care a lot about food and what Surya is eating. It’s important to me that she eat a well balanced diet of food that spans the culinary spectrum with changing flavors and textures. It’s also important to me that I have recipe ideas in my back pocket because I find that without a well stocked pantry, freezer and fridge, fresh food is unlikely to make its way to the table. This resulted in emails back and forth to other parents with ideas for new finger foods, vegetables to try etc. etc.

So together with my close friend and fellow mom, Christina, Half Pint Gourmet was born. We’ll run a themed contest about every two weeks and then recipe test the top entries before finally selecting the Editors’ Picks. There’s also a blog with gadget reviews, Q&A with an expert, nuritional information and menu planning.

We kicked things off with a contest calling for your Favorite Sandwiches. Head over to Half Pint Gourmet, register, and Submit a Recipe for your favorite sandwich before 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday, August 29th.  For now there’s no “prize” associated with winning a contest other than the pride of being an Editors’ Pick and knowing that you just made some little person’s meal more interesting. We’ll be hosting giveaways soon though so stay tuned!

We’ll also be doing profile posts of parents in a series called Beyond the Bib which will short looks in what you feed your little one and your family. If you’re interested in being featured, leave a comment below.

Cheers,

Nithya

I’m hoping Pinterest will be my solution. Pinterest is pretty cool – it’s a virtual bulletin board organized around different topics. You can follow people and be followed. You can repin other people’s pins. So it’s a great way to organize, share and discover.

I started a Recipes to Cook bulletin board and am pinning recipes as I find them on the web that I want to try. Here’s a link to my Recipes to Try board. The one thing I don’t think I can do on Pinterest is make it open so anyone can pin a recipe to my board suggesting that I add it to my “to try” list. Maybe I’ll invite a few friends to pin to my Recipes to Try board. If you want to pin to my Recipes to Try board, drop me an email or leave a comment below.

If you’re already on Pinterest, then click on this button to follow me:

First, I made her Baked Farro Risotto – I omitted the onions because we were out of them, added chopped broccoli and used a combination of parmesan cheese and gruyere cheese. I also spinkled a bit of bread crumbs on top and broiled the dish for a few minutes to get a nice parmesan-y bread crumb-y crust. It was an instant hit – even among certain diners in my house who also harbored preconceived notions about farro and “healthy grains”.

Then I decided to substitute some farro for semolina to make South Indian Upma. It’s easier than traditional upma, has a chewy, tooth-y texture and melds well with Indian spices. The farro was even just a little creamy without adding any cream.

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It’s summertime which means I can literally start feeding my farmer’s market obsession. What’s popular in your farmer’s market right now? Ours is full of golden, yellow squashes, green zucchinis and pearly white onions. And juicy red tomatoes. My crisper was pretty full before Surya and I [and my dear friend Jason who I unintentionally failed to mention joined us for our trip through the market] took a stroll to the farmer’s market but I couldn’t resist picking up some veggies – all of the ingredients I needed for this summery Vegetable Tian. My sister shared this recipe with me a few months ago, and it’s a hit with Surya. And the rest of the family too.

After our trip to the market, Surya’s full of fun new words – squash, okra, onion… I can’t help but wonder if visits to farmer’s markets will help inspire and encourage her to eat fresh, healthy foods…

Vegetable Tian is really easy to make. The time intensive part is the cutting then baking – but once it’s in the oven, you’re free. If you’re venturing out on a picnic for July 4th weekend, make the Vegetable Tian ahead of time and take a loaf of crusty sourdough bread. Layer the tian on top, wash it down with a glass of cold, white wine and you have a perfect picnic lunch

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