Bonjour Montreal !

Year 2013 has been a real eventful year for me so far. My life switched gears in various manners. I got married mid-December,2012  in India and before I could get a hold of things around, I was in the flight accompanying my husband to Montreal, Canada – my new home.

Montreal is a city in the Canadian province of Quebec. A beautiful city surrounded by mountains and lush greenery, this city is breath-taking and is an absolute delight. French is this city’s official language and spoken by most of the people here.

Since I came to Montreal in January, which is the peak-winter season, I had my first ever encounter with gallons of snow and freezing temperatures. Seeing snow peaked mountains and snow covered streets in movies have always fascinated me and I used to wonder what it would be like to be in such a place.

Let me tell you, its not all that fancy.

There is an obvious excitement associated with snow giving us scope of making snowman and playing with snow balls but it has its down sides too. I have seen weeks of no sign of sunshine and days with watery-snow smothering slippery streets and my illusion of a romantic, happy snow experience changed. As a first timer, I think I managed well with the fierce weather and had my share of fun too. Surprisingly enough, I do look forward to seeing it again in a few months- That’s the beauty of snow !!

As I mentioned above, French has a major influence in Montreal and that is clearly visible in the lifestyle here. As we walk down the roads, we see beautiful architectural masterpieces and cute, boutique houses with colourful rooftops, rows of street graffiti and festive lighting around. Montreal evenings are always hip and happening.

Of all the wonderful things around, I think the most captivating thing to me was the diversity of food available here. Authentic Italian, Greek, Spanish, Lebanese, Japanese… you name it and you can have it here, just a few blocks away !

I am a vegetarian and often feel sorry for not having enough vegetarian options when I walk around in restaurants here. After carefully skimming through the menus to find something suitable for my palate, I realized that most of the options available were usually clever assembly of very basic ingredients which could be done by anyone.

This gave me a lot of confidence to get into the skin of a cook and try things out for myself. I started with very simple recipes which I could make using very few ingredients. The following posts will take us through those easy recipes and the basic skills I learnt in the process.

So, let’s start rattling the spice box & churning out soul satisfying comfort food !