Shikha Kaiwar

Shikha Kaiwar

instagram.com/shikhalamode

Shikha Kaiwar
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India, Part 1: Red carrots, purple rotis, and hoping he likes it all

💡Eating our way through North India and connecting to the past. I'm back! I know I'd promised y'all lots of content during my month-long India trip—sorry. While I had big plans of doing all that, once I got there, I just wanted to

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Decoding culture through Harrods, whiskey, and hand creams

💡AKA: How to buy gifts and overcome colonisation. When you live abroad and visit family in India, and when that family is not in society's upper echelon so they can't often travel, you must bring gifts. These aren't gifts borne from a creative brainstorm

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Does acceptance really matter?

💡Prepping for India, 23andMe, and chai. I'm going to India! For a month! And there is so much to DO. It's been three years since I last visited, and like every time, a lot has happened, this time probably more than usual (lookin' at you,

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Life lessons from quince...and Kanye

When we moved to London, one of the first things I noticed (besides the fact that mask-wearing outside wasn't a thing, unlike my paranoid home of San Francisco) was fruit—everywhere. Crates and shelves and baskets gleaming with the most colourful fruits I'd ever seen in

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One year in London: How it started/how it's going.

We've officially been in London for one year! To keep me from blabbing on forever, I'll cover how it started and how it's going now. How it started Those close to me knew that I needed to get out of San Francisco. Like anyone

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Clenching my teeth, cooking to live, and buttermilk biscuits—made cute!

"Have you been feeling stressed lately?" Duh, Madame Dentist. Who hasn't?? We're still in a pandemic, I'm cold 24/7 because I'm a weak Californian living in London, we're planning a wedding happening over 5,000 miles away,

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In rum we trust: A hidden tiki bar in Portugal and a Malted chocolate ginger rum ganache tart

Happy new year—whatever that means! Like many of you, I'm wary of expecting too much from this year and trying to shield myself from inevitable disappointment. But more on that later. Let's talk about rum. The last two weeks of 2021 filled my heart in

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A culinary wrap on 2021—with cake, of course.

This year was just as dumpster fiery as the last. But we all love a good end of year wrap so here are my reflections on food and life in 2021. I'm also giving y'all recommendations for books, podcasts, and recipes that will pique your interest

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Which drawer are the forks in?

I've been back from California for a few days now and still in a funk. For the first time since I can remember, I have jet lag. I'm sleeping past 1 a.m. and spending what precious little winter daylight there is in a haze. Yesterday

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Finally doin’ it: Tattoos, tarts, and a newsletter.

At the first restaurant I ever cooked at, every single cook (not an exaggeration) had a tattoo somewhere on their body that said “doin’ it.” Each person adapted the look and feel to their liking. Cooks were doin’ it in cursive, melting block letters, black ink, icy blue ink, behind