Happy 1 year Blogiversary!! We've Got Winners!

    Today's my One Year Blogiversary here at The Colors of Indian Cooking. Whoopeee! I just ate that cupcake by the way. I split it with Alan and it was really, really good. I didn't bake it myself. I wish I knew how to turn out such a baked good. I know a lot of you can do it and every time I see cupcake posts I'm inspired. One of these days I'll get there.
   Meanwhile, sitting around here with a nice case of the sugars from my half of the cupcake, I've been thinking about the blog. How did I get here, how did this happen?
    I can hardly believe a whole year has passed. A year ago I'd never intended to start a blog. I'd been cooking Indian food for 20 years. My journey to Indian food started in the most unlikely of places, my doctors office.
     I'd been diagnosed with cancer in my 30's. Me! The non-smoking, non-drinking vegetarian who nobody thought was really sick, was really sick. It was pretty freaky, all my friends were having babies..I was having a tumor.
     While I started my course of Western medicine, my doctors suggested other things I might try too. Guided imagery, meditation, something that involved lying on a floor in a dark room with a doctor from UCLA while he played cranked up movie soundtrack music out of speakers placed sound side down on the floor until I was practically bouncing and vibrating from the sound. I still have no idea what that was all about. I heard later that the neighbors had him evicted for noise pollution. I also decided to go macrobiotic.
     Pretty soon I was boiling Kombu and making miso, grating burdock root, and enjoying daikon radish. I was also giving up all my favorite vegetables (eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes) which happened to be of the Deadly Nightshade variety. A definite no-no in my Macrobiotic world.
I also was not eating very much.
       My doctors were concerned. They asked me why I wasn't eating. I told them I was bored. I just was not turned on by the burdock root. I explained about the eggplant and potatoes, and the whole Deadly Nightshade thing. My oncologist just looked at me. "You like the eggplant? Just eat the eggplant! Eat something!" I figured considering my condition he had a point.
     Right around that time another of my doctors mentioned an Ayurvedic diet. He said that his wife was very involved in that and that I might enjoy it. "Ayurvedic diet?" I thought. "What was that?"
"Indian food!!!!" he said.  I loved Indian food. He had me at turmeric.
      In the Indian food department, it turned out I'd scored big time. My sister-in-law is a well known Indologist and has lived and worked in India for years. Of course she cooked the food. Really, really well. She got me started and I haven't looked back.
   I started cooking Indian vegetarian food. I learned from Yamuna Devis' book Lord Krishnas' Cuisine and went on from there. I cooked and cooked and feasted on all my favorite Deadly Nightshades to my hearts content. It made chemo a lot easier for me, I was happy, my doctors were happy.
      Finally, my treatment stopped but the Indian cooking didn't. I talked to people, they taught me things and I kept cooking, day in and day out. I started cooking for friends, then I was invited to cook for people I didn't know, people who wanted healthy, fresh, organic Indian food. Low on oil high on taste.
       So how does this lead to a blog? A year ago Alan and I went to a meeting of something called Wired Sonoma. Paula Wolfert was there and introduced me to the guys that were putting together A Million Cooks. By the end of the meeting, I was doing a podcast. A one minute podcast.  When I discovered one minute isn't enough time to convey a recipe, I figured maybe I ought to start a website. So I did. And that's how I got here.
 
  So, now that you've waded through the whys and wherefors of this blog.....on to *The Winners!!!
*winners drawn randomly
 We have three winners. Two will get the Ceramic Chicken Cookers, One the pair of Game Hen Cookers. Thanks to everyone who entered. I'm grateful for your kind words and your support. Most of all,  thanks to the folks at Early Morning Pottery who made these gifts possible.
  Winners of The Ceramic Chicken Cookers:

1.) Cool Lassi of Pan Gravy Kadai Curry
2.) Janis Tester of Bite Me New England
 and 
Winner of the Game Hen Roasters

3.) Brie:LeGrand Fromage of  Le Grand Fromage

So if the winners will contact me I'll get your earthly address and send these cookers off to you!
 Once again thanks everyone, and I just had to share this beautiful Sonoma afternoon with you.