Its Eid- Al- Adha today popularly known as Bakri Eid. It is the festival of sacrifice to commemorate the day Ibrahim was willingly ready to sacrifice his son Ishmael to show obedience to God. However, God intervened and provided Ibrahim with a sheep to sacrifice instead the life of his son. 

This is still practiced in which a goat bakri is slaughtered and the meat is used to prepare a feast for the family and community. Biryani, kababs, goat curry are the popular dishes. 

There was a thread of discussion on biryani cravings on the Mumbai Food Bloggers Page. Papa just told me that Shaffi uncle's wife is sending us some homemade Lucknow style biryani and kababs. I'm really excited. Its my birthday tomorrow so this is going to be a treat to eat homemade super sexy biryani from Lucknow. 

However, I remembered that I had taken some lovely pictures of Ramzan a few months back. I had taken my friend Mark to Mohammed Ali Road at the Minara Masjid area for to check out food scene. I had seen this post on Mumbai Paused and could not stop drooling. 

It was the monsoon and it was raining that night. We walked down the street during prayer time, it was a solemn affair. Right after the prayers, the place was alive. Stalls selling- chicken soups, kababs, tikkas, botis, niharis, fried chicken, breads, and of course biryani. Stall after stall, some sit down restaurants. Turn in a different direction and there are dessert stalls frying up malpua, jalebis, serving cold firni, badam flavored milk, pancakes, ladoos with fried puris. It was alive, energetic and most of people despite fasting without food and water all day were very friendly, explaining the food and tradition, open to discussions, and most of all everyone had a smile on their face. A nation of smiles. And why shouldn't they be, after a long hard day of fasting, this food would be the ultimate satisfaction.

Back to the best biryani debate- I ate some really fantastic biryani here that night. The best chicken biryani ever.

So without wasting more time & before I forget - I want to share with you the pictures I took during Ramzan almost 70 days ago. Looking forward to my biryani tomorrow. Yum!

Smiling away despite all the smoke. Some really succulent chicken kababs.

To die for Nihari- the restaurant owner told us that he sources his marrow for the Nihari for Rs 400 a kgs. The nihari is cooked for hours.

Also have you seen The Dewarists yet. The second episode with Zeb & Haniya and Shantanu and Swanand in Mumbai - they go to Minara Masjid for a meal in the rain and eat some really amazing kababs as well. We could have crossed paths that night. They came up with the most amazing song in collaboration as a group. I love this song and the lyrics are beautiful.

Its one thing to google yourself and find your name in search engines but its a whole different experience to see your name on the glossy page of a magazine.
But that's not entirely why this article is special to me.

When features writer - Mamta Mody, of Grazia magazine contacted me to do be part of an article she was writing on her Grazia's favourite women food blogger, I was flattered and super excited. She had seen my blog - liked it and invited me to join her and 5 other women bloggers for brunch at the Tote on the Turf.

I was not sure who else was invited, but in the last few months fellow food bloggers of Mumbai have become more like a close circle of friends. When I walked in at the Tote, my eyes lit up as I recognized 4 of the 6 women present there. In fact I was friends with them and had hung out with them in different food related events such as lunches, dinners, tea and coffee, had discussions on food and life with them, and even attended an herb growing workshop. In an incredibly busy city like Mumbai, it is amazing to meet like minded people, from whom I could learn, whose blogs I like to read and most of all women whom I admired. This was my group of women friends who I was extremely proud of. I immediately made friends with the other two bloggers and could not wait to see their blogs.

These women know their food, know ingredients, their eyes light up as they discuss food blogging, crazy recipes, food presentation. For all of us food blogging has been a life changing experience. I found myself nodding my head in agreement. We discussed food love stuff, strange foods, the waffles over brunch (those were good waffles), toppings, the breads, the oils, the dips, the dessert, the sweet Khousuey Soup Chef, the drinks, the colors, the blogs, the trends, our methodologies, the readers- we talked about it all. It was a glorious table of food discussion.

So sharing with you this beautiful brunch with these prolific women bloggers.
Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal- A perfect Bite
Poonam Joshi- Homemade Happiness
Anushruti RK- Divine Taste
Shaheen Peerbhai- Purple Foodiehttp://purplefoodie.com/
Snigdha Manchanda Binjola- Now Cooking
Avanika Kiswani- Yummilicious

Oh! And my favourite line in the article
"Some of Jyotika's blog post might remind you of an episode of Ian Wright or Anthony Bourdain's travel show."

Though we were photographed over brunch, I could not resist bringing my camera along and taking some of these photos. The light was perfection that Sunday afternoon.