• The Farmer’s Market on the Terrace Dubai
    Dubai,  Published Work

    Farmers Market On The Terrace | Breakfast Picnic and Knowing Your Local Farmers

    Edited on November 2018: The Farmer’s Market on the Terrace has shifted its location to Bay Avenue at Business Bay (opposite Zaha Hadid building) and is open on two days - Fridays and Saturdays during season from 7am until noon (October until April). Buy local, eat local The above is my article on the Farmers’ Market on the Terrace in the Hidden Gems column in Property Weekly of Gulf News. Yes, I absolutely adore this initiative! Imagine eating breakfast on Fridays sitting on a wooden bench or on a picnic mat on green grass surrounded by locally produced fresh, bright organic vegetables available at affordable prices. Does the term ‘affordable’, that…

  • India,  Travel

    A Trip to Rajasthan To Meet The Farmers | Is Your Spice Procured Ethically? Produced Organically?

    This post captures four locations, two time zones, different sets of people and many emotions – a posh cafe restaurant, an organic store, a small Farmers’ Market – all in the heart of Dubai and a Farmers’ Festival and a few organic farm lands, thousands of kilometers away in Rajasthan. What is the relationship between all of these? It can seem as simple as procuring the right ingredients from the source where the farmers are, or the very complicated relationship where products nurtured in many small organic farmlands across India, travels many many miles before they finally reach the actual buyer (farm to fork philosophy) – all the while maintaining…

  • Recipes

    Frozen Aam Pana/Green Mango Pulp | The Change Initiative!

    Aam Pana or Green Mango Drink (above) is one of the most famous coolants for Indian Summer. The mango concentrate can be very easily made at home and stored for much longer than the summer months themselves. So, adapting the drink to combat Dubai summers perhaps seemed the most obvious thing to do. Taking cue from the last article which touched upon the subject of Locavorism and fresh local produce in UAE, this post jumps straight into the subject of sustainability in Dubai with the opening of The Change Initiative, Dubai’s first sustainable store and it’s restaurant and café – The Taste Initiative. And it is here that I got…