Last month I was lucky enough to be invited to my first ever blogger event – an Indian cooking night, #CookWithHari, with the lovely
Hari Ghotra.
My regular blogging schedule has definitely lapsed a bit recently. Attempting to balance the time demands of a full-time job, various family commitments, a new relationship, and a blog, has left me feeling slightly worn out, but predominantly very happy. That is, if I can manage to supress the panging feelings of guilt I regularly experience when I think about how much I’ve neglected my blog over the past month!
However, I am still here, and I feel extremely proud of everything Lily Blogs Life has been involved with lately. I was very excited for my next blogging adventure, so on November 26th, not knowing quite what to expect, I turned up at the
Jellyfish Brighton offices to a beautifully laid out kitchen ready for us to all get stuck in.
We kicked things off with some fresh cucumber and mint lassis, which we drank while we all got introduced.
It was so strange seeing a few of the bloggers I’d been following on Twitter in real life. It felt a bit like meeting people I already felt that I knew, because of their online presences. It was so lovely to hear a few people saying “oh I’ve heard of your blog” and mentioning specific posts that I’d written. Sometimes it’s very easy to forget that you’re not just writing for yourself when you’re posting things online! It was rather difficult this time, however, to forget that we were being filmed from all angles for Hari’s successful YouTube channel. Uh, oh.
After a few quick cooking demos from Hari about the Indian dishes we were going to make (samosas, turkey kebabs, pakoras and fish cakes) we were all split up into stations and began attempting to replicate Hari’s effortless looking demos.
I tried my hand at fishcake construction with Sarah from
Modern Bric a Brac and then moved along to make a few (slightly misshapen) samosas with Sophie from
Jumble Style Blog and Shelley from
The Life and Times of Shelley Baker.
The dishes were perfect nibbles for upcoming Christmas parties and the workshop really helped me learn more about the serious merits of cooking fresh, from-scratch Indian food.
Nothing was overly complicated to make, but everything tasted incredible. Hari had even whipped up a few dipping sauces which really finished off each dish nicely.
My favourite was the fishcakes with a vermicelli crunch. Vermicelli was something I’d never have thought to add to a fishcake but it set the flavours off perfectly. You can find the recipes for the fishcakes
here if you want to give them a whirl at home. I’ve also included a link to Hari’s website where you can find all the recipes from the evening, along with loads more, at the end of this post.
Overall it was a great event, and so much fun to get to know a group of really nice people who all share the same love of blogging and food as myself.
I left feeling very satisfied, with a stomach full of Indian food and a very cute goodie bag, which included one of Hari’s
spice kits. I can’t wait to use this to impress my boyfriend with my miraculous culinary skills! Massive thanks to Hari,
Maria and the rest of the team at Jellyfish Brighton for putting this event together and inviting me along.
http://www.harighotra.co.uk/
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