A food blogger based in Washington weaves her longing for Mumbai and Goa into quirky creations she shares online
Edlyn D’Souza started her blog after moving to Washington in 2012. PIC/Jane D’Souza
When you dream of a place all the while after you are gone, it's almost like you never really left," writes 29-year-old Edlyn D'Souza in one of her many musings on her blog. Titled egeedee.com, this space was born out of her longing for home, soon after she moved lock, stock and barrel to Washington in 2012 after getting hitched. Edlyn’s quirky creations on the plate have earned her a fair amount of recognition on social media. After all, it's not everyday that we get to see an alu-gobi potpie or a coconut milk gola doused in hibiscus syrup. She’s, however, not a fan of the term 'foodie'. "Food is something most humans share a love and desire for. I approach it with the same love and I keep things simple and seasonal as much as possible," Edlyn says.
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Born and brought up in Goa, Edlyn moved to Mumbai as a teenager to join St Xavier’s College. Back then, however, she wouldn’t cook much. Like most college-going teens, she would go around town sampling gastronomic offerings. Now, sitting thousands of miles away, she says, "I miss everything about walking to the end of the naka and eating 20 different kinds of things at all hours of the day. I miss the convenience of khandvi, the refreshing sip of Aarey lassi on a hot day, our paani puri wala, the caramel custard at Food Inn (Colaba) and the chai — emphasis on the chai." She continues, "I try not to recreate these foods as I remember them because I know I’ll be disappointing myself. The reason they were so good is because they satisfied that need in the moment. Instead, I use those memories to write inspired recipes… I’ve become one of those 'in my days' people."
The blog, she says, is more a journal than an account of recipes. "When I moved to the US, my life turned on its head. I was depressed, lonely and I had to feed myself on top of it all. Food became this tangible thing through which I could connect back to my roots. My husband had a camera stashed away and I had a blog just sitting idle. I had new ingredients to work with, so I put the two together to stop myself from going crazy. The stories are sometimes related to food and sometimes not."
While she has had overwhelming feedback on her blog, ask her about it and she says, “I like being able to facilitate small discussions because that's how I look at a recipe: 'What can I change?' I get that people want to see Indians only making [their idea of] Indian food but I have so many ideas and to stick to butter chicken and naan is silly.”
Edlyn's Picks
Shrikhand with granola figs and honey
Edlyn recalls how every time she’d take in a spoonful of the shrikhand, she’d find it bitingly sweet, so she’d never go for seconds. “It was too sweet for me and never sour enough.” She had to think of a way to temper the sweetness. She opts for granola made from scratch, comprising oats, hazelnuts, pistachios, pumpkin seeds and cardamom seeds. “This recipe is for those who’d like to try making granola on a stove. A majority of homes in India don’t have ovens and toast all their grains and spices on the stove. This felt natural.” And why figs? “Because, no lie, that’s my favourite flavour of Natural ice-cream which I first sampled in a Juhu Scheme outlet.”
Coconut golas in hibiscus syrup
This could well be a gourmet’s nod to the classic Mumbai gola. Having grown up in Goa, Edlyn only got “exposed to this world of street and beach-side” food when she moved to Mumbai in her late teens, she says. She talks of how she threw caution to the wind as she relished them, ignoring parental warnings about how they originate in gutter water. “I would go on to consume as much gutter water as I wanted,” she says. Years later, when Edlyn thought of creating her own version of the gola, she made one with coconut milk, staying true to her coastal roots, added a dash of vanilla to that and then doused it in hibiscus syrup. Gourmet gola is ready.
Choco cherry granita with coconut whip and cardamom crunch sprinkles
Strangely, this concoction took her back to her days at St Xavier’s College. Edlyn mentions how she learnt the word “granita” at an overpriced cyber café (yes, it was those days) near her college that had “gaming teenagers checking email and doing class projects… while sipping on their fruity granitas sitting in front of their PCs” — something, that she says, “seemed very unlikely in the world of rules that is India.” This granita is a throwback to those days when she and her friends would hang out at that café only “to make fun of everybody”. And to make it she used coconut palm jaggery that “came with me in my suitcase from Goa.”
Eggplant koftas with poblano sauce
When the first “Indian” restaurant opened up in her Goan neighbourhood, the malai kofta would be Edlyn’s favourite thing to order. “In a malai kofta, the koftas are usually made with potatoes, cashew nuts, raisins and spices and served in a creamy gravy. I switched it up by adding eggplant, almonds, chickpeas and spices and no gravy, because my dream is to make everything snackable.”
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