So I always had this funda about starters… should be nice, bite sized, mostly non-veg (since I am one, and many of our friends and family too), must be interesting looking…. Hors d’oeuvre … such a fancy name, conjuring fancy images in my head….. As a result everything depended on me being creative, spending hours shopping for thr right thing, looking at many recipes…

I used to slog over recipes (so difficult to find easy, starters that looked and tasted exotic etc, right?), preparing them when I called people over for dinner. And of course, since I had learnt from my mom, I used to slog over the rest of the meal also. As you can guess, such parties were the death of me… no fun, only slogging and then wondering about how everyone is liking it, will hate me… and so on.

Well, older wiser, more mature… and more easy going (something my husband is trying hard to inculcate). I whip up starers in no time now. The secret? Loosen up the definition of starters… and loosen up my perceptions of the perfect starter. Perfect starter = what people enjoy + what I can prepare with less effort!! So I grate a little cheese over Monacos (a very old trick, but in my earlier books it was too easy and hence not happening) and garnish with a wee bit of mint, fresh cut vegetables (called crudites) like spring onion, carrots, radish, cucumber and with that prepare dips by mixing up sauces and other market available dips, serve our good ol Indian chaat options (sev puri is my favourite now), cut up chicken cubes and throw them in a wok with some oil, salt and chilly flakes (how easy is that!!)…

Bruschetta is actually a really easy thing to make, and you can make your own easy versions with Jamie Oliver’s ready to use fantastic spread, dips and mixes (another blog on this later)… Its more about imagination. Imaging a dish, imagining an easy dish, imaginging cooking easy dishes … be creative, but also relaxed… that’s my mantra now…. 🙂