The guests are gone, the dishes done, and there’s yet another couple of days before Monday. I can’t help staring out my window at all the lovely parking available in our quiet, turkey-sedated city, but I’m avoiding the shops for now. The weekend after Thanksgiving is one my favorite times to stay in my pajamas and catch up on my reading. Forget award-winning novels or the latest treatise about the end of the world, though. For now, it’s all about fun and fantasy while browsing lifestyle porn rags like I.D. magazine, blogs like bLavish and the websites of local companies such as rose and radish.

For those of you still putting off your holiday shopping binge, here’s a short list of gifts for the lucky foodie in your life…

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I often receive emails about my blog, and a recent one from Dan had me thinking for a very long time. Although I wrote a reply to him directly, I’d also like to encourage a wider discussion.

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I have a short piece in the current issue of Saveur Magazine (November 2007) about the Sikh tradition of langar, or communal kitchens, and about the annual Sikh parade in Yuba City, CA.

Several of my photos ended up appearing in a colorful montage. A couple of photos from my visit to the Stockton Gurdwara were mixed in with those from my visit to the Yuba City temple.

Actually, there are a few corrections to the edited text, too. For the record:

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There’s a table in my kitchen that I try not to hate. Whenever my husband boasts that it cost him all of $8 at a sidewalk sale, new friends laugh while old friends avoid my eyes. To his credit, he spent an entire day spray painting it egg-yolk yellow, so I hardly notice the scratches on its legs or the missing fourth foot replaced with an unvarnished block of wood. He swears the table refers to some important design period, I’m guessing around the time instant cake mixes became the rage of the day, and he keeps trying to convince me that its linoleum surface is practical.

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