Sweet-Tooth Fairy

Nigella Christmas is British writer and chef Nigella Lawson’s newest book offering recipes on canapés and salads, main course meals, scrumptious desserts, hot drinks for cold winter days and even edible Christmas tree decorations. You can also catch a three-part seasonal series Nigella’s Christmas Kitchen on Discovery Travel & Living this December.

Excerpts from an interview:
How did Nigella Christmas come about?
I realise that, across the globe, we all use food to signify that an occasion has importance in our life, whether that importance is familial, individual or religious.

What’s your favourite Christmas treat?
I want to eat with my friends and have them around me at Christmas. So I certainly do not do those fussy canapés! I want food that is simple and delicious and feels like a treat at the same time – like my sweet and sticky ribs.

What’s it like hosting your own show?
It’s a great feeling – I get to do what I love most. I don’t have any brilliant techniques and I don’t chop a carrot at 100 miles an hour. I cook food that is cooked in a home rather than a restaurant, without reducing it to the formula or the recipe, and make it more like a conversation. Unfortunately, with television, you have no sense of smell as a viewer, which is why, I’m very insistent that I want everyone to hear the sound of food cooking!

Virtuous Cycle

From musician and composer, sonaluna, and graphic artist and filmmaker, Elvis D’Silva, comes the music video Mumbaicycle. Sonaluna’s instrumental track plays over D’Silva’s graphics and hand-drawn line illustrations based on D’Silva’s urban photography; bringing a thoughtful sensibility to Mumbai-related pop culture. You can view Mumbaicycle at www.youtube.com/originalthrillpill.

Fashion Files

For perhaps the most genuinely geography-defying cultural obsession, India’s fashionistas have taken their time about putting out window dressing online.

FashionMoksh (fashionmoksh.com): Recently launched as a platform for news, information and networking across the board for the Indian fashion community, they say, “Nobody wants to miss the bus.”

Trendylicious (trendy.in): They dispense fashion, beauty and entertainment news and advice through their flagship newsletter, which lands in readers’ inboxes twice a week. Trendylicious focuses on reportage, not advertising, and provides local news in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru editions.

High Heel Confidential (highheelconfidential.com): A desi couture-oriented version of iconic blog Go Fug Yourself (gofugyourself.celebuzz.com), which tracks what female celebrities are wearing, and how. HHC substitutes GFY’s snarky fashion critiques with a keen eye for detail and pithy little notes about which Gucci shoes go with which Dior frock – and on which Bollywood beauty.

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