Summer Soiree

Father's day request, ever popular upside down cherry cake. I cut back on the brown sugar that cherries cook in due to the sweetness of the Bings frozen at their peak last year. After the cherries softened up, i drained off the juices and made a sauce that i used over the cake once baked. 1 cup of sugar for the batter could also be reduced to 3/4cup.                                Came upon aqua-fresca as we were looking to make juice at home for BigC's birthday a few years ago. Its only as good as the fruit that goes into making it and this time around, the water-melon was as red as can be and just as sweet. Undiluted strained juice with just a spoon of sugar per glass and lime to taste (8 cups fruit juice+8tsp of sugar+ juice of 2 limes) left an empty pitcher in no time. Methi Pulao with methi from garden, chapathi with sagoo, cabbage and beans, vethakolumbu and rasam finished the menu.
Everyone appears to be cooking from Yotam Ottolenghi. This soiree hosted by a friend featured a 3-course menu with dishes pulled from his cookbook: Roasted vegetable tart with spinach and mango salad; Saffron tagliatelle in spiced butter; Riccotta fritters. While we cooked and ate the evening away, the riccotta fritters were the highlight given how unencouraging the batter looked when we started out to fry them. But the donuty goodness, more like a beignet, was to die for.
Every spring, when its time to think about the annuals, the whole goal is to have enough for all the festivals towards the end of the summer. I had been contemplating getting waterlily flowers online when S put together a water-bowl complete with lily and water hyacinths. The algae i had so longingly admired at the nursery also have made it into the bowl (i did not pay or steal). The frog-spawn that the gardener had educated us about are now little tadpoles.

in the garden - Lily bowl