Ever been to an Indian wedding? If not, you should find one and go. My best buddy, some might say BFF, is an Indian-American, and more specifically he’s Gujarati, and he invited me along to his sister’s very traditional wedding.

Some things to prepare for if you get invited to one of these events. First, the ceremony is long. In this case it was shaved down to a mere hour, instead of the more usual four hours. Secondly, it’s an explosion of color. From the bride and groom in their deep scarlet and gold to the guests resplendent in every other color you could imagine. Then there’s the dancing, and lots of it. It’s like a Bollywood production on the dace floor. Lastly, and maybe most importantly there is food, and lots of it. First there was an appetizer course with a chaat, which you can kind of think of as an Indian tapa, that consisted of an Idli, which is a little cake/ dumpling made from rice flour that was smashed and covered in a rich yogurt and a spicy chutney.

I could have eaten about a hundred of those. There dinner course featured a lot of great vegetarian food as Gujaratis are almost exclusively vegetarian. My favorite was the lemon rice, which is a basmati rice that’s cooked with oil, lemon juice, chills, turmeric and mustard seeds.

I also loved the kofta masala which is kind of like a falafel served in a rich creamy tomato sauce.

Links:
Chaat
Idli
Lemon Rice

Bands:

Kiasmos

Lettuce

Death by Unga Bunga