The Liebster Award!

Thanks to Alex at Chez Sasha, I’m very honored to be nominated for a Liebster Award! Liebster means dearest or favorite in German, and the award is given out by food bloggers to other food bloggers with less than 200 followers. There aren’t many rules beyond that, but since Alex nominated me, I’ll go with her rules:

1. Post 11 facts about yourself.
2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you and create 11 questions for people you’ve nominated.
3. Choose 11 people (with fewer than 200 followers) to give this award to and link them in your post.
4. Go to their page and tell them.
5. Remember, no tag backs.

Eleven facts about me:

1. My first languages were Bengali and Hindi.
2. I lived in the Bronx for 8 years as a child before moving to Maryland.
3. I don’t like pets. (Controversial, I know.)
4. I haven’t played an organized sport since 5th grade, but I watch sports like it’s my job (it used to be).
5. My favorite color is #78AB46. (Bonus fact: I’m obsessed with color hex codes.)
6. I really like parenthesis, if you couldn’t tell already.
7. I LOVE the Harry Potter books, and have read each one dozens of times.
8. For 10+ years, I studied bharatha natyam, a form of Indian classical dance. I had my Arangetram, or graduation from practice, in 2004.
9. Biggest guilty pleasure: jalapeno chips. Second: peanut m&ms. I could never give either of those things up.
10. Gerber daisies are my favorite flowers.
11. I spend an inordinate amount of time playing Bejeweled on my phone or iPad.

And the questions from Chez Sasha:

1. Name one food you find irresistible. Aside from the j-chips and m&ms mentioned above, I could eat a jar of natural chunky peanut butter all day.

2. Name one movie you never get sick of watching. The Pink Panther. It’s so bad, but this dance gets me every time.

3. Describe your favorite childhood memory. There are so many! One that kind of sums up my life in general: while camping when I was ~10, me and my cousins split up into teams for a firefly-catching contest. I caught zero, because I’m the dumdum who covered myself in bug spray beforehand, and then wondered why the bugs kept flying away …

4. If your personality were an animal, which would it be? Since today is a lazy Sunday, I’ll go with a cat — all I want to do right now is lay out in the sun and take a long nice nap.

5. Name six people (dead or alive, famous or not) you’d invite to your fantasy dinner party. David Sedaris, Julia Child, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey (they count as one person, obvi), Michelle Obama and Tom Colicchio. Julia and Tom can take care of dinner.

6. What kind of clothes do you enjoy wearing most? Sundresses and sandals on a sunny breezy day.

7. Of the five Breakfast Club characters (the brain, the jock, the princess, the basket case or the criminal), which one were you most like in high school? Def the brain. Though I’ve become more of a basket case since HS.

8. Three favorite musical artists: Lil Wayne, Bon Iver, Carla Bruni

9. Describe your most memorable travel experience. The six months I spent studying abroad in Madrid — so many memories and friendships!

10. Where are you dying to travel to? This changes on any given day (so many places to go!!) but today: Santorini.

11. What would you say the strangest thing about you is? I can often be very friendly and social, but I’m innately an introvert.

Now I nominate: (I have no idea how many followers these blogs have — I just picked blogs I like!)

1. Life Tastes Like Food
2. A Fit & Spicy Life
3. Budget Gourmet Mom
4. MJ’s Kitchen
5. Dinners, Dishes & Desserts
6. The Wandering Eater
7. Culinary Cache
8. Peppercorns In My Pocket
9. Galley Kitchen Gal
10. An Uneducated Palate
11. Pepper Lynn

My questions for you:

1. What is your earliest memory in the kitchen?
2. When no one’s around, what music are you listening to?
3. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
4. At the end of a long day, what do you look forward to most?
5. What book(s) do you read again and again?
6. What is your must-have kitchen utensil / gadget?
7. Describe your perfect meal.
8. Favorite TV show?
9. Where do you find inspiration for your blog?
10. What is your biggest guilty pleasure (food or otherwise)?
11. What food do you absolutely abhor?

Thanks again to Alex!