If you’ve ever wanted to add a little more spice to your cooking – or your life! – you’re going to love my conversation with Monica Bhide. In Episode 25 of The Home Hour Podcast, we discuss the influence of food on family culture, getting kids to try new and unfamiliar flavors, and the healing power of spices. We also talk about some exciting things Monica has coming up.

Also in today’s episode – Sarah Powers is back on the show, and the two of us are discussing birthday parties! Specifically, how much preparation and planning needs to go into creating a special child’s party? As usual, we don’t have the exact same approach but Sarah and I both agree that it’s usually best to do what feels most fun and low-stress for you.

Listen now!

Here are links to some of the resources Monica and I talked about during the show: 

* Monica’s blog has tons of kid-friendly recipe ideas – check it out.

* Monica’s year-long, free digital storytelling project: Powered By Hope

* Modern Spice: Inspired Indian Flavors for the Contemporary Kitchen – celebrating its fifth year in print!

* FREE DOWNLOAD: Monica’s Indian Express: Simple & Sassy Weeknight Dishes. This downloadable isn’t available on Monica’s site yet, but she very graciously offered to let me share it with readers here. It’s packed with simple, kid-tested Indian dishes and easy-to-follow recipes. Thank you, Monica!

* And be sure to check out Monica’s Facebook page.

And from my conversation with Sarah, here’s the post I promised about how Clara’s fifth birthday went down!

As always, thanks for listening! If you liked this show, I’d LOVE for you to subscribe or leave a rating or review on iTunes. Here’s how to do it:

* Visit the podcast page here and click “View in iTunes.”

* From there you’ll see an option to subscribe, and all new episodes will download to your computer or device automatically. You’ll also see a tab in iTunes called Ratings and Reviews. 

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