India hosted its first Grand Prix last week at the Buddh International Circuit. I wish I had the opportunity to witness it but some other things had to be tended to. Not only did India offer Formula One a racing circuit rivaling the best in the world but it did so with its typical Indian warmth.

This is what Sebastian Vettel, the winner of India’s inaugral Grand Prix, had to say about his experience in India:

If you keep your eyes open I think you are able to learn a lot from the way people handle things here. It is a big country, a lot of people.. But they get along and are happy..even though people don’t have a lot here, in a way they are much richer than a lot of people back in Europe.

So true. And when the warmth of the people isn’t enough, the food and the culture of India will surely make you feel richer than usual.

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Since I am in India and have had almost no time to blog, and as I was aware that this would be the case, I had asked a few blogger friends to help me out with keeping this blog going while I am away.

The first in the series was the guest post by Ameena. Today, Jane from the blog The Heritage Cook is guest posting. Those of you who have been following my blog, should remember Jane from the Red Wine Poached Pears’ post and the Apple Crisp’s post.

I found out about Jane’s site when she was assigned my blog for the Secret Recipe Club, and was re-introduced to it when I was assigned hers. And I am so glad that such was the case, because there are oodles and oodles of delicious recipes on her site. She also does a weekly ritual of Chocolate Mondays and Festive Fridays! Do check them out, if you haven’t already (although in all likelihood you have already heard of her before and this introduction is just a repetition).

I have bookmarked quite a few of her recipes and hopefully would be trying them all out soon.

I am so glad she agreed to do this guest post and even more glad that she chose a Coconut Layer cake to share. I am in love with coconut these days!

Thank you so much Jane for a lovely post. I would have expected nothing less than perfection coming from you and this looks just that-perfect!

GUEST POST BY THE HERITAGE COOK

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The past few weeks have been uber-busy.

Traveling, festivals, dinner parties, marriages and relatives have kept both V and me busy.

V leaves tomorrow for US but I am staying in India for another month and half since lot of my close friends are getting married in November and in December I want to be here in India when a very special guest arrives in our family. 🙂

I have not cooked a bit since I left US for my 3 months vacation in India. I have a feeling by the time I go back I would have forgotten how to cook. We have hardly stayed at home for me to do anything related to cooking. If I have been home, I use that time to catch up on leftover sleep- since everyday we have been sleeping only after 1am and getting up early in the morning and busy with some work or the other the whole day. Yes, things have been that busy!

Luckily, I was able to finish this month’s challenge before leaving US. Its probably the quickest I have done a challenge. Of course later I had to pull a “me” by not drafting the post before leaving. As a result this post comes in a day late, even though the challenge had been completed in the first week of October.

The Daring Baker’s October 2011 challenge was Povitica, hosted by Jenni of The Gingered Whisk. Povitica is a traditional Eastern European Dessert Bread that is as lovely to look at as it is to eat!

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