Gokarna was a always a stop on the way back to Mumbai from my grandparents’s home in nearby Kumta. While we made our yearly pilgrimage to Shiva’s Mahabaleshwar temple and other smaller temples nearby, it was only one of these years that we got to see the beach. Eight of my cousins, grandparents, and countless uncles and aunties crammed into…

It is called kakwi in Marathi, liquid gur in Hindi and molasses in English. Not as common in Indian cooking as its solid counterpart, jaggery, but this ingredient has plenty of taste as well as health properties. It is advocated for pregnant women and those with anemia to get iron in a natural form.There are several forms of molasses but…