Versatile Blogger Award: big thank you and my 15 nominees

A big thank you to Anisha of  Flavours for this award. It feels great to be appreciated :) With it comes 7 random pieces of information about myself, plus 15 more nominees for the award from my blogging friends, whose inspiration and comments I have appreciated. Here goes with the first bit, then:

1. I lived on a boat on a river with my daughter for 2 years, between 2001 and 2003
2. My favourite comfort food is white spaghetti with tomato puree and grated cheese mixed in with it. On getting over a childhood illness, this would always be the first thing I felt like eating!
3. I would love to have a recipe book published in print one day and give up my "day job" in education to be a full-time blogger and writer of books and articles.
4. One job I had in my twenties was making organic tofu for a company who sold it to wholefood shops and restaurants. I used a big old mincing machine for grinding the beans, an enormous cauldron to boil the soya milk and sections of plastic drainpipe with holes drilled in them for pressing the tofu into cylinders. (The company no longer exists, by the way.)
5. My two favourite places in the world are a little town in Uttar Pradesh called Radha Kunda, not far from Vrndavana, and the area of Navadwipa Dham in West Bengal. Google them to see why...
6. I have moved house at least 17 times in my life so far.
7. As a child, I thought I could talk to trees and plants and knew what they were saying to me, plus I was convinced I saw fairies in my garden! It all seemed really normal at the time...

Hope you are still here, after reading the above! And now on to the awards ceremony: I am sending the Versatile Blogger Award on to the following people:

1. Radhika of Tickling Palates, for the great community-building she does from her blog as well as all the yummy recipes.
2. Priya of Priya's Now Serving, for all the care she obviously puts into the many and varied photos on her blog, in addition to the lovely recipes themselves.
3. Aarthi of Yummy Tummy, for being an awesome blogger in general who posts often more than once a day and has an astounding range of Indian cuisines represented on her blog. No matter how busy she is, she always has time to post what she's been cooking and has developed her blog rapidly through this dedication..
4. Lucy of Diminishing Lucy, for the fact that you never quite know what she's going to be blogging about next, but it's always so well written, thought-provoking and entertaining.
5. Sobha of Good Food, for the originality of many of her cooking ideas, and uses of both Eastern and Western ingredients.
6. Sadhana of Sensible Veg, for being a mine of information about grain and sugar alternatives and using her knowhow to create healthier twists on traditional dishes.
7. Kaveri of Palakkad Chamayal, for having a great range of sweet and savoury dishes, snacks and main meals on her blog.
8. Zoa of The Airy Way, for the original way she combines many of her ingredients, her good example of a healthy diet and her engaging style of writing.
9. Jennifershmoo of Vegan Lunchbox, for all her great healthy ideas and the incredible range of foods she managers to fit into her lunchboxes.
10. Evermetta of Wholesome Vegetarian Cooking, for her promotion of the pure vegetarian/ vegan diet and eclectic use of ingredients from many cultures.
11. Anisha and her husband of Life on the Road for their fascinating and well-photographed Indian travelogues- where will they take us to next??
12. Mary of Inside a British Mum's kitchen, for all the little snippets of her life that she shares in between recipes, and her dedication to culinary excellence.
13. Justin and Amy of The Chubby Vegetarian, as they will be making it into print soon and their very professionally presented blog has such a great range of beautiful-looking dishes. 
14. Julie of Erivum Puliyumm for the great range of recipes she has managed to post in such a relatively short time.
15. 366 Random Acts of Kindness for the compassionate concept and making me think more about others through the great variety of interesting and caring deeds posted. 

If your name is on this blog, then please accept the award by:

• Creating a post to thank the blogger who nominated you, with the award logo and a link back to their blog 
• Sharing in that post 7 random facts about yourself

• Including these rules in that post 
• Nominating 25 fellow bloggers to receive the award from you and linking to them
• Letting your nominees know with a comment on their latest post

As well as letting your blogging friends know what you appreciate about them, this award will help us to widen our networks and meet more likeminded bloggers!