Truly Tribal - An Online Tribal Art Gallery : An Experience

*** This is not a sponsored post ***

Hello everyone! Today, I have a unique review for you. It is about an online shop called Truly Tribal and the uniqueness is in its products consisting of beautiful artifacts that mesmerize you from the start!

Based in Pune and founded by Shweta Menon, Truly Tribal is an online tribal art gallery that showcases handicrafts and artworks from various regions in India. Truly Tribal focuses on giving the tribal artists a platform to display their art works and providing a means to make their beautiful handiwork, a source of their income. This online store contacts tribal artisans throughout India to bring global attention and recognition to their handiwork.

Having personally done business with Truly Tribal, I can say that it possesses some of the most unique decor items. It not only caters to individuals but also customizes designs for corporates and interior work.

My personal experience has been the purchase of several items but the one I want to talk about here is the candle wall decor that I bought during Diwali. Here are some pictures:

Candle Wall Decor (without candles)

Candle Wall Decor (lit up with candles!)

The candle holder is made of wrought iron and is hand crafted in Moradabad. With candles lit, it looks absolutely surreal! I can't tell you how many compliments I received for this art piece that is surely a proud possession.

Some of the other handmade pieces I got from Truly Tribal:

Palm Leaf bookmarks, hand painted

A necklace and earring set in brass work

Brass Jhumkas (can never have enough jhumkas!)

The products are a beautiful collection of all kinds of tribal arts be it brass work, paintings, palm leaf artifacts or sculptures. So the next time you want to pick up some gift items or home decor, I would definitely recommend checking this unique art gallery out.

To know more, click here: http://www.trulytribal.in/

The time I messed up my Diwali chocolates

Every year I make chocolates for Diwali as a change to the regular Indian sweets and savories. Some of mom's classics I retain but my kids look forward to the chocolates that have now become a tradition at home. So this year too, I made them, albeit with a big screw up and a resultant lesson learned.

I wanted to make my usual chocolate barks and after I was done with the white chocolate ones, I moved on to my favorite, dark chocolate bark with sea salt, orange zest and almonds. I was sure it would turn out great as it does every year (stop the applause, please!).

Anyways, while the chocolate was melting into its silky, velvety self on a double boiler, I couldn't but help notice how succulent and delicious the oranges smelt! I had just grated their zest you see and there they sat, devoid of their skin but nevertheless ruthlessly inviting me!

My mind wandered and I thought I ought to use the fresh juice of those oranges in my chocolate. Now, I don't usually experiment with food but this time I was sure I was doing the right thing! It would definitely elevate the taste and moreover, "wouldn't the acidity of the fresh juice cut through the sweetness of the chocolate?", my master chef brain thought. Proud of my clever train of (premature) thoughts, I went ahead and added a good splash of the orange juice to my silky, melted chocolate. There! I had just created my masterpiece!

Apparently, not! As soon as I began mixing the chocolate, the silkiness disappeared and gave way to this angry, rigid lump! Ok, I made a terrible mistake, but now what? What was I supposed to do with this lump?

Thankfully, the logical part of my brain (with its eyes rolled) pushed aside the (very embarrassed) master chef one and took control of the situation. I quickly added the salt, zest and almonds to the lump and made chocolate balls out of it. Not the desired output but that would have to do for now.

Later, I googled and found out that there is a reason chocolate is melted on a double boiler, so that moisture doesn't get into it and make it a lump of unmovable chocolate! Ah! Light bulb!

Well, as it happened, the taste was exceptional but the texture wasn't right so I couldn't gift it to my friends. As a result, a valuable lesson learned. Also, I don't think I would be experimenting with food anytime soon.