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Besides from the presents and the feeling of togetherness at Christmas, like all other festivals and holidays, it’s the food we remember most. While the list of goodies is endless, for me there are two things that sig­nify Christmas. Christmas cake and mulled wine.

Both these items are hard to get in Nepal. Yes, there are Christmas cakes on sale at some of the larger hotels and even some homemade ones at the Christmas markets. And yes, at the same Christmas mar­kets you will find mulled wine, or Gluhwien to give it its Germany name. But these are not quite the same as in other countries that have a longer tradition of Christmas.

While I am not going to attempt to teach you to make a Christmas cake, I can pass on my recipe for mulled wine. And I wanted to share something about the Christmas cake mixing gatherings that happen here. Something I had never heard about until I came to Kathmandu!

• Dry red wine (no need to go for the most expensive).

• Two to three glasses of orange juice per bottle of wine (depending on how potent you want it to be).

• Khukri Rum. Again it depends how potent you want it. As rule of thumb, half a quarter bottle per bot­tle of wine.

• Honey. How much honey depends on your taste. May­be around 2-3 tablespoons per bottle of wine.

• Spices: cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, black pepper corns, star anise (added as you like).

   • Cubes of real fruit; apples

Christmas cake mixing ceremony

Christmas is not Christmas with­out that alcohol fueled cake. The earlier you (or preferably mother or grandmother) make this the better it is as the alcohol then has a chance to flavor all of the dried fruit which make up a Christmas cake. This tra­dition of early preparation has been taken up by the larger hotels in Kath­mandu. Yet it seems it’s something which doesn’t happen anywhere other than Nepal and India. This required further investigation.

It would appear the Christmas cake mixing ceremony originally started in India. Most of the online posts claim the mixing tradition started in ‘Christian households’ way back in 17th-century Europe when dried fruits and nuts were har­vested to be made into a traditional plum cake. Other stories have it that the cake mixing ceremony was born in mid-19th century. But whatever its origins, it seems to have really caught on in India where it is seen as the bringer of the Christmas season. This tradition crept into Nepal, no doubt along with the star hotels.

But what exactly is this cake mix­ing ceremony? Like all good Christ­mas cakes, a lot of preparation goes into its making before it’s finally put into the oven. In fact this prep starts weeks in advance. Dried fruits and nuts including dates, raisins, red cherries, cashew nuts, cloves, cardamom, ginger peel, lemon peel, orange peel, dry figs, walnuts, apri­cots, prunes, pistachios, almonds, pepper and spices are laid out by the kilo. Most likely these days in the shape of the hotel’s logo. In goes bottles of liquor and wine. This intoxicating mix is then stirred up by hand and put into an airtight container to ferment and grow more delicious over the next few weeks before being finally turned into a cake with the addition of flour etc.

Today VIP guests are invited to do the mixing; kited out with kitchen gear and gloves. It’s a fun event that also helps to draw the media attention to the hotel. I recently attended one of these cake mixing ceremonies and was reliably told that this year the Aloft Hotel Thamel will be producing cakes with that heady mix that I helped with. These cakes can be pre-ordered from the hotel.

Mulled Wine

Mulled wine is a spiced and heat­ed red wine, perfect for a cold win­ters evening and smelling every so much like Christmas! I am often asked by friends for the recipe for mulled wine so here it is, tried and tested!

Pour your wine into a big pot. Add the orange juice and rum (or brandy if you prefer). Start to heat SLOWLY. When warm add the spices, hon­ey and fruit. Keep warming it. Do not boil it—why burn off that lovely alcohol? Serve in tall heat-proof glasses. You can also prepare in advance and bottle it. Re-heat before serving. Do remember this goes down smoothly so don’t have too many glasses!

For non-drinkers and children, replace the wine (and rum) with cranberry juice and reduce the quantity of honey.

Merry Christmas eating!

Arju Lohani had not had a chance to celebrate a festival with her brother for eight years. But when in 2017 her broth­er, based in the US, finally visited her in Kathmandu, he ensured that he made up for lost time.“I was so surprised. In an apart­ment that had been booked, each room had been set up to celebrate a unique festival,” Lohani recalls. Her family celebrated Dashain in one room, putting tika, surround­ed by kites. In another, they cel­ebrated Tihar with the room lit with diyo. In yet another room, she tied rakhi on her brother’s arm. In the fourth room, she celebrated her birthday. “It felt like I had not missed any special occasion with him in all those years,” she says.

“Offering Happiness” had planned this surprise with her brother. They had even contacted her friends abroad so that she got video messages from those afar. Lohani was so happy with their service that she later threw sep­arate birthday surprises for her cousin and a friend via Offering Happiness. “Their good point is that they take feedback and stay in touch,” she says.

Giving clients these tailor-made experiences is the unique selling point of Offering Happiness. Estab­lished three years ago, they have already had 10,000 customers, and the number is growing by at least five a day. A group of college friends started working on the idea at the end of 2016. Initially opened as a surprise gift delivery company, they have now evolved into cura­tors of truly memorable moments. Their customers are mainly expats and working professionals who are too busy to plan and execute a surprise.

One such customers is Dibyesh Giri who first took their services on Mother’s Day in 2017. He had been traveling for work and had forgot­ten that Mother’s Day fell on one of those travel days. At around 4 pm, when he opened Facebook, he saw Mother’s Day posts from his friends and contacted Offering Happiness immediately. The company sug­gested what he could gift his moth­er. By 9 pm, he had received a call from his mother thanking him for the surprise. “If I had not come across them, I would have had to call my friends, who might have been busy themselves,” he says.

Giri also planned a surprise for politician Gagan Thapa by coordi­nating with his wife Dr Anjana KC Thapa. “Thankfully, I was planning the surprise with ‘Offering Happi­ness’. While researching Gagan’s birthday, they found that Anjana’s birthday falls on the same day,” he says. So, they came up with a gift for the couple. “The whole process was completely has­sle-free,” says Giri.

Another happy customer is Dee­pa Pradhan who surprised her hus­band Pranav Hora on Father’s Day this year. “Our baby had not even turned one so I was too busy to plan a surprise on Father’s Day. Pranav loves children and this was the first time he would be celebrat­ing Father’s Day, as a father,” says Pradhan. But she had no time to even step out of the house. It was then that she came across an ad of Offering Happiness on Facebook, and with just a simple bank trans­fer, the surprise for her husband was ready. Yet there was still some last-minute hassle.

“I had ordered a cake for the day but then the order somehow got cancelled. I came to know that only on the big day,” Pradhan recalls. She then called Offering Happiness and by 4 pm, a cake and a small gift had also arrived. “They are people who care and ensure that the surprise goes down well,” she says. A hanging gallery was read­ied, decorations completed and a cake arrived without her having to do anything. “My husband and family were so happy. Even though I had to spend some money for the experience, my family’s reaction and that day’s memories are really priceless,” she says.

One of the big challenges for Offering Happiness is coming up with new and creative ideas for surprises every day, says Niraj Kafle, one of the company’s two co-founders. Geography is another challenge, he says. For now, you can only get their services within Kathmandu valley.

They have an interesting story about how they first experimented with ideas. Santosh Pandey, anoth­er co-founder, explains that in Feb­ruary 2017, one of their friend’s girlfriend was coming to Nepal after three years, for a month. So they planned a surprise for her each day of her stay in Nepal. “We loved executing the surprises,” says Paudel. Soon, word spread about their surprise and they real­ized people liked these experiences more than gifts. Now, you can find a wide range of experiences to buy on their website. They also custom­ize these experiences by personally speaking with their clients.

For most experiences, they have built-in systems and all they do is the final quality check. Even in their busiest month of February, when they get around 100 orders a day on Valentine’s week, they still send someone to ensure every­thing goes smoothly on each order.

Offering Happiness has thus far partnered with 40 restaurants, 50 balloon vendors, and numer­ous gift-making companies. Paudel reveals that their enterprise creates business for 100 people a month.

With Christmas on the way, they are excited about a new plan. Last year, they sent “Happiness San­ta” to many homes and children loved it. This year, they will try “Secret Santa”.

Fancy a surprise-bearing-San­ta for your loved ones this Christmas?

Although the “Jhilkey and the Company” band has not been in existence even for six months, it feels like it has always been a part of the undercurrent of Nepal music. Playing an unlabeled genre of hard-hitting, raw music in closed venues, JATC is one of the few torchbear­ers in Nepal of the ‘DIY ethic’ that started on the streets of London in the early 70s in the form of the anti-con­sumeristic punk culture. In Nepal, underground bands have been adopting the ‘DIY ethic’ since the late 90s and generation after generation of young musicians have given continuity to the non-com­mercial genres of music and their shows. The band, however, does not think of itself as totally punk; neither does it choose another other single genre to label itself. JATC’s music, according to band members, is certainly inspired by pro­to-punk legends like The Stooges and MC5 but not con­fined to a single genre.

It all started for JATC when Steve Dewan, the band’s founding member who takes the job of lyrics writing, singing and playing guitar, came back to Kathmandu after getting an IT degree in Bangalore.

Dewan wanted to make music only when he was back home. When he finally got here, he chose to start a band with like-minded musi­cians instead of opting for a 10-to-5 job.

Dewan’s first contact was Bishal Hang Rai—a multi-in­strumentalist who can play guitars, drums, keyboards, and ukulele but handles bass duties for the band. Dewan then got hold of his younger cousin Siddhartha Upreti, also a multi-instrumentalist, to do the job of a keyboard player and singing backing vocals. Drummer Dipson Narsingh KC, the only member with a formal music education, was roped in last, and together they formed the Jhilkey and the Company.

“We got together and started playing in the jam room and quickly gelled with each other’s style despite vast differences in individual musi­cal exposures,” says Dewan, the front-man. “We’re more rock n’ roll Rock with punk vibes.” As its name suggests, JATC is a fun band to listen to. You don’t hear them sing poetic lyrics over complex musical compositions. What you hear with JATC is simple, straightforward rock n’ roll with lyrics that are meaningful yet unpretentious.

“I’m quite a contrarian and this passes on to the band as well,” Dewan adds. “What­ever the ongoing trend is, we do the opposite.” Most of the mainstream music in Nepal is dominated by acoustic gui­tars playing similar rhythm patterns, Dewan thinks, and hence JATC will not be using acoustic guitars in its recordings or live perfor­mances. Its guitar tone is all-analog, cranky, loud and natural, something many mainstream recording artists would refrain from.

As for other sounds, JATC creates music that comes straight from the band-mem­bers’ heart. They play around with guitar riffs and drum beats, selecting the best of them for composing songs. With varied influences, the sounds do turn omnidirec­tional but the common influ­ence of rock n’ roll and punk always guides them home.

“Most of our songs are impromptu creations that talk about contemporary issues,” Dewan says, explaining how he wrote the infectiously catchy “Kathmandu Sahara” from his experience of riding around the dusty city on a scooter. Then there’s another song called “Chinese Chor” which was written following the incident when some Chi­nese stole millions of rupees from ATM machines.

For now the band is in the mixing phase of its debut EP titled “Jhilkey Fire” that will only have four songs includ­ing “Malai Kei Audaina,” Nilo Suitcase,” “Panchiharu,” and “Jhilkey Fire”. The rea­son for releasing a four-track EP instead of a full album is that the band members do not have much studio expe­rience and they want to experiment with the EP first for better future output. “We already have 10 songs ready but it will be sometime before we record them in studio,” Dewan informs. “Also, for a new band like us, budget is an issue.”

Most of JATC’s production expenses have been gener­ated through merchandise sales and DIY gigs where they sell door tickets.

A little input from the family and a month worth of Rai’s salary have also been invest­ments. As for the returns, the band feels it’s too early to calculate at the moment. For now, with its active social media accounts, the band wants to get to as many lis­teners as possible and create a mass following.

Q. What’s an opinion you hold that most people would disagree with?
A. Money can actually buy happiness.

Q. What are you proud of but never have an excuse to talk about?
A. My ideology.

Q. A Nepali singer you would like to collaborate with?
A. Jagdish Samal.

Q. Which country would you like to go for a concert tour?
A. Japan.

Q. If you could pick a day to relive, which day would it be?
A. The day I stepped on stage for the first time. I was 8-year-old then.

Q. You were star-struck when you met?
A. Hari Bamsha Acharya. He is my idol.

Q. What’s one superpower you would not want?
A. Superpower that King Midas possessed of turning everything he touched into gold.

Q. How would you like to be remembered?
A. As a person with a golden heart and a golden voice.

Q. Your favorite venue to perform in?
A. Anywhere with an audience who listen to me keenly.

Q. Your favorite genre of music?
A. Eastern classical and Jazz.