The big news..

Ok... so here goes..

Beginning of this year a couple of us food bloggers were invited for a one day casting event hosted by Finish dishwasher tablets. Those who are on my facebook list will know what the event was about.. if not anything, you will definitely remember "the day I ate an octopus" album which pretty much was the highlight of the day for me. Well, apparently, that was just the tip of the ice berg. Little did I know that the event would give me an opportunity to be the new face of the Finish ad. Yes, you heard that right..the casting day which involved a lot of cooking and one on one interviews was to select food bloggers to appear in the Finish ad, and me along with Danny of Food Urchin were the lucky ones. The ad is due to air in August. :)

So emails went back and forth talking contracts, what to cook, how the ad was going to be shot, what we were expected to do, prop lists etc etc. We even had a wardrobe fitting day which was so so much fun. I tried on all these fabulous clothes, shoes and accessories and sashayed around, and given a choice I would have worn each dress for each shot, but unfortunately that's not how it works. After breaking our heads, we decided that I should make paneer tikka masala pot pies, tandoori fish with curried chips (a fusion take on the traditional fish and chips) and macarons. I also had a food stylist working with me to source props for the food I was going to photograph and she even came home and collected some of my prop to make the hired kitchen look a bit more like mine. 

I was so nervous about having to cook in front of people and I almost broke down thinking about all those things that could go wrong on THE day. Nothing goes down in my life without drama. The macaron shells were to be made from home and the filling procedure alone was to be shot. Me being me, decided to wait till the day before to tackle the macaron monster (well at that time it was). All hell broke loose when the macarons decided to have a mind of their own. You can read the detailed story here, but to cut it short, I had to dig out 5 decent pairs from the 4 batches I made, to work with. Here's something about me...I work best under pressure, which is why I leave a lot of things to the last minute. But that day, I cursed myself fir not being organised and having it all under control. You may think I learnt from my mistake, oh well, that's a whole post on its own ;)

So anyway, came THE day and I was a nervous wreck. I was dropped off at the venue at 7.30 and everyone was busy setting up the place. I was so intimidated by all that was going on but everyone there put me at so much ease that by the end of the day it was like one big family. They ushered me off to the dressing room and I was made to look presentable. I don't think I wore that much make up even for my wedding and was pleasantly surprised at the final outcome. We started shooting at around 10 am and WOW, what an experience it was. I will never ever under estimate the work done by cast and crew, be it a 30 second ad or a 3 hour movie. You see an ad and you think, oh is that it, that's pretty easy. Well, how do I even explain what its like. Its anything but easy. I was lucky because I had very little "acting to do". The director, who was prompting me with questions and telling me how to go about the whole process was so so helpful. He thoroughly put me at ease right from the beginning by telling me to just be me and to inform them if I felt uncomfortable at any point. Strangely for me, after that initial starting trouble, it was a breeze. I did a few cooking scenarios, talked about cooking and recipes, did the whole styling and photography thing and finally the blogging bit. The whole concept was very fresh and something I've not really noticed before.

Over the next couple of weeks the lovely people over at Finish will be introducing me to their Facebook fans and I will be doing some cool stuff out there like giving tips and whipping some some recipes and stuff. So do check out the Finish Facebook page if you dont want to miss any of the action

Talking about my experience with the New Finish Quantum Power Gel.. its quite awesome. No I'm not saying it because I was part of the ad campaign, but because I have first hand experience with how nicely it works. Especially for Indian cooking which uses a lot of oil and spices. You know how these pressure cookers are right? I used to chuck them into the dishwasher after cooking dal or rice and it would never come out clean, making my job tougher. I used to hate having my dishes come out with food still stuck on it, that at one point I even thought it was easier to just wash them by hand. Finish somehow did the trick for me...well mostly. Really oily pots and pans and even glasses came out perfectly clean. Out of the three - original, lemon, and apple and lime blast- my favourite is the apple and lime blast which just smells so so good. 

Because I use a lot of props for my food photography, I always have loads of dishes to wash at the end of the day and I don't think twice about chucking them into the dishwasher because I am sure they would come out clean. Also, glasses need to be sparkling clean, otherwise its easy to spot those ugly marks when the pictures are uploaded on to various platforms. The Finish Quantum with Power Gel tablets also come with salt function which means you don't need to keep filling the machine with salt, something we don't miss at all. It used to be a pain to store the huge packs of salt and also keep filling them, especially after we load the dishwasher and then realise that the salt levels are low. I also find the compact square design of the gels very convenient to store. I was given the Finish tablets to compare with and try it on dishes with different food products and except for one or two instances where the food was just too stubborn to come off, I was truly satisfied with the outcome. I switched and have definitely seen the difference. Now its your turn to give it go :)

It was definitely an experience of a lifetime and I would like to thank all the fabulous people behind it for helping me with the whole process. I hope I did a good job :)