Basil For The Soul

"Look at them all you want for free but touch them and you'll have to pay", warned the man at the small apple-stall next to the roadside orchard. The apple trees stood neatly in rows, laden with small green apples in bunches at arm's reach, validating the sellers' concerns. My friends and I took a few selfies with the famed Kashmiri apples before we resumed our journey to Sonmarg. It was July. We had started from Srinagar and were headed to our base camp from where we would begin a 7-day trek in the Himalayas. And it was amazing how much I had learnt about the local produce and exotic foods of Kashmir already.  Kahwa, the Kashmiri elixir: The day we landed in Srinagar, we shopped for papier-mache boxes and kurtis with kashida embroidery. But our most-anticipated buy was a bottle of kahwa mix. Kahwa is a green tea flavoured with spices like cardamom, cinnamon and saffron and topped with crushed pista and almonds. A Kashmiri favourite, and it follow...