Cooking for Mr. Latte

I just finished reading and rereading 'Cooking for Mr. Latte' by Amanda Hesser. A long time back, my friend A who also shares a similar appreciation for books about food, (not cookbooks really) had recommended this to me. But with the more pressing challenges of graduating on time, this sort of remained on the back burner. A few months back I came across it on the shelves of the public library and got it home. It was such a good read that it went straight to my birthday wish list and R bought it for me. I have always liked books where the narrative is interwoven with stories about food, houses - 'Under the Tuscan Sun' being a good example. This book follows a brief window in the author's life - her courtship with Mr. Latte and the role that food played in it from their first date to their marriage. I like the ease with which the author, (well she writes/ wrote about food for the New York times, so that would explain the ease) writes about her life, invites the reader to follow her experiences with her family and his, and the progress of their relationship, in all of which, food plays a part. In all it was a light, feel good read, for those times when you just need a break!

Some Green Articles

May's issue of Vanity Fair magazine, the Green issue has excellent articles about architecture, farming practices, policy backing involved in the greening of energy supplies etc. Some articles that I found very informative were:

Industrial Revolution: Take Two - an article about the author of 'Cradle to Cradle' William McDonough and his architectural practice and beliefs. Its put the book 'Cradle to Cradle' on my 'must read soon' list.

Climbing The Mango Trees

Just finished reading "Climbing The Mango Trees - A Memoir of a Childhood in India", an autobiography by Madhur Jaffrey which recounts her childhood and adolescence years growing up in India. I have been a big admirer of Ms. Jaffrey's cookbooks ever since my mother bought "Eastern Vegeterian Cooking" more than ten years back. I really like her writing style and for the longest time, I used to read the narrative accompaniments preceding the recipes rather than the recipe itself. My mother then increased her collection of Madhur Jaffrey's books to include the "Far Eastern Cookery" and "Madhur Jaffrey's Cookbook - Food for Family and Friends". I read all of them, they would be my introduction to hummus, tabbouleh, and satay ayam. To a girl growing up in Pune, these were exotic recipes indeed and later after moving to the US, I had a very definite idea of all that I wanted to try eating. In fact, I carted these books to the US with me and my brother gave me " A Taste of India" as a wedding-going away gift. I still had not read the recipes, quite far away from trying to cook any of them. It would still take a couple of years for me to start cooking from them , though my mother had already tried out many of the recipes to great success. Still, I was surprised at how easy it was to follow the recipes and somehow the narratives with each recipe gave me a much better idea of what I should expect the end result to be (a very helpful factor in case one has never tasted the food item before).

So when I saw "Climbing the Mango Trees" on Amazon, I knew I had to buy it. It chronicles Ms. Jaffrey's years growing up in Dehli. What I really liked and which was a natural extension of the narratives which I used to like before, was the writing style which interwove the story of growing up in north India in pre-Independance years, with the eating rituals which seem to be a staple of the Indian culture across geographies and time. The book evokes the varied experiences of life in India, the most poignant perhaps being the one about anticipating the monsoon. The emphasis on seasonality and fresh home cooked food would also be a constant in my childhood although it would be the 1980's then and I grew up in a totally different part of India. Perhaps living in the USA where I see the same vegetables year around and people loading grocery carts with ready made frozen food makes my hyper aware of these facts. Growing up, my mother rarely let us eat leftovers, at the most the next day, but food was cooked to be sufficient for one or at the most two meals and if there was any left over, it was inevitably thrown away. I still do not like to eat food left over from more than a day, although there is not much one can do at times about that. Cooking fresh for each meal also meant a huge variety of food, prepared in different ways. R never likes to see the same dish for more than 2 meals.

The only complaint I have with this book is that it stops too soon,I would have loved to know more about Ms. Jaffreys prolific career, both theatrical and culinary. Hopefully there's another book coming out soon.

Arrow of the Blue- Skinned God

I just finished reading a thought provoking book based on an interesting subject. The author, Jonah Blank retraces the route that Ram (Prince Rama of Ayodhya, as in from the Ramayana) takes in his years of exile(vanvas). The author follows the route Ram took right from Ayodhya, after being exiled to his time in the forests near Nasik and then southward towards Sri Lanka to rescue his wife Sita from the demon king Ravana. The Ramayana is a story most Indians grow up with, I doubt anyone can pinpoint the exact time they were introduced to the story for the first time. The Ramayana is to Hindus what the Illiad or the Odyssey are to the Greeks. I am sure my parents told me the story long before I could read and later, when I could read, Amar Chitra Katha was my main source. And then of course there were those mega serials on the National television channel Doordarshan which would shut down much of India on Sunday mornings. So I never had much curiosity left to read the Ramayana as an adult, when there was so much else which was new to me.

Browsing through the local public library, I found this book "Arrow of the Blue Skinned God - Retracing the Ramayana through India" and my curiosity was piqued . This wasn't the epic story per se, I had not heard of anyone retracing the route of the exiled prince , even though India offers a million pilgrimage routes. I was not even sure if the places mentioned in the Ramayana could be found, the main exception being Ayodhya of course. It was a decidedly interesting premise for a travelogue. The author goes back and forth , between the Ramayana and his own journey through India. The journey combines his experience of the country, the landscape of the hinterland and the urban cities, his conversations with various personalities like the actors who acted in the mega serial, former royals, and random people whom he met on his travels. Once I started reading it, I was absorbed both by the epic story, read afresh after a very long time as well as the author's insight on the happenings in modern day India and how they related to the Ramayana. However towards the end, I found myself racing ahead to read the original story, though it was not new to me. I discovered many new facets in the story which I had not seen or understood before, some of which were probably taken for granted before. I think that's power of a great epic, even if you know it, it offers something new every time you read it. That being said, the whole book was totally worth a read or two, the author is perceptive and sympathetic in his observations, with a lucid and clear thought process.