While shopping around for apparel or household accessories in India, the last thing on your mind is promoting the craft traditions of the country. But, incredibly enough, that’s exactly what you’re doing ! Just as Indian culture has the supreme ability to adapt itself to a succession of alien Influences over the millennia, so also…
For the sixteen or so years that I have known Chef Ranveer Brar, I have always exhorted him to go in for plastic surgery. As soon as his contours are re-moulded to incorporate a pot-belly and his eyes have acquired bags underneath them, he will be taken seriously as a chef. Until then, he will…
With 360 miles of coastline and over a thousand miles of backwaters, Kerala is something of a paradise for seafood aficionados. There are reminders everywhere: Rows of giant Chinese fishing nets are poised at the edge of the water near the port of Kochi and fishing boats with foamy piles of drying nets idle at…
“So you’re from India? That’s from where the film stars come here to shoot,” was the common refrain of just about everyone we met in Switzerland. Our film industry and its quirks are the subject of radio talk shows and newspaper reports in The Land of the Cuckoo Clock. But we hadn’t gone there to…
Growing up in Hyderabad in the ’seventies, Begum Kulsum would always look forward to weddings. That was when the making of the mo’alla kebab took place. “It was around five feet in diametre and took several kebabchis to prepare. Filled with biryani, the trick was to work dexterously with the sheer quantity of ingredients, specially…
When Andreas Roesing, Pastry Chef of the Grand Hyatt Delhi, visited friends in the French town of Tain-l’Hermitage, his chief memory was the all-pervasive aroma of chocolate in the air. “Every time we’d open the door, it would envelope us. I can hardly remember anything else from that trip.” Chef Roesing may have been visiting…
I’ve always wondered exactly what an expatriate chef de cuisine does in his kitchen. Does he himself cook? Really? Every order? And here we are talking about 200 orders per day, so is it humanly possible? Or does he stand languidly by, rapping the occasional knuckle, while his beleagured team sweats it out at the…
About as large as Sri Lanka, this island is one of Asia’s easternmost outposts, wedged in between China to the west, Japan in the north and the Philippines in the south. Taiwan may be best known for its computer peripherals industry, but it’s a largely undiscovered gem for those who are looking for somewhere off…
When it came into existence some ten years ago, it became a sort of cult to be seen there. In the intervening years, Yellow Brick Road at the Ambassador Hotel has acquired a few more layers insofar as cuisine goes. Its sunny yellow interiors have worn well, and it still looks as fresh and chirpy…
Most people read the Mahabharata for ancient wisdom. When Salma Hussain reads the age-old text, she uncovers recipes for kebabs. Kunduazizi, according to her research, is a kebab which predates the Mughal period by millennia. Its recipe? The meat of a fowl, citrus fruit for marinade, crushed black pepper for seasoning, and spit grilling as…