An Afternoon With The Foodie at the Food Book Club

 In today's day and age of the internet,it comes as a welcome change to have a Food Book Club.While I writing on a blog,my love for books remains the same.The joy of holding them in your hands,flipping the pages,marking on them at times is something else.The A Perfect Bite Food Book Club is Rushina Munshaw-Ghildiyal's idea.She comes up with great ones.Whether it be the Food Memory Project,Culinary Legacy Series or her Foodles.Her studio is far away from where I live else I would be there more often.I received four books in the hamper on joining the club...The Sood Family Cookbook (by Aparna Jain),Vicky Goes Veg (by Vicky Ratnani),A Pinch Of This,A Handful Of That (by Rushina) and India On My Platter (by Saransh Goila) as well as vouchers to two events.

Last year Kunal Vijayakar launched his first book...."Made In India" which is a collection of recipes from his travel all over the country for the hugely popular TV show "The Foodie".He has also included recipes of the some of the original communities of Mumbai,both East Indian and Pathare Prabhu,which share similarities.The recipes are precise and easy to follow.He isn't a chef and doesn't claim to be one yet the book instructs you perfectly,if you follow it to the T,without skipping ingredients.

I have always wondered what it would be like to have food cooked by him and he did just that at the event.Showed us how to make the Bombay Chicken Curry and Fish Chichoni.The former is one the Anglo Indian cooks in upscale homes made in the past.It's made with olive oil and has dessicated coconut,curry leaves,garlic and vinegar.Unusual combinations I would say and a reason why I hadn't attempted making this before.It turned out delicious! Reminded me of an old quote 'Our minds should be open with wonder,not closed by belief"

There were more vegetarian participants at the event yet they had more questions on non vegetarian food than us! We discussed the Batati Charcharli( Crusty Potatoes) and Hingatelatle Vatane (Peas with Asafoetida),which are my favorites.These are Pathare Prabhu recipes and I make them every fortnight.

The Fish Chinchoni is a fish curry that is East Indian.Curries are found all along our coastline but the recipe changes every 100 km! A slight twist to the ingredients makes a huge difference in taste,Kunal remarked.Be it the souring agents like kokum or tamarind or addition of tirphal.

The APB Cook Studio had made dishes from the cookbook for our lunch.Two dishes which Kunal made and others

The Eddie's Mutton Stew was fragrant and delightful! It's named after Kunal's great uncle Mr Rane's butler.

For the vegetarians there was Batati Charcharli (which I would have preferred to have been cooked till crisp) and Khamang Kakdi (something  I have made from Rushina's award winning book A Pinch Of This,A Handful of That

I must make mention of the welcome drink which I loved,made of Kumquats!

The Croissant Pudding which the staff made was just perfect!

The surprise at the event was a talk by The Gourmet Food Co, launched by a group of bankers who plan to get food from home chefs to people's homes (e.g. a Sunday Brunch) and pop up events of traditional food.