Chronicles Of The Sassy Fork

Sundays should be like this! A sit-down meal on banana leaves placed horizontally,a marriage of the  hot and spicy Kolhapuri food and demure,subtly flavored Saraswat food! Thanks to Smita Deo,we had this experience at A Perfect Bite Cook Studio,Mumbai! When you meet Smita,she reminds you of gorgeous mythological Goddesses and when you have her cooking,you think of her as Annapurna! She has narrated the story of her life in her book "Karwar to Kolhapur to Mumbai": her childhood holidays in Karwar,her husband's hometown Kolhapur and the place of their current residence...Mumbai.The pictures are stunning! The cover has her holding a vegetable called "Chow-Chow".The food styling has been done by her and everything is authentic.No color has been added to make the dishes more appealing for the camera.The book is a magical journey through Karwar.The stunning Bellikery beach at Aversa (her village),a typical Karwar home and the Ankola fish market ...

One day I was chatting with Zinobia Schroff and she suggested having a party where home chefs could meet and I thought why not.We decided to keep the number small,include people who lived close by and see how it goes,before making it a regular feature.Zinobia makes amazing Parsi food using less oil.She also makes pickles such as Lagan Nu Achar,Chundo and Fish Roe Pickle and these are taken abroad by many of her patrons.I have on many an occasion had her Berry Pulao. In our group was Bela Gupta who runs a vegetarian gourmet service called Herbivore.The picture above is of the goodies she brought to the party.The Watermelon Feta Salad was of outstanding quality.She used Goccia Aged Balsamic.She also made a Three Layer Mexican Dip with Nachos and Amritsari Hummus with Pita-Kulcha Then of course we had Subhasree Basu-Burman who runs the Hungry Cat Kitchen and makes regional and international food.Her pork dishes are a huge hit (Ginger Mirin Pork,Bhut Jholokia amongst others)...