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)...

My tryst with Saraswat food started with a lovely book I picked up in Pune by Mrs Nadkarni.Written in Marathi,it had a plethora of dishes and as I tried them one by one,I realized thateach had a unique flavor with just a minor variation in ingredients..Soon after I came upon Rasachandrika,a cookbook by the Saraswat Mahila Samaj printed in 1988.This being in English,made it easier for me to cook the long list of vegetarian dishes it had. When I saw Authenticook had a Gaud Saraswat Brahmin (GSB) meal planned for this Saturday,I was thrilled.Having tried some at the home of our Mangalorean origin GSB friends Pradeep and Chethana Rao,I know this was going to be a treat. Saraswats originated from Kashmir and lived on the banks of the Saraswati river.in the Goud region in Northern India.They spoke Sanskrit.Due to a famine,they had to look for alternative sources of food and therefore though they were Brahmins,they started eating fish.Some say as the river dried up,they migrated ...

Alibaug is so close to Mumbai.Just an hour away via ferry to Mandwa Jetty.For those that prefer driving it takes about three hours.Being summer,we spotted lots of mango trees with tiny raw mangoes.Watermelon stalls too piqued our interest.We prefer the unstriped sugar babies.All along the way,whenever we spotted a village,there were women selling fish on wooden boards. The Mandwa Jetty was buzzing with people,being a long weekend.It drizzled,adding to the charm! We grabbed coconuts to sip on while watching the crash of the waves on the rocks. Lunch that day was simple yet delicious chicken curry and pomfret fry prepared by cooks of Agri origin.Next day we spotted a fisherman on the beach carrying his haul of freshly caught live lobsters.We bought them and my cousin cooked half of them in a pan but akin to Lobster Thermidor while the cook made a traditional curry....Shevandiche Kalvan.Difficult to say which one was better There were ...