[Note: I wrote this piece in February 2005 and have revised it a bit. I scarcely remember what it is to eat inside in a restaurant anymore. I still have never been to India … .] Curry aromas waft promisingly in the cold winter air as the smudged glass door opens and closes with every … More A Brief Passage to India
Curry. I can’t live without it. And thus it was only natural that I used some of my Santa Claus money to buy myself a copy of Dan Toombs’s clever cookbook, The Curry Guy: Recreate Over 100 of the Best British Indian Restaurant Recipes at Home (2017). The cooking found in British Indian Restaurants. Or BIRs. … More The Curry Guy
I love food from India, I mean, I really, really do. And so when I had a chance to review Madhur Jaffrey’s latest, well, what could I say??? Heck, YES! Here’s my review, of a marvelous book, on that wonderful new magazine from the U.K. – Modern Salt: MADHUR JAFFREY’S “VEGETARIAN INDIA: A JOURNEY THROUGH … More Madhur Jaffrey’s “Vegetarian India”: My Review on the”Modern Salt” Site
For numerous reasons, lately I’ve been indulging in one of my passions – cooking the food of the Indian sub-continent. I just ran across again William Makepeace Thackeray’s “A Poem to Curry,” quoted by nearly everyone who takes a stab at writing about the mystery of curry, and how it traveled to the nooks and crannies … More The Poetry of Curry, or, a Traveler’s Tale
Like most of you (I hope), I have been cooking from Julie Sahni’s cookbooks for years. I learned to feel utterly confident that Ms. Sahni’s recipes really work and come close to what people from India know about good food. One weekend my husband’s office held a pot-luck at a colleague’s house. Feeling assured that … More Julie Sahni -Talk About Great Indian Food!
In spite of French presence in India for a couple of centuries, trying to find Indian curry in France tends to be a bit of a chore. The first Indian restaurant didn’t open in Paris until 1975. Those in the know (mostly British expatriates pining for curry in London) lament the lack of good Indian food, … More To India, via Paris’s Le Passage Brady
In Pondicherry, Pondichéry, or Puducherry as it is now called again (since 2006), you still see streets sparkling with old colonial buildings, dating back to a time when passersby heard French spoken daily. Yet, those buildings, policemen’s hats, and a fully functioning French lycée or school, are among the few overt signs that you’ll notice … More East is East and West is West: Pondicherry and French Curry
[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation. See also “India Asks, Should Food be a Right for the Poor?”]
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN 
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