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The Spice is Right: Easy Indian Cooking for Today
by Monica Bhide

A new young voice in Indian cooking, Monica Bhide was probably born with a mixing spoon in her mouth! Since the age of ten, cooking has been a lifelong passion for this accomplished caterer and home chef. Monica specialises in Indian cuisine and has prepared everything from an intimate dinner for two to large parties of 40. A graduate of several formal cooking courses in her native India, she is also a voracious cookbook reader and counts hundreds of cookbooks in her collection.

Frustrated by the lack of straightforward Indian cookbooks, Monica became inspired several years ago to develop simplified and healthful versions of her favorite Indian dishes. The result is the collection of mouthwatering Indian recipes in her book The Spice is Right, where Monica, in her down-to-earth and lively writing style, guides Indian food lovers on a non-intimidating and flavourful foray into home-style Indian cooking.

Deliciously refreshing cookbook from new author Monica Bhide (16 April 2002)
Reviewer: Marc Millon from Devon

This book landed on my desk, bringing with it an immediate scent of exotic spices and flavours that made me want to pack my bags and head straight for the Indian sub-continent. Monica Bhide writes with infectious enthusiasm and passion, and to an audience she assumes may be less than familiar with the flavours of Indian cooking. The recipes are presented in a way that makes you want to try everything, from the simplest to the most intricate and complicated. Most of all, this is a book about home Indian cooking and it is clear that these are the foods that the author herself still loves to eat. Moreover, she is not a slave to authenticity and is quite happy to adapt Indian flavours to western foods and meals, giving, for example, suggestions to add an Indian twist to the American Thanksgiving meal or ideas for an Indian backyard bbq, with Indian lemonade, chicken tikka, and corn-on-the-cob with a spicy rub.

Bringing an ethnic cuisine to a Western audience not familiar with the mores and cultural nuances of the original is never an easy task. I think that Monica Bhide achieves this most ably as she explains both basic techniques to the newcomer to Indian food, recounts charming childhood stories, while providing more challenging recipes for foods that read so deliciously that you just have to try them. Brava, Monica!

A quirky, informative and fascinating book (28 January 2002)
Reviewer: Colleen Grove from London

What is it about Indian women that makes them come back to the kitchen?

The author of The Spice is Right, Monica Bhide has an engineering degree from Bangalore University and two master's in information systems technology from George Washington University. Yet, when faced with the problem of where to get a good, straightforward Indian recipe book, she did the only thing a self-respecting Indian woman would do - she wrote it herself!

The style is light, chatty and very informative and includes a lot of classic favourites from all over the Indian subcontinent re-worked and given catchy and sometimes very amusing names, such as 'Wheels of Fortune' for Uttapams and 'Wheels of the Bus', a cheese, tomato and cracker dish named by her young nephew.

There are also a lot of new ideas - spiced-up versions of American classics, dishes inspired by friends and family and even recipes that have been stirred lovingly into the book by close relatives.

Recipes are fairly easy to follow, althought the layout of the method section may cause the eye to lose track during a fraught cooking session!

Monica covers everything the reader may need to know, including tips, nutritional advice, drinks to match and even tips on useful websites that may be of use.

Her advice is quirky, often raising a smile, as when, in the introduction she offers her translation for her heat indicator (a star system used as a guidance to the spiciness of each dish):

*	Mild	Translation: What is this thing doing in a spicy cookbook?
**	Medium	Translation: I can eat this and my stomach will still love me.
***	Hot	Translation: I can eat this and my stomach might love me.
****		Author refuses to take any responsibility for this category.

Even on opening the section on nutritional guidelines, Monica cannot resist the joke quote, "Never eat what you cannot lift" from Miss Piggy.

My advice? Make sure you read the tips and little stories in the tinted side panels, not only are they entertaining, but there are a few useful preparation tips in there too!

If you want to order a copy of the book - click here (USA)
If you want to order a copy of the book - click here (UK)

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