8 Cookbooks for Chefs and Hungry Readers Alike

Today being Personal Chef’s Day, we browsed through a couple of books that chefs would benefit greatly from. Some of the books on the list are from the Pothi.com Store too- we have a great many titles under the cooking category at the store.

When we interviewed Bridget White-Kumar, author of several cookbooks, we asked her about some pointers while writing a cookbook.

“Writing a recipe book isn’t easy,” she said. “A lot of hard work goes into it since one has to get the recipe right after many, many trials and errors. Once a recipe is written, it will be the guide to be followed by many. Only when one has mastered the dish, can a foolproof recipe be written.”

Cookbooks to Nibble on:

Mastering the Pakodas: The Snack for all Seasons by Sangeeta Khanna

Come monsoon and there is the desire to indulge in pakodas and adrak (ginger) chai. The author of Mastering the Pakodas is a botanist and microbiologist and a hardcore home-made food believer.

 

An Indian Sense of Salad by Tara Deshpande Tennebaum

Many of us see salads as a purely Western concept but the local produce in India offers a green mine when it comes to potential salad ingredients. Tennebaum deconstructs the Indian vegetable and adds a splash of additional nutrition to the Indian meal.

The Dal Cookbook by [Krishna Dutta]The Dal Cookbook by Krishna Dutta

Dal is the staple diet of most Indians. Krishna Dutta examines the different dishes where lentils can be used including khichari, dosas, vadas, pappadam.

 

 

660 curries by Raghavan Iyer660 Curries by [Raghavan Iyer]

This book is an exhaustive compendium of cooking styles from across India. Feast on curries, appetizers, traditional cuisines, biryanis, breads, blends, you name it.

 

Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Nation by [Madhur Jaffrey]Quick & Easy Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey 

70 easy-to-prepare recipes by India’s favorite cook Madhur Jaffrey. Her recipes are great for newbies too. Watch Madhur Jaffrey talk about Indian cuisine and the history of Indian cooking here.

 

Cookbooks at the Pothi.com store

Indian Grandmas' Secret RecipesIndian Grandmas’ Secret Recipes

25 vegetarian recipes by 16 cooks in the age range of 70-95. The recipes span different parts of India.

 

 

Amader Barir Khawa Dawa: Bengali Recipes From My Mother's KitchenAmader Barir Khawa Dawa: Bengali Recipes From My Mother’s Kitchen by Ratna Mukherjee

The author collects a 100 of her mother’s incredible recipes of traditional Bengali dishes- day-to-day fare and festive occasions.

 

ANGLO-INDIAN DELICACIESAnglo-Indian Delicacies by Bridget White-Kumar

An easy and unpretentious guide to delectable Anglo-Indian Cuisine. The author has won the ‘Best Culinary History Book’ awarded by Gourmand International Spain, World Cookbook awards, 2012.

 

Which cookbooks have you indulged in? Do mention in the comments.

Reader Alert! Lessons From How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

This is a book that Pothidotcomers are familiar with. It’s come up over coffee and at the Bring Your Own Book (BYOB) Parties. There are how-to books about everything under the sun but how do you read a book? Do you really need a manual for that? An avid reader would not agree but once you read How to Read a Book by Adler and Van Doren, you will change your mind.

Kinds of Reading

There are four kinds of reading:

  • Elementary- The basics.
  • Inspectional- The book browsing/skimming kind
  • Analytical- Going into details
  • Syntopical- Reading books related to the book you are reading

Reading Rules:

  • Classify the book according to its subject matter.
  • State what the whole book is about with utmost brevity.
  • Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation.
  • Define the problems the author is trying to solve and see whether he has solved them.

So a reader has to sweat over the sentence like the poor writer has or to put it in a more positive light- a reader needs to be more demanding.

How to Read Books of Different Genres

There is a way to read every sort of book from mathematics to philosophy. For instance, reading imaginative literature and reading a mathematics treatise is very different indeed. You can afford to be less analytical while reading War and Peace than when you attempt Euclid’s Book I of Elements. Similarly, a poem is not unreadable if you follow these steps- read it through in one sitting, preferably read it aloud, find the unity in the poem and discover the conflict of images. A poem requires work, but like all other kinds of literature, you must try to glean something from it.

This section of the book is sure to change the way you approach different kinds of books.

Bonus Points

There is a list of recommended books at the end of How to Read a Book– a comprehensive guide of what to read in Western Literature and Exercises and Tests at the four levels of reading in the book.

 

Down Memory Lane: Once Upon a Bring Your Own Book (BYOB) Party 📚

It was in 2015 that we held our first Bring Your Own Book (BYOB) Party. Since Pothi.com is a book company and the founders are devoted readers, the idea was to get people to talk about the books they loved. Unlike a book club where the point of discussion is a single book, at this party, book lovers could choose any book. This made the parties supremely interesting. We had participants from all walks of life- scientists, engineers, start-up founders, lawyers, writers, creatives, colonels, bankers, students, some regulars, many newbies who discussed fiction and non-fiction, movies and food with gusto. Seldom were there awkward silences; sometimes there were even tears and heated discussions.

No genre was exempt. We discussed fiction, mythology, fractured fairytales, crime thrillers, vernacular language books, graphic novels and non-fiction books featuring science, history, poetry,  business and commerce, self-help, spirituality, etc. We also interviewed select participants.

The highlight of our BYOB Parties was the after party where Red Velvet cupcakes and dhokla were served.

Miss those parties! You can visit some of our Bring Your Own Books (BYOB) Party stories here.

Wole Soyinka- Doyen of Drama Who Dons Many Roles

Wole Soyinka “who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence” won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. He was the first Nigerian, the first African to win this distinction. His life is a lesson to journalists and writers across the world. Wole Soyinka has never been afraid to speak his mind and he speaks not with the grating cynicism that we find on social media these days- all his speech is tempered with reason. You can watch him speak here.

While he has written extensively combining European and Yoruba tradition- plays, poetry, novels, short stories, essays, memoirs and screenplays, he is also an activist and has spent a large part of his life fighting corruption, racism and injustice. While he has won various prizes for his writing and has taught at many prestigious universities, he has also been incarcerated for his firm stand. His propensity for satire flourished in the arts but was not appreciated across the political spectrum in his home country.

Death and the King's Horseman (Student Editions)Myth, Literature and the African World (Canto)Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on EarthCollected Plays: Volume 1: A Dance of the Forests; The Swamp Dwellers; The Strong Breed; The Road; The Bacchae of Euripide...The Lion and the Jewel (Three Crowns Books)

Soyinka has produced nearly 30 plays and this is what stands out the most in his legacy. He combines traditional pantomimes, ritualistic practices and dance with the idea of independence and regeneration.

Happy b’day Wole Soyinka!

Remembering Manohar Malgonkar, the Prolific Writer Everyone Forgot

One contemporary of the writer Mulk Raj Anand we know little about is a writer who was born on this day in a village in Karnataka – Manohar Malgonkar. He donned many roles-army officer rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, columnist, civil servant, game hunter, mine owner at Jagalbet and farmer.

His experience in various spheres reflected in his prolific output of short stories, essays and fiction and non-fiction novels and those who have read his work (few and far between) know that his stories focus on India during British colonization (The Princes, A Bend in the Ganges) and India post-independence (Distant Drum). His novel A Spy in Amber was adapted into the Hindi film Shalimar.

He lived in ‘Burbusa Bungalow’  in Uttara Kannada District, Karnataka and he passed away in 2010.

The Ibis and its Whereabouts – Amitav Ghosh and Jhumpa Lahiri

On this day, two extraordinary authors share a birthday.

Ghosh in 2017Amitav Ghosh’s education spans from Dehradun to Oxford. For a short time he worked at The Indian Express and it was while he was studying at Oxford that he wrote his first book The Circle of Reason. From then, his writing career blossomed and his books have been translated into over twenty languages. Almost every book he has penned has won an award. He is probably the first cli-fi writer India has produced- his fascination for the sea,  human history and migration make his novels complex, educational and must-reads. Ghosh’s writing veers on the non-fictional even when he writes fiction.  A book that many readers I have spoken to love is The Hungry Tide, The Ibis Trilogy, The Glass Palace, Shadow Lines and Calcutta Chromosome.

Jhumpa Lahiri in 2015

Jhumpa Lahiri, an American author born in London,  is loved most for her debut collection of short stories Interpreter of Maladies. Her book The Namesake was adapted into a popular movie and she has a string of awards under her belt. Her stories have captured the Indian immigrant experience but she hasn’t stopped there- she has moved on to finding the true language of her soul by delving into a completely foreign language – Italian. This is an experiment in the fictional realm, one that many writers and translators can learn from.

Read this interview with Lahiri to understand this prestigious author’s love affair with the Italian language.

Which books do you love by these authors? Tell us in the comments.

On International Mango Festival Day, 8 Book Titles That Feature Mangoes! 🥭

Every year since 1987 on July 9, the International Mango Festival is held in Delhi.  This is a great opportunity for mango gourmands, sellers and growers and a mango product bonanza for visitors. Favorite mango varieties on display are Langda, Malda, Dasheri, Alphonso, Chausa, Sindheri, Himgiri, Bombay Green and many others. Besides the achars, jams and shakes available at kiosks, there are folk song shows featuring mangoes and binge-eating mango contests.

This year the festival remains closed owing to Covid.

As part of honoring the festival this year, we put together a list of some books with Mango in the title and we came across many genres from literary to chicklit. Tell us if there are any more Mango-themed titles featured in your book collection!

House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

The House on Mango Street is a story of childhood and self-discovery. Sandra Cisneros started writing the book as a memoir but the book ended up taking a life of its own and became an exploration of otherness and identity. Read about her writing process here.

 

The House of Blue Mangoes by David Davidar

A generational saga of three generations of Dorais set in southern India during India’s freedom struggle. The house at Chethavar which is the fulcrum of the book is surrounded by the famous blue mango trees.

 

A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass

Wendy’s protagonist is a synesthete- she can smell colors and taste shapes. She must learn how to come to terms with her condition as her world is an explosion of the senses.

A Case of Exploding Mangoes

A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif

Explosive writing! A Case of Exploding Mangoes is a satirical account of the conspiracies that clouded Zia-ul-Haq’s death. He chooses satire as a medium to expose hard truths and the comic touch to touch on subjects that are very much forbidden fruit.

 

Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in IndiaClimbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India by Madhur Jaffrey

When you pick up a Madhur Jaffrey book, you are sure to be assaulted by a tonne of flavors. This memoir cum recipe account is a culinary autobiography not just of Jaffrey’s own experiences but India’s food journey as well.

Monique and the Mango Rains: An Extraordinary Story of Friendship in a Midwife's House in Mali by [Kris Holloway]Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali

Humor laces this book set in a West African village. The protagonist is a midwife who saves young lives and becomes a legend.

 

The Mango Season by [Amulya Malladi]The Mango Season by Amulya Malladi

Chicklit set with a protagonist from the Indian diaspora. Priya is expected to marry a nice Indian boy but over a mango pickle culinary exercise, she is in a dilemma about whether she should reveal more about her American boyfriend.

 

Imaculada de Bomba Cabral's Mango Tree and other nonsense talesImaculada de Bomba Cabral’s Mango Tree and other nonsense tales

At the Pothi.com store, we found a title that matches the mango theme- a book of humorous essays with Goa as the protagonist.

 

 

Dhan Gopal Mukerji- The Only Indian Writer Who Won the Newbery Medal

On 6 July, 1890, Dhan Gopal was born in a jungle village in Kolkata. His story reads like a piece of fiction- a boy steeped in Brahminical roots with a revolutionary brother who eggs him on to leave India goes on a subsequent journey to Japan and once the disillusionment of the assembly lines he witnessed there set in, he arrived at San Francisco. He ended up studying at Berkeley and then at Stanford, turning to the written word for solace.

His life was an intense enquiry into the unknown. This little-known writer of the 1920s laid the foundation for Indian writing in English.

Stanford critic Gordon H. Chang describes Mukerji as a person who ‘holds the distinction of being the first author of Asian-Indian ancestry who successfully wrote for American audiences about Indian life’. Dhan Gopal had a rich legacy – the sprawling jungle was rooted in his mind, his brother’s love for India and his own found a way into his longing for his country, and the reality of race relations in the US lit a fire in him.

Dhan Gopal is the only Indian writer who has ever won the American Library Association’s Newbery Medal –   for his children’s book Gay Neck: The Story of a Pigeon. Messenger pigeons during WWI, man and his friendship with winged animals, and the futility of war form the crux of this story.

Mukerji’s other children’s books include Ghond, the Hunter, The Chief of the Herd, Hindu Fables for Little Children, Rama, the Hero of India, The Master Monkey, and Fierce-Face, the Story of a Tiger.

Besides children’s stories, he also wrote non-fiction, poetry and translations, which were published in prestigious outlets. His autobiography Caste and Outcaste is one of the first books that talks about the experiences of an Indian abroad. Other writings include A Son of Mother India Answers  ( in response to Katherine Mayo‘s Mother India), Devotional Passages from the Hindu Bible and Visit India with Me, Disillusioned India, My Brother’s Face, and  The Face of Silence.

He died by suicide in his home in New York in 1936.

Nine Times Kafka Was Splendid and Wildly Relatable

 

On this day, 138 years ago, notable novelist Franz Kafka was born. His writing has since become well-known for their “senseless, disorienting and menacing complexity”, with kafkaesque entering our cultural lexicon to describe situations similar to those found in his books.

Despite the reputation his books have garnered of being difficult to read and comprehend, a closer look reveals that Kafka would have fit right in with the rest of us as we navigate a pandemic, adjust to work-from-home, and juggle our emotions, needs, and physical and mental health.

Along with tempestuous and difficult personal relationships, Franz Kafka also struggled greatly with his mental health throughout his life. As a result, his writing literally represented a lifeline for this prolific author, and authors today continue to benefit greatly from his reflections on the life of a writer.

Kafka’s thoughts on depression, love, and anxiety give us a glimpse into the human condition, that has remained largely unchanged over the last one hundred years. And in the same way, one might be forgiven for thinking that he might not have been out of place in our meme-obsessed social media landscape with his bitingly sarcastic wit.

KAFKA WAS CLEARLY CENTURIES AHEAD OF HIS TIME WHEN IT CAME TO LIVE-TWEETING HIS DEPRESSION.

Basically it is nothing other than this fear we have so often talked about, but fear spread to everything, fear of the greatest as of the smallest, fear, paralyzing fear of pronouncing a word, although this fear may not only be fear but also a longing for something greater than all that is fearful.”

KAFKA ON SOCIAL ANXIETY, FROM LETTERS TO MILENA

NO PRIZES FOR GUESSING WHAT CAPTIONS HE’D HAVE ADDED TO HIS CAREFULLY CURATED FEED OF SOULFULLY ARTISTIC IMAGES ON INSTAGRAM. KAFKA WAS THE OG INSTAGRAM POET.

 

KAFKA, METAMORPHOSIS

Happy birthday, Franz Kafka. And finally thank you for these evergreen words of wisdom, that we are unlikely to forget as we struggle to work from our homes and manage our anxiety.

 

14 Doctors who are Accomplished Writers – A Doctor’s Day Special 🩺

While doctors are venerated for their frontline effort during the pandemic and well-known for their illegible prescriptions, not many of us know that a large number of physicians have succeeded in the writing arena. Doctors have the perfect opportunity to observe patients, empathize with them and make sense of the human condition.

Here are some stellar writers who are medical physicians as well:

Khaled Hosseini

Khaled HosseiniKhaled Hosseini began writing The Kite Runner while he practiced medicine, spending the early hours of the day to finish his writing quota for the day. The success of The Kite Runner led him to take a sabbatical from the medical profession. Listen to him talk about his medical career here.

Robin Cook

Pandemic (Jack Stapleton and Laurie Montgomery)If there’s one writer who was incessantly worried about a pandemic-like situation, it’s medical thriller writer and physician Robin Cook. His character Jack Stapleton is a character who was concerned by the possibility of super spreader respiratory illnesses. Famous books by Robin Cook include Coma, Outbreak and Pandemic.

Atul Gawande

Atul-Gawande - Wikimedia CommonsAtul Gawande is a doctor by morning, writer by night sort of multi-tasker. His books are an intersection of medicine, compassion and solutions. His books The Checklist Manifesto and Being Mortal talk about treatment management and humanist interventions when faced with critical illness.

Siddhartha Mukherjee

Buy The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer Book Online at Low Prices in India | The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer Reviews & Ratings - Amazon.inSiddhartha Mukherjee wrote The Emperor of All Maladies intermittently during his medical practice and oncology research. At any one time, he juggles multiple disciplines with an effort to understand the root of the disease. Read about his writing experience here.

W. Somerset Maugham

W. Somerset Maugham - WikipediaThe famous novelist, short story writer and playwright Somerset Maugham once said, “I do not know a better training for a writer than to spend some years in the medical profession. The doctor, especially the hospital doctor, sees it [humanity] bare.” Famous books by him include The Razor’s Edge, Of Human Bondage, The Painted Veil, etc.

Anton Chekhov

File:Anton-chekhov-4 JAM.jpg - Wikimedia CommonsAnton Chekhov, one of the world’s most celebrated short story writers, was a dedicated doctor. He was fascinated by the lives of his patients and his compassion shines through in his writing. Many of his stories focus on aspects of the medical profession such as Anyuta, Ionych, A Boring Story, A Doctor’s Visit, etc.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle - Wikipedia

Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, practiced medicine for a decade. He focused on ophthalmology and his unsuccessful practice ended up being a boon to the detective fiction genre.

Abraham Verghese

Buy My Own Country: A Doctor's Story Book Online at Low Prices in India | My Own Country: A Doctor's Story Reviews & Ratings - Amazon.inAbraham Verghese studied medicine in Ethiopia and India and ended up practicing medicine in the United States. He took a swing at his writing dream by applying to the Iowa Writing Workshop. Books by him include Cutting for Stone and My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story. Learn more about his journey here.

Taslima Nasrin Sarkar

Most know this outspoken author and Ananda Purashkar winner for works like her 1993 novel, Lajja. But did you know that Nasrin also practiced as a gynecologist for many years before turning to full-time activism? Her experiences as a doctor have formed the cornerstone of much of her writing and played a central role in the development of her ideologies and passion.

 

Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

Shekhar’s award-winning writing embodies the subaltern perspective, bringing to life Santhal culture in three dimensions. His works, The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey, and The Adivasi Will Not Dance are both winners of the Hindu Literary Prize, with the former also winning the Yuva Puraskar, among other accolades. Unsurprisingly, Shekhar is no less distinguished when it comes to his day job as a medical officer with the Government of Jharkhand.

Kamal Kumar Mahawar

Mahawar’s acclaimed book The Ethical Doctor sheds light on unethical practices that plague the medical profession in India. Mahawar’s brilliant analyses examine the various roles of policy, the judiciary, the government, and of medical professionals, and how these intersect – sometimes to the detriment of patients.

 

Nawal El-Sadaawi

Two-time Nobel Prize nominee Nawal El-Sadaawi was best known for her literature on feminism, Islam, and Arab history. Before she was a prolific writer, she graduated from medical school in 1955 and practiced as a physician for decades. As with Nasrin, much of El-Sadaawi’s work is influenced by her experiences as a doctor, leading her to be vocal against practices such as female circumcision. Unsurprising, then, that one of her earliest works was titled Memories of a Woman Doctor

Paul Kalanithi

Indian-American neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air chronicles his battle against lung cancer, and was completed posthumously. A New York Times Bestseller, When Breath Becomes Air gives us a look into terminal illness from the dual perspective of someone who was both doctor as well as patient.

 

Michael Crichton

Who doesn’t know and love the exciting action thrillers penned by Michael Crichton? Crichton holds an MD from Harvard, but never pursued a medical career, opting instead to devote his time to writing – his true passion. And lucky for us he did, or else the world may still have been waiting for a Jurassic Park to come along and shape our cultural landscape.

 

Let us know if you have any physician writers in mind and we can add to this list.

Here are some medical authors from the Pothi.com Store:
InVerse Medicine by Upreet Dhaliwal
Cricket Medicine Essentials by Naveen Bhansal
Drug Autobiographies in Pharmacology by Sushil Sharma
Power after B.D.S by Dr. Abhishek Jungi

 

Article contributors: Neelima, Anushka