Pictures of our lunch in Vasai

Lunch -which I was supposed to help cook... well I did manage to stir the curry before I put it on the table - consisted of pomfret done two ways; in a curry of coconut juice flavoured with the ubisquitious bottle masalla and local cane vinegar, and also two rather large specimens stuffed with coconut chutney and pan fried in banana leaves (a dish I found very reminiscent of Parsi Patra ni machchi, couldn't help wondering if there is a common root to that dish) all eaten with rice. (I have pictures of this bit but bear with me, because they are on my phone and my phone and my computer are not on talking terms currently! )

The seasoning in the food was less than what we eat at home, but that was a good thing because it allowed us to taste the delicate flavours of the fish and the curry it was cooked in. Bessy fried the rest of the chutney she'd stuffed the fish with, in a tempering of Mustard and Curry leaves. Lunch was delicious. Generously seasoned with hunger, the tangy slightly spicy fish curry came together beautifully with the chutney that tasted of fresh coconut. We ate a lot, quickly and with our hands, the next bite being ready to enter our mouths before we'd finished with the last and were still picking morsels of plates and spoons long after our stomachs were full.

Making East Indian Bottle Masalla for My Mumbai Cookbook

The East Idian chapter of My Mumbai Cookbook will actually come up much later in my writing schedule but the legendary Bottle masala is only made this time of the year (January to April). It also has a 'secret recipe' so when I found a friend whose mom was ready to share the making of it, I grabbed the chance. I surmounted all odds to get there the stipulated weekend, planning things down to the 'p', prepacking on Friday, borrowing moms car (ours was in the shop). And I am so glad I did because the monsoons arrived in all their glory the very next week!

We'd planned to leave by 10 but I only woke at 8:45 when Bessy, the friend I was supposed to visit called to ask if we had left! A mad rush ensued as I pushed husband and son to get dressed and got baby and myself ready as well.

The Ghildiyal family, with assorted baggage, baby gadgets and actually left home in record time. (Well 11.00 was not bad since we had planned for 10.00 all things considered.) I am coming to a conclusion after Natasha was born that babies come with a Murphy's law chip embedded in them. That is why they will choose to poop the exact minute you step out of the house? Trow up the exact minute you finish buttoning them into their new dress OR and this is a classic.. Poop the moment you've changed them into a fresh diaper.

We arrived at our friends (the Machados) Vasai home in time for lunch and all of a sudden the mad rush seemed to slow down as beer cans were popped open and the men got comfortable in front of the cricket match on TV, while keeping an eye on the kids (my 2 and Bessy's 2) while us women got busy in the kitchen.

Lunch -which I was supposed to help cook... well I did manage to stir the curry before I put it on the table - consisted of pomfret done two ways; in a curry of coconut juice flavoured with the ubisquitious bottle masalla and local cane vinegar, and also two rather large specimens stuffed with coconut chutney and pan fried in banana leaves (a dish I found very reminiscent of Parsi Patra ni machchi, couldn't help wondering if there is a common root to that dish) all eaten with rice. (I have pictures of this bit but bear with me, because they are on my phone and my phone and my computer are not on talking terms currently! )

The seasoning in the food was less than what we eat at home, but that was a good thing because it allowed us to taste the delicate flavours of the fish and the curry it was cooked in. Bessy fried the rest of the chutney she'd stuffed the fish with, in a tempering of Mustard and Curry leaves. Lunch was delicious. Generously seasoned with hunger, the tangy slightly spicy fish curry came together beautifully with the chutney that tasted of fresh coconut. We ate a lot, quickly and with our hands, the next bite being ready to enter our mouths before we'd finished with the last and were still picking morsels of plates and spoons long after our stomachs were full.

After that sumptuous lunch, a nap was on the cards, we were in Vasai after all, where afternoon naps after a big meal of fish curry and rice are de riguer.

At 5 going on 6 (are you surprised?) that evening, Riki, Bessy's husband dropped us off to Bessys moms house while my husband valiantly babysat the kids. Thank god for him, because without his support, the next few hours of idyllic culinary exploration could not have been possible.

It was in the next few hours that Bessy's mom, Mrs Margaret Nunes was going to teach me how to make Bottle Massala, Sorpottel and Vindhaloo.

But before I get into the details let me tell you about East Indian Bottle Masalla. This magical spice mix is a bit like the legendary Ras el hanout, it seems to have every spice in the world in it, only as opposed to being made by merchants it is made by women at home and each home has a separate recipe. It is then used round the year to distinctively flavour East Indian cuisine. It goes into everything!



The making of this Bottle masalla is an annual event amongst the East Indian community. The annual supply is made and put down just prior to the monsoon when hot sunny days are guaranteed and used round the year.

Bottle Masala travels far and wide, with members of the community carrying it with them so they can replicate flavours of home in far off lands.

Like all Indian spice mixes, the spices for this masala are also dried in the hot sun, then each is individually roasted over a slow fire and either in a mortar and pestle or processed like the one I made in Vasai. Once we had roasted everything, it was all mixed up and taken to the local flour mill where it was ground in a special mill reserved for grinding masallas.

The resulting powder was left to cool down completely and then tightly-packed in air-tight, dry bottles (now plastic but beer bottles were once the container of choice which is how the masalla came to be called bottle masalla). The bottle is then properly sealed and will last a long time if kept away from sunlight and moisture.

My Mumbai Cookbook – the story so far and the blog

I once cut a million teeny - weeny happy faces to put in a letter to a friend who was ill so that he would open the envelope and have them fall all over and perhaps bring him some happiness.

I have never been able to do anything on a small scale…

As an art student at school, I always chose the largest canvases to fill, later in animation school the story idea I animated involved several backgrounds that required the making of a million miniature hats, as an operations executive with my mothers company I would design elaborate itineraries embellished with clip art of beds and dishes of food to illustrate bedtimes and mealtimes, still later as a candle maker I was the recipient of my sisters curses because all my candle designs were labour intensive requiring me to spend hours creating miniature scenes that would then be filled with transparent gel wax to become stories frozen in time.

But whatever I chose to do, I worked at it until it was the best I could do.

Where others would avoid activities that require that much labour, I gravitate to them.

Ever since I began writing on food, I have written a lot of articles I loved working on, become pretty good at food styling and improved immensely as a cook but I hadn't done anything big.

But, to be fair, I wasn't really looking.

And then, almost in a thrice, the idea for "My Mumbai Cookbook" came to me. It clicked in the way that things that are meant to be click and has been clicking ever since.

'My Mumbai Cookbook' to put it simply is a diary of culinary experiences written by a food lover who measures her life in the meals she has eaten. Not in meals eaten at restaurants but the meals we come home to. Meals made in by women who love us. And My Mumbai Cookbook is not just about the food it is also about the places we get the food and the people that make that food, women (mostly) who run the home kitchens of Mumbai.

Today as I begin to write this book I am aware of the huge canvas I have to fill and I am looking forward to the every step of the journey of discovery.

Which is why I decided to blog about my experience of writing the book.

I know a million interesting experiences await; a whole lot of little side trips I know I will end up taking that probably won't make it into the book and it seems appropriate since blogging is where my journey as a food writer began…

(Needless to say My Mumbai Cookbook - the Blog about writing the book will have none of the content that will go into the book (not for now anyway).

My Mumbai cookbook is part memoir, part food guide and wholly a cookbook. It will offer a smörgåsbord of cuisines in the same book so the foodie or food traveler can get a sampling of Mumbai because Mumbai is not just about one cuisine, but is a melting pot of many. After all food has a way of crossing the divide of community and religion and over the years this has resulted in a variety of cuisines, aromas, flavours and tastes all combining into one huge melting pot that is Mumbai.