The Only Curry There Is
I just got back from a week in the Adirondaks with my family. The business of sorting through pictures is a serious one so I'll post all about that later. In the meantime...I finished another summer read!
Shared Tables: Family Stories and Recipes from Poona to LA by Kaumudi Marathè travelled with me to the wilderness this past week. Full disclosure, I know the author. Admittedly, I am biased. That doesn't mean you should miss this one.
Shared Tables is the story of how Kaumudi made it to LA but so much more. As someone who is fascinated with family history, as well as someone who has spent too many hours to count sifting through Ancestry.com, this book was a good fit for me. Kaumudi goes as far back as two centuries to tell how her family came to be in India. I was mesmerized by the swirl of description - the food, the colors, the exotic names and places. It felt, at times, as if I were reading a Marquez book. The world Kaumudi knew in India is far beyond anything I have experienced. Many times I could almost taste the food, feel the heat.
While I know the end of Kaumudi's story, the beginnings were fascinating. I'm certainly kicking myself for not taking one of her classes while I lived in LA. One of my favorite parts was at the end, in describing how much the rest of the world doesn't understand Indian food. I have to admit, Iam was one of the uneducated.
After the week of vacation, and finishing the book, I headed home to my parents' house for a few days. My mom and I took a tour of her garden - the shining star of her home. She likes to play this game of "Here, touch and smell this. Can you guess what it is??" After palming my way through oregano, basil, lemon balm, and mint, we came upon a dusty white plant - with leaves slightly resembling lavender. I tasted it but nothing came to mind. Then I rubbed a bit between my fingers and smelled... curry! I was excited to find a curry plant because, as Kaumudi explains, curry made in India is made with the leaves of a curry tree, not the spice commonly found at stores. However, it seems as if this plant at my mom's is a bit of a hoax. While it is called a curry plant, and it does smell like curry, it is not the curry leaf I read about in Shared Tables. Apparently there is a difference between this curry plant, helichrysum italicum, and Muraya Koenigii, leaves from a curry tree. While the curry plant will leave you smelling of delicious food, it is better for it's other uses than for spicing up a stew.
Which leaves us right where Kaumudi leaves us - there is only one Kaumudi Marathè and there is only one curry.
Shared Tables: Family Stories and Recipes from Poona to LA by Kaumudi Marathè travelled with me to the wilderness this past week. Full disclosure, I know the author. Admittedly, I am biased. That doesn't mean you should miss this one.
Shared Tables is the story of how Kaumudi made it to LA but so much more. As someone who is fascinated with family history, as well as someone who has spent too many hours to count sifting through Ancestry.com, this book was a good fit for me. Kaumudi goes as far back as two centuries to tell how her family came to be in India. I was mesmerized by the swirl of description - the food, the colors, the exotic names and places. It felt, at times, as if I were reading a Marquez book. The world Kaumudi knew in India is far beyond anything I have experienced. Many times I could almost taste the food, feel the heat.
Wasps???
While I know the end of Kaumudi's story, the beginnings were fascinating. I'm certainly kicking myself for not taking one of her classes while I lived in LA. One of my favorite parts was at the end, in describing how much the rest of the world doesn't understand Indian food. I have to admit, I
On writing
After the week of vacation, and finishing the book, I headed home to my parents' house for a few days. My mom and I took a tour of her garden - the shining star of her home. She likes to play this game of "Here, touch and smell this. Can you guess what it is??" After palming my way through oregano, basil, lemon balm, and mint, we came upon a dusty white plant - with leaves slightly resembling lavender. I tasted it but nothing came to mind. Then I rubbed a bit between my fingers and smelled... curry! I was excited to find a curry plant because, as Kaumudi explains, curry made in India is made with the leaves of a curry tree, not the spice commonly found at stores. However, it seems as if this plant at my mom's is a bit of a hoax. While it is called a curry plant, and it does smell like curry, it is not the curry leaf I read about in Shared Tables. Apparently there is a difference between this curry plant, helichrysum italicum, and Muraya Koenigii, leaves from a curry tree. While the curry plant will leave you smelling of delicious food, it is better for it's other uses than for spicing up a stew.
Which leaves us right where Kaumudi leaves us - there is only one Kaumudi Marathè and there is only one curry.
My mom's curry plant
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