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.