Shoba Narayan #8217;s Monsoon Diary weaves a fascinating food narrative that combines delectable Indian recipes with tales from her life, stories of her delightfully eccentric family, and musings about Indian culture. Narayan recounts her childhood in South India, her college days in America, her arranged marriage, and visits from her parents and in-laws to her home in New York City. Monsoon Diary is populated with characters like Raju, the milkman who named his cows after his wives; the iron-man who daily set up shop in Narayan #8217;s front yard, picking up red-hot coals with his bare hands; her mercurial grandparents and inventive parents. Narayan illumines Indian customs while commenting on American culture from the vantage point of the sympathetic outsider. Her characters, like Narayan herself, have a thing or two to say about cooking and about life. In this creative and intimate work, Narayan #8217;s considerable vegetarian cooking talents are matched by stories as varied as Indian spices #8212;at times pungent, mellow, piquant, and sweet. Tantalizing recipes for potato masala, dosa, and coconut chutney, among others, emerge from Narayan #8217;s absorbing tales about food and the solemn and quirky customs that surround it. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Narayan, who grew up in Chennai, India, writes in humorous, tender prose about her family and their love of food. Rituals surrounding food are central to every aspect of life, such as the choru-unnal ceremony of a child's first meal of rice and ghee. When her mother is pregnant with her brother and the women gather to feed her and chew betel, Narayan writes, "As they chewed and their lips and tongue became stained red, their jokes became more risque, their gossip more personal, their bodies more horizontal." Food is intimacy and comfort, and Narayan's book neatly transitions between descriptions of her family's life and the meals that punctuated it. Recipes for staples such as rasam (a bean and rice comfort food) a wonderful recipe for upma (a semolina vegetable stew)-which she serves to a grumpy group of Americans-complement more festive recipes for snacks and meals such as inji curry (a pickle with ginger and tamarind). When Narayan comes to America for a year at Mount Holyoke, she misses her native food but, in a hilarious sequence of events involving two dead goldfish, chances upon a taxi driver from Kerala whose wife feeds her olan, made with pumpkin, black-eyed peas and coconut milk. Narayan's sparkling, insightful narrative makes for a delightful cultural and culinary read. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Weaving together stories from her remarkable life with tasty Indian vegetarian recipes, Narayan offers insights into Hindu culture and custom and contrasts her upbringing with life in her adopted America. Born and raised near Madras as a Brahmin in caste-conscious south India, she was part of an extended family of wonderful eccentrics. Her portraits of small-town life include the iron man : no body builder, he went from house to house ironing clothes with the aid of a coal-fired iron. Shunning bottled milk, Narayan drank hers squirted straight from the udder to her mouth. Food and the enjoyment of it were central to her family, so when Narayan won a fellowship to study in America, the only way the family would let her travel was for her to prepare a proper banquet for them. Reaching New England, she immersed herself in American life without giving up her vegetarianism. Following tradition, her family arranged for their daughter to marry an appropriate mate, and to her surprise, her family chose well. This is a delightful, stereotype-shattering memoir. MarkKnoblauch. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.