MAKING VEGETABLES GREAT AGAIN

CULINARY LEGEND CAMELLIA PANJABI HAS PENNED A NEW COOKBOOK AFTER THREE DECADES

- Amit Dixit

Few can rival Camellia Panjabi’s deep understanding of Indian food, so when she has something to say about it, people sit up and listen.

In 1994, she published 50 Great Curries of India, a landmark cookbook that has sold over two million copies. Of course, she was already a gastronomic tour de force by then—as marketing director of Taj Hotels, she had overseen the opening of countless restaurants as the hotel group expanded across India. Now, Panjabi—who runs a slew of celebrated Indian restaurants in London with her sister and brother-in-law, Namita and Ranjit Mathrani—is back with another banger of a book. Don't be fooled by the understated look of Vegetables: The Indian Way—this is decades of wisdom, distilled like a fine spirit, and served up with impeccable taste and restraint.

None of this was ever part of the plan. But that’s getting ahead of the story. Panjabi was born in 1941 in a Sindhi family in Bombay. Her father—“a great romantic”—named her Camellia after watching the Greta Garbo-starrer Camille (1936), based on Alexandre Dumas fils’ 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias. Her interest in food was kindled early, thanks to the