FROM HER KITCHEN TO YOURS

When life presented her with an opportunity, ROOPA NABAR turned her passion for food into a profession. She talks to Shraddha Kamdar about working on her first cookbook Varan Bhaat To Biryani: My Romance With Food, one that she wants to leave as a legacy for future generations

- ROOPA NABAR

The magic of a full course meal... is not something you can just create with a few clicks on an app; it is something that is a labour of love, a test of tradition, and a taste of home," Roopa Nabar writes when describing her traditional village kitchen in her first book, the newly-released Varan Bhaat To Biryani: My Romance With Food.

Married at 22 and a mother at 23, Roopa, now 58, was well settled in her routine as she juggled office discussions with PTA meetings.

Through the years, her love for food and cooking hadn't suffered as she dished out delicacies for her family. "As a child, during the summer holidays, my parents and I used to go to our native village," she reminisces fondly. "I remember waking up to the smell of breakfast infused with the woody aroma of the clay chulha. On most days, breakfast would be a simple rice porridge (bhaatachi pej) and a spicy, tangy backyard vegetable preparation called dabdabit; on others, it would be bhakri with dry fish (sukke). And, to beat the heat, we had delicious raw mango panha."