Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes
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Shoba Narayan’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’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’s considerable vegetarian cooking talents are matched by stories as varied as Indian spices—at times pungent, mellow, piquant, and sweet. Tantalizing recipes for potato masala, dosa, and coconut chutney, among others, emerge from Narayan’s absorbing tales about food and the solemn and quirky customs that surround it.
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- Author:
- Shoba Narayan
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Dewey Decimal Number:
- 920
- EAN:
- 9780812971071
- ISBN:
- 0812971078
- Label:
- Random House Trade Paperbacks
- Languages:
- English
- List Price:
- $14.00
- Manufacturer:
- Random House Trade Paperbacks
- Number Of Items:
- 1
- Number Of Pages:
- 240
- Product Group:
- Book
- Product Type Name:
- ABIS_BOOK
- Publication Date:
- 2004-04-13
- Publisher:
- Random House Trade Paperbacks
- Studio:
- Random House Trade Paperbacks
- Title:
- Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes
- Release Date:
- 2004-04-13
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Recent User Reviews
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"Interesting memoir"
- Writing:
3/5,
- Illustration:
1/5,
- Usefullnes:
2/5,
Pros - It's always interesting to read about life in a different culture.
Cons - The book was pleasant, but not brilliant.
This is a memoir of growing up in India with recipes. I read it several years ago, and remember enjoying it, but at this remove the only part that stuck in my mind is her story of being in college in the united states and visiting a friends house for thanksgiving. She offered to help out and was given the job of basting the turkey, which grossed her out as a lifelong vegetarian.
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