Learn to COOK - Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes
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List Price: $14.00
Our Price: $11.20
Your Save: $ 2.80 ( 20% )
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Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780812971071
ISBN: 0812971078
Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: 2004-04-13
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Release Date: 2004-04-13
Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Editorial Reviews:
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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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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Made me nostalgic.
Comment: "As i got older, i began to appreciate eating with my hands, which allowed me to savor the warm food through pliant fingers rather than a cold, hard fork or spoon. In fact, Indians believe that hands add flavor to food."
A TamBram's personal memoir laced with traditional South Indian recipes, this book appealed to me on many levels. The author writes about her early childhood at her maternal grandparents' home in Coimbatore, return to live with her parents and brother, school days in Chennai, train rides in October holidays, annual summer vacations with her paternal grandparents and extended family in Kerala, college years, family's opposition to her going to America, life as an art student in an unfamiliar country, friends and holiday trips, struggle maintaining her integrity as an artist, brief return to India, initial resistance to arranged marriage, wedding and life as a new bride with visiting family- all in the context of food.
This book could very well be about my life, sans the arranged marriage part. Oh, and sans the exciting college years in America. Mine were rather tame. I adored her descriptions of age-old traditions integrally woven into the fabric of life in India. My favorites are the chapters on making sun-dried vegetables, life in Madras and Kerala summers. The recipes are nothing to write home about. Most of them are neither authentic(Tamcon substituting for tamarind? That's a sacrilege!) nor original. It is possible that they were intended for the western audience. I would highly recommend this book for the delightfully evocative narrative and the excellent characterization."
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Highly recommended
Comment: Must-read for anyone who claims to be a Tam Brahm.
The people, situations and recipes are too close to home to be missed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Delicious Read
Comment: Never mind where you were when you experienced the 'big events' of your life, instead, can you remember what were you eating?
Shoba Nayaran remembers, and delivers those landmark flavors in print. From the comforting memories of her childhood, to the abuse suffered under her first graduate program, to her wedding and subsequent adjustment to married life, Shoba Narayn writes about each significant life event with an even hand, a light sense of humor, and perfectly chosen recipes to accompany every part of her story.
This isn't your traditional cookbook, nor is it a plodding, self-aggrandizing autobiography. It is instead a book that moves along at a fast pace, giving us glimpses of intensely personal moments, but then quickly, breezily moving along to the next topic, the next recipe, the next memory. The reader is never bogged down in this parsimonious trip down memory lane. Instead, we receive exactly what is promised: a memoir with food. (and succulent food at that!)
An excellent read, a fast read, a delicious read.
Customer Rating:
Summary: monsoon diary
Comment: Before reading this book I knew little about Indian culture. I feel like this book was very well writeen, though the description was dull at some parts. Shoba Narayan touched on every aspect of Indian culture, from train rides (one of my favorite parts of the book) to summers spent with grandparents, to the marketplace, family names and importance, traditions, and a special emphasis on food. This book was delicious to read and made me wish I had tasted the food Shoba describes so scrumptiously. I would recommend this book to someone interested in light, informative reading, with an empty stomach.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Memoir with Recipies
Comment: Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipies is a well written book that not only involves your mind, but it also taps into your sense of taste, touch and smell. I was never that interested in the Indian culture, but after reading Shoba Narayan's book, and having my mind and senses traped in the detailed writing, I couldnt help but become fascinated with the culture I formally knew nothing about.
Narayan is a gifted writer with the talent of detail. Every chapter was written in order to make the reader feel like they were experiencing first hand the life she was describing. Whether is was the description of her childhood, surroundings, education or traditional meals- which at the end of every chapter offered up a DIY recipie guide- the author makes the reader beg for more insight on a culture they may or may not have known about prior to reading the book. Narayan's relation of food to everyday life is a different take on story telling that does a good job of involving the reader more into the story. Also the authors' take on cultural differences between South Asia and the United States is an insightful comparison of a culture we know all so well, and one we might not know about.
Monsoon Diary is a well written and consuming book filled with entertaining stories and helpful recipies.
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