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From the kitchens of Dhondys and Ghandhis
Updated On: 21 November, 2021 07:54 AM IST | Mumbai | Jane Borges
SodaBottleOpenerWala’s chef Anahita Dhondy dips into recipes from her Parsi home to pen a memoir about food and family
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Lagan Nu Bhonu
In chef Anahita Dhondy’s Parsi household food is not just food, but memories seeped in nostalgia. Sometimes it is the pork vindaloo—a legacy handed down from generations of Goan cooks working in Parsi homes—that becomes a cure for Dhondy’s homesickness while studying at Le Cordon Bleu (LCB) in London; at other times, it is a way for her to reconnect with her grandparents, and the many “mango summers” she spent with them. Her new book, The Parsi Kitchen: A memoir of food and family (HarperCollins India), is Dhondy’s attempt to shed light on her culinary heritage, and what inspired the former chef-partner at SodaBottleOpenerWala to make the kitchen her happy place.
Dhondy says she had been thinking of writing this book for nearly five years now, because she wanted to “preserve the family recipes” she had learnt during her journey as chef—many of which, like the fluffy ravo and pheteli coffee, also found a way into the menu she curated at SodaBottleOpenerWala. “But I didn’t want it to just be another recipe book. For me recipes always have stories attached to them; I wanted to encapsulate that,” shares Dhondy, in a telephone interview. By creating a visual portrait of her family and the meals they relished together, she was also hoping to provide insight into the Parsi community, their culture and everyday life.
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