Feast of Love: 50 Classic Menus

Bhicoo Manekshaw is unequivocal about the importance of good food in our lives–tasty, wholesome, and served with the right balance of aesthetics and love. Which is why, when she decided to bring together a selection of her favourite recipes, she chose to start with the ‘boring’ basics. Unless you know your basics, you cannot enjoy the experience of cooking, she argues, and this enjoyment is precisely what makes the difference between an indifferently cooked meal and a delightfully imaginative spread. In the first part of this book, therefore, Bhicoo describes how to fillet a fish and bone a chicken, how to choose vegetables, how to make an omelette fluffy, and a hundred other essentials, simple and not-so-simple. Once the basics are sorted out, you can move on to the more complex task of cooking–and there are plenty of interesting recipes to try out. For, in this brilliant compilation of fifty menus, each starting with an appetizer or a soup and ending with dessert, you will find the most innovative recipes alongside old favourites. Gently seasoned with Bhicoo’s individual touches, sometimes dictated by the non-availability of an ingredient, sometimes by a crisis in the kitchen, most of these recipes have a clear classical base. With a fair mix of vegetarian and meat dishes, these are menus that will allow you to go gourmet any time you feel the urge. What sets this book apart from other cookbooks is the author’s ability to involve you not only in her stories about food, but also her life. We see Bhicoo as an Air Force Wife, cooking for her family and for large gatherings with equal ease. We read about how she started cooking classes; her experiences as a catering consultant at Air India and the India International Centre, where her menus became the topic of discussion; and her current engagement with Basil and Thyme, the well-known restaurant in Delhi where she creates and supervises the cuisine. And so, as you enjoy the recipes, you also share the pleasures of a life well lived in the service of the most wonderful things: taste, imagination and love. Packed with information and designed to instill confidence in even the most inexperienced cook, Feast of Love is one book that everybody needs to have on their shelf-to savour and to cook from.