Lessons From My Mother’s Kitchen

When I lost my mother to a long and painful battle with cancer four years ago I was thousands of miles away alone and thick with grief. At first everything seemed distant and pale and I went through my days like a robot lead-footed and sandy-eyed trying to make sense of each moment. It took a while but I came to understand that the only way out was through. At some point I submitted to the dagger of sorrow as it carved out a hollow in my heart turning me into some sort of an unself-conscious sculpted form. I re-lived all the memories of my mother and gleaned new lessons from them. Through the eighteen essays in this book I recount how her food music and stories -- all the things that she birthed in her spacious sun-dappled kitchen -- helped me cope with long-distance grief and taught me to look at life with renewed hope.  I also present some special recipes straight from Amma’s kitchen and a bunch of kitchen poems in her honour finding her in such things as the sizzling of spices the bubbling of flavourful broths or a melodious Raga swirled into my cup of coffee. My wish is that this book will come to stand for all this and more: a celebration of life and a quiet acceptance of death. I hope that it will inspire and touch many those who are going through rough times or those who are simply living the ordinary life for often we forget that there’s so much magic in it.