With ‘Lakshmi’s Table’, NRI Pulse food columnist P.S. Lakshmi Rao debuts her first cookbook- a hard bound, coffee table compendium of tasty vegetarian south Indian recipes. The book is essentially a collection of her original, popular recipes published in NRI Pulse over the past five years.

Rao’s column is eagerly awaited and read by many in the community who cannot have enough of her simple, authentic Andhra recipes. Her column has also been a great resource for novices in the kitchen. 

‘Lakshmi’s Table’ offers the convenience of over a 100 of these recipes in an elegant book form. 
A note from the author says the book represents a compilation of fifty years of improvising, testing and tasting. 

“I spent many hours recreating these recipes to stop and measure what I had previously only done by instinct and experience,” Rao says. “Through this process I have created recipes for the foods that I loved as a child.”

The end result, as Dr Joyce Flueckiger says in her note, is a diversity of recipes- like a rich meal laid out on a traditional Indian thali. The recipes have been classified into 10 categories - snacks, appetizers, curries, chutneys, dals, roties, dosas, rice and wheat entries, soups, pickles, powders, sweets and desserts – with pictures and easy to follow step-by-step instructions. 

The cookbook includes notes from publisher Vanguri Chitten Raju and prominent community members who’ve been among those who have had the opportunity to savor the warmth around Lakshmi’s table and her delicious food.

Each painstakingly reproduced recipe has been beautifully photographed by Rao’s husband Dr. P. V. Rao, who pays ode to his wife’s cooking with a poem: “Stunned by the beauty and elegance of the dishes, My camera cannot resist clicks and flashes wishes…”

The book also includes a note about ‘Mom’s Cooking’ from Rao’s daughters Nalini and Saleena. 
“No matter the time of day, mom would whip up a hot meal or snack and feed one or fifty,” they reminisce. “Friends who came to our childhood home could always count on eating something delicious. Looking through this cookbook, the two of us see snapshots of our daily lives growing up.”

And that, in a nut shell summarizes what the cookbook has to offer. Simple recipes to bring the feel of your childhood back to your home and kitchen. For those who did not grow up with these recipes, the book offers an easy way to get acquainted with tasty south Indian vegetarian cuisine.

  
 

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