Introduction

About a month ago, I got this crazy idea to cook every single recipe in my mom's 320-page self-written cookbook, Entertaining From an Ethnic Indian Kitchen. I kept thinking about what an accomplishment it would be and how self-sufficient it would make me in the kitchen. I would be armed with all the knowledge and skills I needed to cook perfect Indian meals, making me a desirable hostess (and one day, farrrrr into the future), wife and mother.

The dangerous thing about verbalizing this idea to my mother is that it meant that I had to follow through.

And she had an idea to keep me on track: a cooking blog.

After some resistance (because I have never been someone who likes to draw attention to myself), I have agreed to start this blog for one simple reason: 

I am not a good cook. 

Most people make the assumption that because my mother wrote a cookbook, I must be quite talented in the kitchen. The way I see it, if your mom is an incredibly talented cook, you either grow up learning and doing everything that she does or you grow up spoiled. Unfortunately for me, the latter is true and it is completely my fault. I never had the motivation or the will to learn how to cook because it was never a necessity for me...someone was always cooking delicious food for me and eating is so much easier than cooking!

I am someone who needs to follow exact measurements in recipes because I can't estimate anything to save my life, who has no common sense when it comes to recipe jargon, and who has burned myself on numerous occasions via the oven and stove. If a clumsy amateur like me can cook my way through this book, then so can you! 

This blog is not meant to be an eBook but rather to serve as an online companion to Entertaining From an Ethnic Indian Kitchen. I will provide my personal notes with every recipe that arise from whatever mistakes, difficulties or ideas I had in the process of cooking the recipe. My blog is for everyone who is hesitant to learn how to cook, for everyone who wants to reap the health benefits of Indian spices, and for every first generation Indian American who wants to learn all the standard Indian recipes but doesn't know where or how to begin. Hopefully I will inspire you to go on your own culinary journey through Entertaining From an Ethnic Indian Kitchen.