That seems like a funny name. Well it is the title of the latest book I finished reading. My son bought me a couple books from the local used book store for me to read for my birthday in January.

Apparently, Madhur Jaffery has had several TV shows on PBS in the 1980s. She is a James Beard award winner and primarily writes about Indian food. I have never heard of her or saw any of the shows. but definitely seems well credentialed.

What I like about this cook book is that it was written in 1990. This means that it was pre-internet and pre-access to everything, anytime we want it. Consequently, there are a lot of substitution suggestions and simple ingredients. One thing I really appreciate is not having an exhaustive inventory of exotic ingredients that get used a couple times a year.

This cookbook is a smattering of all Asian foods: Chinese, Japanese, Thai of course but also Korean, Malaysian, Indonesian, Vietnamese and also Filipino (had to look the spelling of that one up). The ingredients and the techniques are very simplistic for the most part. That makes things pretty approachable.

I plan to try a few things. I am going to make Filipino Menudo for sure. I made a Chinese hot and sour soup the other day that my family really liked. I personally like Thai, Vietnamese and Korean over the others but I am anxious to try some other cultures for something new.

It appears that book is widely available on the used market and pretty inexpensive at less than $10. Since I haven’t used it a bunch, I can recommend it yet. However, I like what I see and I think it fits well into my style of cooking.

End Your Programming Routine: The next book I am going to read is fiction. In fact, I am already a third of the way through it. I took that with me on my business trip rather than the unwieldy cookbook. Sometimes, it is just best to unplug and enjoy rather that reading for a purpose. A chapter a day and eventually I will make it through.