Milk & Cardamom

"Yes. She’s a first generation American and it feels like a timely book, not just thinking about the food itself. Obviously, there’s a big immigration debate going on in America and she gives a sense of what it’s like straddling two worlds. I think that will really appeal to a lot of people . There’s a little bit of a memoir, but it’s really about the food. I’m really passionate about baking and desserts, and I think Indian desserts are totally under-appreciated in the US. Americans aren’t really familiar with them. I love them. They tend to be a little bit on the sweet side, but I’m okay with that. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter I remember flipping through this book when it first came out and I wanted to make almost everything, which is always a good sign. She has this nice mix of traditional Indian desserts and then dishes that are more of a mash-up or ‘inspired by’. So the recipe I’m going to be featuring in our package is a gulab jamun Bundt cake . Gulab jamun are basically doughnuts that are first of all fried dough balls, which are then soaked in a syrup. They’re a pain to make and you have to fry them and so she gets those flavours and applies them to a bundt cake, which you soak in a syrup. So you’ve got that flavour and texture of gulab jamun but in a much easier-to-execute format. And, like Adeena, she also had a little bit about introducing you to ingredients that you can incorporate into your cooking."