Cooking with love

Tonight was the second class in our series with Sangita and Arijit, "Foreign Influences on Indian Cuisine." As usual Arijit gave us a variety of background information from historic, cultural and geographic perspectives, including a bit of music from a cross-cultural group called "Bhoomi," who epitomize in music some of the enriching effects foreign influences have had on India in the last 5,000 years. The class got to meet Arijit's charming father, who was filming during class. Sangita brought in appetizers, the Gobi Manchurian (Cauliflower Fritters in Spicy Gravy) and Chai, to whet our appetites for the rest of class. She spends the day preparing and organizing the food and handouts for each class, everything chopped and labeled exquisitely, so that the actual cooking sequences proceed smoothly and quickly. We also learned to prepare a Chinese-influenced dish of Mein noodles with mixed vegetables and eggs. This will be a great recipe for using a variety of seasonal fresh vegetables in a delicious main course.