HYDERABAD: How do you take a book title: ‘Romancing The Chicks’? Sounds like some chick lit with a mushy mushy plot for the bubble-chewing teenyboppers?
Actually, no! A look at the cover, complete with an arch at whose bottom are stacked colourful vegetables, tells us that it is not what it says.
Well, says the author the smiling chef Mandaar Sukhtankar, “It’s actually chickpeas shortened as chicks that has gone in the title.” And why so? Because all the recipes in the book have chickpeas as the main ingredient. The book was launched recently at The Park where Mandaar is posted as executive chef.
The book is a compilation of thoughts and tidbits from chef's life that add spice to the descriptions. And quite interestingly, the titles of several of the pieces are spoofs. For example in snippets, ‘Peasful Easy Feeling’, ‘So Near Yet Sofa’ and ‘The Wine-ing Formula’ he narrates a small incident.
In 'Peasful...’ he talks about seeing new-born twins of his cousin. The babies together to him looked like 'two peas snuggled in a pod'. The writer-chef goes on talking about peas at home, peas at office and so on; no wonder on the next page you have recipes like Home-Style Wasabi Peas with a bright two-page photograph of vegetable.
But what made him write? Well, it runs in his genes as his mother was a journalist with a national newspaper decades ago.
And the snippets in the book are actually his columns that appeared in one of the newspapers in the city. Ask him how much time does he take to write a piece? Pat comes the reply: “Three weeks”. “But I actually begin writing three hours before the deadline,” he says chuckling.
Ask about his expertise; it’s Italian. That's how after the book launch and a hearty conversation with food blogger Swati Sucharita he talked about his experience with Italian chillies which tasted like bland vegetable to him. This was followed by him making pasta live in the al fresco area.