Cuckoo Clocks and Family Recipes
CHENNAI: You usually meet a person’s family ‘before’ you taste their cooking. But at Namratha Joseph’s month-old Cuckoo Club Diner, every dessert on the menu is an inadvertent hello to one of the many baking belles of the Joseph clan.
There’s ‘Billie’s Edible Dreams’ made by the owner’s sister-in-law Belinda and a rather enticing British-style Lemon Drizzle cake made by would-you-believe-it...a 70-year-old aunt in the family! “Everything on the menu is a family favourite that I’ve grown up eating,” says the city’s newest cafe owner with a warm smile. But what makes the sugar section especially homey, is that each morning a different member of the family drops by to bake their specialty.
And guess what, for the names on the menu that don’t have baking members of the family strolling in, familiar flavours are still intact with the use of recipes passed down from generations. “Like my grandmother’s garlic flavoured pretzels that dates back to oh...the sixties I think” our host still recalls her first taste of it as a child.
And guess what? The diner now has customers suggesting recipes passed down over the years from their families! “We had someone bring us her dad’s famous potato mash recipe the other day,” Namratha tells us. “And if it works out after our trials, I plan to add it in our menu with her dad’s name on it,” she lets on. So grandmothers city-wide, here’s a way to pass on your legacy — without those long hours standing by the stove.
With all the talk of sister-in-law and aunties though, we take the liberty of asking Namratha: Are any men in the family handy with oven? “Well, not with baking. But my husband does cook me dinner every night,” she responds with a laugh. As for the family kitchen at the Cuckoo Club Diner, perhaps the only challenge now is that everyone there tends to be a fighting for kitchen space!