Monica Bhide I think I have been waiting all my life to say this: I have an essay in Bon Appetit! I am so super excited about this. I hope you will read it and tell me what you think. The essay, Save your recipes before it is too late, is a story close to my heart and to my spirit. I am very honored and grateful that the magazine published my essay.
Also, try the super easy and delicious lamb chop recipe included with the story.
Here is a photo of roasting the spices for the recipe:
That was beautiful and it made me cry!! It makes me want to run to my grandmother’s house right now and get some more of her recipes (delicious, simple country food from Virginia). And it makes me thankful that I made my MIL, visiting from India recently, slow down enough to let me measure and write things down as she was cooking.
Thanks for sharing.
A good writing takes u to the place where its all happening and brings tears to the eyes! That is a good writing Monica!
Monica, what a lovely, evocative essay. I could almost smell the spices sputtering on the stove, and feel your heart sink when you saw your grandmother’s house was no longer there. Thank you for sharing that with us, your lucky readers.
So many times it’s the smells from the kitchen that warm our hearts and make us feel secure and loved when we are little. We go back to those dishes not because they were absolutely the best, but because they bring those moments we shared with family and friends back to life, and make us feel secure and loved again and again.
Your grandmother’s bungalow might be gone forever, but she is alive within you, and through your stories and memories, through your attempts to bring your boys closer to her, she will live many, many years.
Lovely essay:)
Memories of food and so deeply entrenched in memories of family that one really cannot separate them.
My daughter is lucky to have memories fo my grandmother who was an excellent cook, and still remembers her “special” tomato rasam. We all agree, in the family, that the “special” ingredient in it was love!
Am lucky to have actually have written down many of her recipes which I treasure the most.
Monica, this was a beautiful essay. Brought tears to my eyes. Many congrats on the opportunity to be published in Bon Appetit, although I am sure it won’t be the last time!
Hi Monica,
Now I have another book added to my “Wish List” and some great recipes too! But most of all, you have rekindled the flame that originally got me excited about foodie blogging in the first place. So much heritage and culture is locked up in the threads of life, sometimes we forget that the linage is still alive in us.
Bon appétit!
CCR
=:~)
Such a beautiful essay on the importance of family, tradition and food! I’m heading to my mom’s this weekend and I will be sure to get her to write down a few recipes.
Monica, what a beautifully & eloquently written essay which brought tears to my eyes! Bravo!
You have truly captured the essence of very special feelings that perhaps belong to all of us. And strange it might sound, here I am editing a post with a recipe of my grandmother.. (a recipe of red lentils) and I went in to read your article!
A touching read! My eyes were moist when I came to the “rubble” part. You really made me feel your experiences through this story.
And ofcourse congratulations on another feather in your cap! Bon Appetit added to the list! Wow!
Great essay Monica! And yes, I wish I had the recipes from my grandmother.
Monica as always your words are transporting. You have such a gift for prose! You also are blessed with memories, which is more than I can say for myself. I am jealous of your memories…
I just read your lovely piece in Bon Appetit and wanted to let you know how special it was for me. I have just recently begun reviewing the old cookbooks and notes of my elderly mother who has Alzheimer’s. It’s a fascinating insight into her cooking in the years before I was born. I’ve also been attempting to recreate the dishes of hers that I do know, so that the recipes are written down for the next generation. In Memory’s Kitchen involves a close family friend of my husband’s family – Anny’s mother was one of the women in Terezin. The bundle of recipes was smuggled out of the camp and finally reached her many years later after missing her in Israel and finally finding her in NY. The book has been a reminder in our family of how lucky my mother-in-law was that her parents and she were able to escape the fate of many of those women and be raised here. What a friend you have who recommended it to you!