With its meteoric rise to bestseller status, Masala Lab has captivated readers across generations, and now returns as an irresistible collector’s edition, adorned with ingenious additions, illustrations, infographics and charts: it’s the collector’s edition you know your kitchen-laboratory needs.
Ever wondered why your grandmother threw a teabag into the pressure cooker while boiling chickpeas, or why she measured using the knuckle of her index finger? Why does a counter-intuitive pinch of salt make your kheer more intensely flavourful? What is the Maillard reaction, and what does it have to do with fenugreek? What does your high-school chemistry knowledge, or what you remember of it, have to do with perfectly browning your onions? Just like memorizing an equation might have helped you pass an exam but not become a chemist, following a recipe without knowing its rationale can be a sub-optimal way of learning how to cook.
Masala Lab by Krish Ashok is a scientific exploration of Indian cooking aimed at inquisitive chefs who want to turn their kitchens into joyful, creative playgrounds for gastronomic experimentation. In this special edition, Meghna Menon’s vibrant illustrations effortlessly complement Krish Ashok’s lighthearted approach to the demystification of culinary science, making it the perfect vehicle to absorb the exhaustive testing, groundbreaking research and scientific rigour that went into the making of this revolutionary book.
Do you know why the Indian Navy counts ‘One, Two, Six’ instead of ‘One, Two, Three’ while doing group tasks?
Or that the Intelligence Bureau was set up in response to an assassination?
Or that a Frenchman who had served three nations before turning thirty eventually rose to become the most powerful general of the Marathas?
Or that an army man gave his name to the highest mountain without ever having set foot on it?
Find out the answers to these and more as a team of quizzer-doctors from the Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC) Pune takes you on a journey across 250 questions, exploring trivia that connects the Indian Armed Forces to topics ranging from mythology, history and art to geography, fashion and sport.
This and more in a quiz book that will help you see the Indian Armed Forces through a lens you might never have seen before.
Happy exploring!
Few have championed the cuisine of Kerala like Mrs K.M. Mathew (1922-2003), who authored many a column and twenty-three cookbooks, introducing an entire generation to the culinary culture of the state. A true master of the craft, she travelled across the length and breadth of Kerala, visiting homes and restaurants, noting down recipes, before going back home to experiment with dishes repeatedly until they were perfect. Eventually, she ushered in a shift from the oral telling of recipes to written instructions, and before long, due to her innovative and easy step-by-step approach to cooking, her cookbooks were being
gifted to newly married couples. Even today, her books not only serve as a treasure chest of unforgettable recipes but also inspire new readers to rush to the kitchen.
Mrs K.M. Mathew’s Finest Recipes brings a definitive compilation of her all-time top recipes, which have been enjoyed around the world, to a new generation of readers.
Slow is Beautiful is an invitation to embark on a journey through mindfulness and cut through the clutter and noise of the world around you. Under the guidance of artist and visual designer Ahlawat Gunjan, you’ll learn to see, observe, reflect, and practise using artistic techniques developed through years of training to re-kindle a lost instinct. This beautiful collector’s edition prepares you to welcome a new artistic vision into your lives by building a relationship with form, colour, and composition in a uniquely accessible way.
Each of the sixty easy-to-use prompts in this book is an essential step highlighted by vibrant ink and watercolour paintings inspired from nature, created and curated by the artist himself to motivate readers to draw, erase, paint, experiment, create and, most importantly, embrace their mistakes.
Dals have been an essential part of the human diet for centuries and they are an integral part of Indian cuisine. There are many enticing varieties of dals to choose from.
Pratibha Karan, in The Book of Dals, takes you on an incredible journey to different regions of the country and shows how locally available spices and herbs, vegetables and fruit impact the food of that region. The variety of dals and dal-based dishes that you can make with these are phenomenal and mind-boggling.
This book offers many varieties of beautiful, fragrant and beguiling dals that will have anyone savouring them in raptures. From the southern India, you will find Telangana Sambar, Khatti Dal and Dalcha with Vegetables and Meat. They are made using delicious combinations of chillies, tamarind, cloves, cardamom, pepper, coconut, curry leaves and drumsticks. It also has recipes such as Kootu from Tamil Nadu and the famous Bisi Bele Huliyana from Karnataka.
You will also find Lentils in Coconut Milk, Katachi Amti and Moong Sprouts from Maharashtra, and Dhansak, a Parsi dish, from Gujarat in western India. Dals from eastern India such as Chana Dal Bengali-style and Assamese Mati Maa are included. From the northern India, Delhi Rajma and Punjabi Dal Makhani find a place in the book.
This book is not limited by borders. It includes exotic dal recipes from the neighbouring countries like Nepal and Sri Lanka, and some delicious and wholesome dal-based soups too.
Tarana was an indifferent eater and an unenthusiastic cook until a chance encounter with a nineteenth-century Persian cookbook in Rampur’s fabled Raza Library started her off on a journey into the history of Rampur cuisine and the stories around it.
Part food memoir and part celebration of a cuisine, Degh to Dastarkhwan answers the question-‘what constitutes and distinguishes Rampur cuisine?’ Each chapter represents an emotion, an observance or a celebration. The spread of Rampuri food from the grand royal cuisine to the simple daily fare becomes the arena to express love, loss, forgiveness and spirituality. Peopled with compelling characters from all walks of life, the book is a tour de force that includes recollections of a princess to the spiritual ambience of a Sufi shrine, with stories of khansamas, weddings and funerals.
Urbanization has changed the way we garden and raise plants in our homes. As large spaces have become a luxury, the sprawling lawns in a house are a rare sight. They are replaced now by plants grown in small spaces, often indoors, with limited light, water and nutrition. This calls for relearning the principles of gardening that suit this new paradigm.
Written for all plant parents trying to raise their plant babies in an urban setting, this book is built on basic principles that keep plants healthy and covers all topics that any plant parent need to know-how to prepare their space, how to choose the right plants for their home, how to care for the plants and keep them happy and how to get family and friends started with plants of their own.
With stories from the Lazy Gardener community, supplemented with chapter-end summaries, explanatory illustrations and plant lists, the book will equip the reader to ask the right questions as they continue to garden and cultivate their knowledge of gardening. Useful for both new and experienced plant parents, Vinayak Garg’s How to Raise a Plant Baby guides them and explains everything they need to know.
Have you been trying to grow plants at home?
Do you want to be able to eat fresh, organic produce and herbs grown in your balcony?
Do you want beautiful plants around your home to add that extra love and warmth to your space?
YouTube sensation Ekta Chaudhary has been teaching gardening to her millions of followers, and for the first time, she is putting it all down in an easy-to-use, fun and simple beginner’s guide to growing plants at home. Rich in information on the amount of light plants need, the kind of soil to use and plants that can thrive indoors and outdoors, with answers to all ‘silly’ questions, Garden Up will gift anyone a green thumb.
Can one make sunscreen from saffron? Can hemp oil help heal acne? How does madder root help cure hyperpigmentation? Beauty Unbottled is a unique DIY guide on how to use herbs and plants to turn your kitchen into a beauty lab. Learn how to treat hair loss, frizz, dandruff and premature greying with powerful Ayurvedic kitchen herbs. Create your own masks, moisturizers, serums and shampoos with superfoods like neem, tulsi, jasmine and sandalwood-herbs that are revered in Ayurveda. Explore the alchemy of Ayurveda and its long-lost, forgotten beauty
secrets with simple step-by-step skin and hair recipes (with vegan options) in this definitive guide and self-help book. This book will also guide you to read and understand labels, have a balanced diet for a healthy body and choose ingredients that are super effective yet gentle on you and mother earth.
Kavita Khosa, the founder of the award-winning skincare brand Purearth, brings to this book her years of experience in Ayurveda and expertise as an organic cosmetic science formulator. Beauty Unbottled debunks urban
beauty myths, drawing upon scientific research and time-honoured classic Ayurvedic texts. Rooted in Ayurveda, this book invites you to celebrate the skin you are in!
More than seventy rarest essays on filmmaking, screenplay writing, autobiographical pieces and rare photographs and manuscripts of Ray
‘Ray is a most singular symbol of what is best and most revered in Indian cinema’ – Adoor Gopalakrishnan
‘Satyajit Ray, I salute you. The greatest of our poets of the cinema’-Ben Kingsley
Satyajit Ray (1921-1992), one of the doyens of world cinema, gave a unique aesthetic expression to Indian cinema, music, art and literature. His writings, especially, autobiographical works, thoughts on filmmaking, screenplay writing and eminent personalities from art, literature and music, among others, are considered treasure troves, which largely remained unseen and therefore less known till date.
Satyajit Ray Miscellany, the second book in The Penguin Ray Library series, brings to light some of the rarest essays and illustrations of Ray that opens a window to the myriad thought-process of this creative genius. With more than seventy gripping write-ups and rare photographs and manuscripts, this book is a collector’s item.
