TRAVEL TALES of ranaruby

IN SEARCH OF TASTE - A TALE OF FOUR CITIES A food aficionado’s mouthwatering journey over the years in cities he lived. Read  Rana's memoir with food. Cooking has been regarded as one of the greatest arts right from the time of Julius Caesar. Although elements of the art of cooking are easy to define, I have discovered over the years that the tastes which still linger on my tongue are the tastes that mattered. In that respect, my nanny still remains unbeatable as the greatest cook in my life. We called her ‘nannabhai’ derived from the Bengali word ‘ranna’ for cooking. Be it a simple Hilsa egg fry or peas pulao or stuffed chicken or quail (bater) roast, mutton, or chicken stew the food always used to be a gastronomical delight. My mother inherited some of her skills and tickled our senses with dishes like Tomato fish, Mutton kofta curry, and Pudding. Now it's my wife who has mastered the art of tickling my senses. Her talent for improvisation has created a

The name GRAND PRIX conjures in my mind the classic 1966 movie I saw as a youngster on 70 mm screen.The film which follows the fate of four Formula One drivers through a fictionalized version of the 1966 Formula One season went on to win three Academy Awards for its technical achievement in showing speed and spectacle with unique racing cinematography.Some famous Hollywood actors of yesteryear like James Garner, Yves Montand and Eva Marie Saint starred in this movie. I still remember the concluding scene. The game is over, the stands empty and one of the drivers walks on the track kicking dust.Suddenly he is engulfed with onrush of events which had taken place - cheers from the spectators as the cars whizzed past the stands, the thundering roar of the attractive looking speed machines all creating wonderfully nostalgic waves of crescendo which finally die down to swirls of dust blowing silently over the empty track. On October 30 2011 I got the opportunity to watch a Grand Prix agai

Risotto with Nettles by Anna Del Conte (Published by VINTAGE BOOKS , London) RISOTTO Born in Milan in 1925, the author grew up in Italy. When world war II came to Italy her family had to abandon  their  spacious house in Milan and move to the countryside to avoid the ravages of war. Though this book, as the title suggests, is about Italian food, Anna takes the reader on a narrative that begins from her early childhood and schooling in fascist Italy under Mussolini's reign all the way till her family settles in in England at the end of the war. Along the way, there are breathtaking stories of near-death experiences during the war, vivid descriptions of war-ravaged towns and cities, and bombing raids. Through it all, she still manages to pull your focus towards the food - from her childhood memories of delicious home-cooked meals, to her own coming-of-age as a culinary expert. The end of each chapter features a recipe that comes out of the story preceding it. Anyone w

From my early years I showed a lot of interest in collecting copies of National Geographic - not just for the heck of it but for the fascinating photographs and great articles on travel,wildlife,natural science and history published in it. The photographs were so captivating and real, they created a great passion for adventure in me and an urge to know more about my planet and my universe  . In sixties when I was in school, I could find only one shop dealing in second hand books which sometimes used to keep some back issues of National Geographic. The shop was located in Hazratgunj area of Lucknow, close to Capitol Cinema . So ardent was my desire to get a copy of a second hand National Geographic ( a new National Geographic was extremely costly during those days) that that was the only occasion when I bothered my parents for money for buying it. In this regard they were very supportive and liberal. A lot of changes have taken place since then over the decades that followed, and the