Ritu Dalmia the DIVA herself...celebrity chef and a new superbrand
Book Review
Ritu Dalmia didn't go to college (nor did she get married by the minimum age like most Marwari princesses).
Instead, she followed her father into the stone industry and made a killing before turning 20. On her many trips to Italy in search of the right marble, Ritu got exposed to Italian khana and from a countess who runs a cookery school that's very popular among Americans, she picked up finer points of Sicilian cuisine (without doubt, the most delectable part of Italy's gastronomic tradition, blessed as the island is by the sun and a fecund soil, the leftovers of Arab influences, and hot mamas).
As part of her training, Ritu had to wring the necks of so many chickens that she returned to her vegetarian roots for some time! She moved out of the business of stones and got into restaurants, making a patchy start at a time when Delhi's idea of gourmet Italian was macaroni and cheese, selling her maiden venture to the first unsuspecting investor who showed an interest in it. She then teamed up with Andy Verma and set up a restaurant named Vama in London. It just took off after the celebrated critic, A. A. Gill, gave it a glowing review. But Delhi drew her back and she opened Diva in 2001 - and the rest, as they say, is history.
Ritu is not only a gifted chef and an astute entrepreneur, but also a world traveller and a brilliant raconteur of stories. And if all these elements come together in a cookbook, it's bound to be the publishing world's equivalent of a Michelin three-star restaurant.
Travelling Diva (Hachette; Rs 499) is one of those rare intelligently written cookbooks where each recipe comes with a little story (did you know, for instance, that New York's iconic hotel (and a favourite of Indian officials), Waldorf Astoria, demanded $ 100 from a guest who wanted the recipe for its famous Red Velvet Cake?); it also has Ritu's list of food stores across India (a thoughtful addition for hobby chefs desperately looking for ingredients) and the places she recommends to the peripatetic gourmand.
Being a member of the privileged tribe that believes in eating and not sweating it out for a meal, I was particularly interested in Ritu's recommendations. At Harry's Bar, Venice, you must have the toasted buttery croquet monsieur with Bellini (a bit of a rip-off Prosecco cocktail made famous by Ernest Hemingway), and if you're lucky like Ritu, you may run into Julia Roberts, Angelina Jolie, Jeanette Winterson and V. S. Naipaul (anyone of the first three would, thank you!).
You must not miss the canteen (cibreo) of the Teatro del Sale, Florence; you have to save money for a meal at the Ristorante le Calandre in Padova, run by the Alajmo brothers, Raffaele and Massimiliano - the latter, according to Ritu, is "the finest chef in Italy and beyond"; and you can't be in Naples and not have the pizza of Casa Rossa 1888 at Mt Vesuvius, especially if the queue outside Da Michele, the pizzeria celebrated by Eat Pray Love, is too long.
Now, guess where Ritu has had the "most honest flavourful Italian food" in the world? Imagine, in Burma, at the Sandoway Resort on Ngapali Beach. "I tried very hard to steal their chefs - who, by the way, were all local Burmese - but like good Buddhists they were content with what they had," writes Ritu. She loves to spring such surprises, so you'll see a recipe for Pigs in Blankets getting as much space as Bhindi Bhojpuri or Whore's Pasta. This one gets my award for the best cookbook of the year.
Click here to look for Ritu Dalmia's collection of books
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