Kachi's Kitchen: Family Favorites from Kerala and Tamil Nadu Paperback – July 13, 2010

Excellent cook book but price is high for a paperPack edition . Bala at SA tx

I got this book because I have been looking for an authentic South Indian (especially Kerala) cookbook. Ann Vinod's Kachi's Kitchen is a delightful collection of mouth-watering recipes from Kerala and Tamil Nadu states of India. I love the way the book is organized with pictures of all major ingredients with their names in English, Malayalam and Tamil. This is authentic home cooking at its best! I have been trying many of the recipes like Olan, Ishtu, Semiya Payasam, Pulihodarai and Sambar with excellent results - reminding me of my own mom's cooking. This is not surprising because Ann compiled these recipes from her own mother-in-law, Kachi's, everyday cooking recipes. The book is organized into sections like Snacks, Vegetables, Lentils , Chicken, etc. each section with its own table of contents making it very easy to find recipes. The recipes are well laid out and easy to follow. Ann provides menu suggestions for various meals. My favorite is the chutney section which has the recipe for Ulli Sammandhi, one of my childhood favorites. I also love the personal touch Ann adds by including several family pictures. I recommend this book to anyone who is missing mom's cooking and would like to recreate it. This book is great for novices but will not disappoint seasoned cooks either.

The resulting food should make this a 5 star book. But the recipes are written for people in the US and so the units are cups etc, but the methods used in the recipes are also strange. For example in one recipe, onions are boiled, not fried.However, if you can convert the recipe to normal cooking methods and metric measurements, it is worth the effort; the food is awesome.