Indian for Everyone: The Home Cook's Guide to Traditional Favorites - Authentic Indian Recipes for Family Dinners & Cultural Celebrations

This is an absolutely wonderful book!! First it is very clearly written. It uses, as all real Indian cooking does, ingredients with which we may not be familiar. That's just a fact. What is wonderful is how Anupy deals with this fact: she has detailed discussions of the ingredients, how they are used, and strategies for obtaining them.Anupy treats the reader just like family!! There is an abundance of wonderful stories about how she grew up, which relative taught her what, the role the recipes play in her family and so forth. The book is filled with friendly and informative chatter that allows you to get to know her as a person. She describes how she learned all this complicated information, and that helped me as a student.Finally, the book is absolutely beautiful. It is filled with beautiful photographs of food and other things! One more minor detail to illustrate how wonderful this book is: she sells some of the spice mixes on her website (www.indianasapplepie.com), but she also gives you detailed directions so that you can duplicate her exact formula if you want. I was thrilled to buy the spices premixed and save the time, but the choice is entirely yours.If you have any interest in Indian food, go buy this book -- you will be happy you did! Just look at the other reviews! One note for completeness: Anupy is very open and clear that she loves her food HOT! She openly advises on the possibility of using less red chile or cayenne pepper. My wife and I like spicy food, but in the dishes we have made so far, we have cut back considerably on the cayenne pepper and have been glad that we did.Final fact: the dishes we have made have been absolutely delicious -- and I have never cooked Indian before! If you have the time and interest to try Indian food, this is a simply wonderful and delightful book.