Natasha Diddee

I like to cook diverse food, especially when I’m having guests who don’t know anything about Indian food or have less knowledge. In fact, I had a very funny thing that happened. I had a group of people who came here for dinner the other night, all Indians. But they’re all from the south. They had no concept what a person from Kolkata would eat or what a person from Bihar would eat or what a person from Kashmir would eat. And I created a meal where I created a veg dish and a non-veg dish from each region of India. And they were stunned because they didn’t know… even though they’re South Indians, they were basically Malayalis. I created dishes from Chettinad, I created dishes from other areas that they were not familiar with. They were not exposed to those flavours. They didn’t even realize that our country had these flavours. So, I really like to challenge people’s palates. I like them to… It’s almost like an enlightenment of food, and I like to do that. But I know it’s little intimidating for a beginner. I’ve had so many people come and say, “My God, how did you cook this big, fat meal?” The fact is that I’m a trained chef. I know what to do, so I know what to prep when. Sometimes I prep things a day in advance and just cook it the day of [the meal]. So that, of course, comes with practice, even with a little bit of experience. But for a beginner, I would say stick to the basics. Get your dal, rice, vegetable – if you’re a non-vegetarian, that one chicken curry or fish curry – right. The minute you get something right, and you get the accolades from your family, it will really give you that motivation to venture out into uncharted waters. Then you’ll say, “OK, I made that Goan curry, now let me try and make a Kerala curry,” or “Let me try and do this.” And that’s how you evolve. If you haven’t tried and if you haven’t started, you can’t win the race.