On a windy evening in West Los Angeles, a small group of mostly strangers gathered inside a trendy loft apartment. The 15 or so folks were an interesting cross section of humanity — from a winery ...

The words tadka, bagar or chownk all refer to tempering in Indian cooking. Tempering is heating ghee or oil and adding spices. The idea is to infuse the aroma and flavors of the spices into the oil.

Last year I explored some family recipes from northern India where I was raised. Spring’s approaching, and I thought it would be a good time to “go back to basics” with a series of articles devoted to ...

At the age of five, Julie Sahni began attending a school run by Arya Samaj, a Hindu reform movement, in the North Indian city of Kanpur. Classes there trained her to be a perfect housewife. Born in ...

Aimee Levitt is a freelance writer in Chicago. Madhur Jaffrey initially became a cookbook author, she writes in the first line of An Invitation to Indian Cooking, “as a gradual maneuver in ...