HT Picks; New Reads

The stuff of food fantasies

Seven Indian eateries found a place on influential online food encyclopaedia Taste Atlas’s elite list of 150 legendary restaurants of the twenty-first century: Paragon in Kozhikode, Tunday Kababi in Lucknow, Peter Cat in Kolkata, Amrik Sukhdev Dhaba in Murthal, Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (MTR) in Bengaluru, Karim’s in New Delhi, and Ram Ashraya in Mumbai. In this book, five writers trace the humble origins of these immensely popular eateries and describe their many offerings, including Paragon’s delicately spiced biryani, Tunday Kababi’s succulent galawat ke kabab, Peter Cat’s elaborate chelo kabab, Amrik Sukhdev Dhaba’s wholesome makkhan-topped parathas, MTR’s invigorating filter coffee, Karim’s rare firdausi qorma, and Ram Ashraya’s indulgent pineapple sheera. Each essay unravels decades of culinary evolution and the influence India’s ever-changing culture, politics, and geography have on the “business” of feeding people.

Interweaving memories, interviews, and more than 30 mouth-watering food recommendations, this is an entertaining chronicle of how these iconic restaurants and their fabled creations came to be.

When the past crashes the party

It’s the opening night of The Manor, and no expense, small or large, has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles; crystal pouches for guests’ healing have been placed in the Seaside Cottages and Woodland Hutches; the “Manor Mule” cocktail (grapefruit, ginger, vodka, and a dash of CBD oil) is being poured with a heavy hand. Everyone is wearing linen.

But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. It emerges that it all began with a secret, 15 years ago. Now the past has crashed the party. Just outside the Manor’s immaculately kept grounds, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. Then, on the Sunday morning of opening weekend, the local police are called. Something’s not right with the guests. There’s been a fire. A body’s been discovered. A locked room murder mystery, The Midnight Feast is a gripping read from the author of The Paris Apartment and The Guest List.

A study in corruption

On 24 May 1971, based on a telephone call purportedly from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her secretary PN Haksar, the chief cashier at the Parliament Street branch of the State Bank of India handed over ₹60 lakh to a stranger posing as the PM’s courier. The money was supposedly meant for secret operations in East Pakistan. When the chief cashier approached the PMO for a receipt, he was told that neither Haksar nor the PM had given any such instructions. He had been duped. Within a few hours, the Delhi Police recovered the cash and caught the man responsible for the heist, a former army captain, Rustom Sohrab Nagarwala. Subsequent events, which included a botched police investigation, bungling by the lower judiciary, mysterious deaths of the accused and the principal investigator, and Indira Gandhi’s inexplicable silence, led to the rise of several conspiracy theories.

Based on police records, press reports, depositions before the Justice Jaganmohan Reddy Commission and its report, The Scam That Shook a Nation is the first authoritative work on the scam, its investigation and its afterlife as a study in political corruption.

All copy from book flap.