Nizamuddin is a very small neighborhood with many little parks and not too many cars but the morning is the noisiest time of the day. The kabadi wala rides his bicycle and calls out loud for people to sell him their used newspapers; the kuri wala comes to your doorstep to collect yesterday’s garbage, and of course the subzi walas; the vegetable and fruit vendors bring their carts and call for people to come out and buy whatever fresh vegetable or fruit they need for the day’s cooking. Later in the morning other street vendors on bicycles will offer to fix your pressure cooker or sell you a new broom stick. One gets used to these noises and could even find them comforting in a time when Delhi is changing so fast and rapidly moving into the 21st century.

In the last few years the neighborhood has become very ‘posh’ and land owners have discovered the potential of renting to expats (foreigners who come to live and work in India and have their rent paid by the company that employs them) who are willing to pay a lot of money for a nice location. The old houses are slowly being demolished to make way for new three, or even four-story high buildings that provide a nice view of the tomb.

In the first few years we  lived in one of the older houses where the landlord and his family occupied the ground floor, as in many of the houses in the neighborhood and in Delhi in general. We used to ask them for a small jar of their special mango achar (mango pickles) so often that at one point we felt a little uncomfortable asking for more and started making our own.
The house was a two story building where the elder son and his family lived in the first floor and we had the Barsati – the second floor apartment on the roof. If you took a ladder and climbed to the roof of our own home you could see the dome of the main tomb of the Emperor Humayun not very far away.

As in many barsatis in Delhi, the kitchen had a separate entrance and its door opened to the roof and not into the house itself. It was a simple kitchen but very cozy and well organized. In the hot days of summer it was not a big delight to be there and when the monsoon had finally arrived to bring some respite from the heat, we needed to wait for the rain to stop so that we could go to the kitchen without getting wet. In the winter it was the warmest place in the house and no extra heating was needed, so we often found ourselves crowded there over a cup of hot chai with lots of cardamom and cloves. It was in this small kitchen that Asha, our beloved cook, started working for us and made all the amazing food that helped us feel at home away from home.

Asha at Bhogal market near our home in Nizamuddin east

On the first day that Asha came to work with us she wanted to know what food she should make so we told her to go to the market, find the nicest vegetables that are in season and make the best food she can make out of what she buys. It is already our ninth year in Delhi, and Asha is still with us and has become a real member of the family. About five years ago Shefi, my wife, started writing down the recipes and I started taking pictures of the dishes. The idea was to make a recipe book with all her food so that if one day we would have to leave Delhi we could still recreate the magic.

Styling the food and creating the images

We set up a studio in the living room and every day shot the picture of the dish before we sat down to eat it. For styling we collected old plates from various stores around Delhi, and the table cover are pieces of the cheapest plastic covers I got for seven rupees each (about $0.15) at Kotla market. I wanted to recreate the feeling of a home and not go to the new, already seen food styling. To light the set I  used a couple of tungsten garden lamps along with a collection of small mirrors to reflect the light. Very basic, very simple and very quick.

The Recipe Book

You will not find long lists of ingredients in this book, or long and complicated methods of preparation. Using fresh products from the market and not more than a few selected spices, this is simple, good and tasty vegetarian home cooking that we have been eating daily for already more than seven years.

There might be other ways to cook any of these recipes and it is most probable that anyone who grew up in Delhi would know most of them. Asha does not pretend to have invented any of them, but there hasn’t been one person who came to our home and did not have something good to say about her food. There will always be the story of another woman and her recipes and the food that she makes at home for her family. This is one of them.

Cooking Indian food can be very simple if you relax into it

It is always good to prepare in advance and there are a few things that you can do before you start cooking that will make your life in the kitchen a lot easier. A good pressure cooker is one of them.
Most of the food is prepared in a Kadhai and you will also need a simple iron griddle called Tawa to make chapati (or Rotti as they are called by some). Other than that you have everything in every semi equipped kitchen.

Before you start cooking it is good to make sure you have a few special ingredients; Ghee (or a lot of butter), mustard oil, cardamom, ginger (fresh or dry), saffron, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, turmeric, cumin seeds, red chili powder, cinnamon, cloves and aniseed. In some of the recipes you will use tamarind and jaggery which is whole, pure, unrefined sugar that has a specific taste and texture. Coconut milk is also not a bad idea to have. Curry leaves are available in special Indian stores and really make a difference in some of the recipes. Garam masala is one spice mix that varies from place to place but generally consists of cumin, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and bay leaf.

Other than that there are no rules for cooking and you do everything by taste. The quantities for chili powder and garam masala are very flexible. If you like your food spicy add more chili, if you like it less spicy simply put less of it. The same goes for garam masala. The recipes in this book are not too spicy but to an untrained pallet it might be a bit too much.
A few years in India got us used to the tastes but if the food is spicy you simply take more Dahi (yogurt) with it.

Most of the recipes in this book take not more than 20 – 30 minutes to prepare and Asha makes about three or four dishes for lunch every day. A full meal will include either a rice dish or chapati (or another bread), two vegetable dishes, one kind Dal and a fresh salad or Raita in the summer.  Paratha makes a mean breakfast and there are a few amazing sweet dishes that you can play with and discover.

Asha has been taking good care of us; it is her book as much as ours and we hope you will enjoy it as much as we do.

We are Looking for a publisher

We are now looking for an international publisher for this book so if you know anyone who might be of any assistance in this then please write us. We would be forever grateful.

Here are a couple of recipes to get you started, and a few pictures to open the appetite. Enjoy :-)

Barwa Baingan – stuffed eggplant

Cooked in a small wok (kadai)
Serve 4-6 people:

12 egg-shaped eggplants
1 big onion – cut in half and sliced
3 garlic cloves – crushed
¼ glass sunflower oil
2 medium size tomatos

For the filling:

1 full tsp of coriander powder
½ tsp of garam masala
½ tsp of red chili powder
1 tsp of mango powder (optional)
½ tsp salt

Mix all the spices well in a small bowl.
Slit each eggplant lengthways, empty some of the inside and keep for the sauce.
Fill each eggplant with half to a full tsp of the spice mix.
Heat the oil in a small wok and fry the eggplants from all sides.
Add the onion and garlic and keep frying for another 2-3 minutes.
Cover and cook on medium flame for another 15 minutes till the onion is soft.
Add the tomatoes and the remaining spices.
Stir well, cover again and simmer until the eggplants are well cooked and water is gone
Garnish with freshly chopped coriander leaves

Kesar Chawal – Saffron rice

Ingredients:

1 cup Basmati Rice
2 cup water + extra water for washing and soaking rice
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp Saffron strands
2 tbsp hot milk
1 bay leaf
2 Cinnamon sticks (about 5 cm each)
4 green cardamoms – broken
2 tbsp raisins
1 tbsp cashew nuts
1½ tbsp pistachio
2 tbsp ghee or clarified butter or oil for frying

Method:
Wash rice thoroughly, drain and keep aside.
Soak saffron in 2 tbsp hot milk for about 15 minutes, till milk is a deep orange-yellow color. Depending on the quality of the saffron you might have to use different quantities to get the same color effect. A little more might be needed if the saffron is not of very good quality.
Heat oil/ghee in a cooking pot and fry the cashewnuts and pistachio for about 1 minute – or less – until golden. Drain and set aside.
In the same pan, use the remaining oil/ghee to fry the bay leaf, cardamom and cinnamon for a minute while stirring. 
Add the rice and salt and stir till ghee coats every grain of rice so that it looks glossy. 
Add the water and bring to a boil. Add the raisins and stir.
Reduce the heat to minimum and cover. 

Check occasionally and when holes appear on the surface and water has almost evaporated, use a fork to lightly make wholes in the rice surface and sprinkle the saffron milk on top. Keep cooking for 2-3 minutes until all the water evaporates.
Add the fried cashewnuts and pistachio and mix gently into the rice.
leave the lid on for another 5 minutes before serving.

]]> http://www.sephi.com/food-and-travel/food/ashas-kitchen-recipes-from-our-home-in-delhi/feed/ 15 http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/food-photography-should-make-you-hungry/ http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/food-photography-should-make-you-hungry/#comments Tue, 06 Apr 2010 11:36:53 +0000 sephi http://www.sephi.com/?p=3208 The way i see it, food photography should make you hungry. Anything else is simply not good enough! More than that, food photography is all about the food itself and not about styling. Think about it for a second and you’ll see how photographing food can suddenly become very simple.

What I look at when I photograph food

By saying “not about the styling” I may annoy a few food stylists, but the truth is that I seldom use food stylists. I like working with the food the way it is presented to me to eat and not beautify it beyond recognition. More than about styling, photographing food is about passion. I like talking with the chef, try to see the dish through his eyes, ‘taste’ it through his buds. I focus on the feeling that I get from looking at a dish rather than looking at the flower pot or the wine glass next to the plate. I know this is over simplifying things and I am not trying to belittle anyone’s work or make him/her redundant, but be it a chef at an expensive restaurant or a vendor on the street in Old Delhi, they both try to cater to your taste buds, and this is exactly what I am looking for. I want you to feel that you can eat the picture, that you WANT to eat what is in the picture. More over, I want to create an expectation that can be fulfilled if you ever come to eat this very dish.

I used to think that food photography is something very difficult that takes a lot of practice, but I changed my mind about it. Taking pictures of food is as simple as eating it, and taking a good food shot should actually take less time than to eat the dish. Shoot it quickly before it doesn’t look fresh, and then eat.

Food styling, Yes or No?

Let me make it right for the food stylists before I continue. There is of course a need for good styling in food photos but there is a limit to what a stylist can do. Getting the right plates, table cloth, color matching takes a good eye and expertise, but once your sandwich looks soggy no one can revive it. What I’m trying to say is not that we should get rid of the stylists but that making a good picture is about something else. It is as simple as can be. Work with your heart. Focus only on making the food look good and forget about all the rest.

I personally like to work with available light as much as possible but I sometime carry  a couple of simple garden tungsten lights that I bought a few years back for $10 each at a local market. I feel that the warm color of tungsten is fantastic for food and I don’t correct the white balance. I also like working with an open lens at f/2.8 to get a shallow depth of field. I feel it leaves something for the imagination and that it is good for everyone.

Here are a couple of images shot in Delhi last week for a story in a Spanish magazine. For the record I have to mention that I am a pure vegetarian so did not touch these specific two dishes, but having lunch after the shoot was a long and enjoyable process :-)

Sizzling hot Stone Baked Cod served at 'ai', an oriental restaurant in south Delhi

Gnocci with Soft Shell Crab & Tiger Prawns at Olive Bar & Kitchen in south Delhi

]]> http://www.sephi.com/tips-for-photographers/food-photography-should-make-you-hungry/feed/ 2 http://www.sephi.com/food-and-travel/food/fried-water-bombs-pani-puri-on-chowpatti-beach/ http://www.sephi.com/food-and-travel/food/fried-water-bombs-pani-puri-on-chowpatti-beach/#comments Sat, 29 Aug 2009 07:01:43 +0000 sephi http://www.sephi.com/?p=2532 Its been a long time since my last visit to Mumbai when I worked on my ‘Street food of India’ book. Funny enough, this visit was also for street food. More specific, I came to Mumbai for Chowpatti beach and it’s Pani Puri vendors. It probably would have been better to come over the weekend when the beach is crowded with people, but my dead line was too tight and I had to go in the middle of the week.

Street food stalls on Chowpati beach in Mumbai offer a variety of favorite snacks like Bhel puri, Sev Puri and Pani puri.

A man visiting Chowpatti beach just after sunset, enjoys Pani Puri, as the vendor looks on. Mumbai. August 2009

Children visiting Chowpatti beach just after sunset, enjoy Pani Puri, a favorite street food snack. Mumbai, August 2009

Panipuri, or Pani puri, is a snack synonymous with the beaches of Mumbai. However, it is also very popular in all other parts of India known by many names like golgappa in North India, Foochka (Puchka) in West Bengal and Gupchup in some central parts of India like Hyderabad.

A vendor at a food stall on Juhu Chowpatti beach serving dripping Pani Puri. Mumbai, August 2009

A vendor at a food stall on Juhu Chowpatti beach serving dripping Pani Puri. Mumbai, August 2009

Four hour drive from Cochin, at an elevation of about 5000 ft above sea level, Munar is a beautiful destination for a vacation. Very often we drove in dense fog that only added to the mystery of the landscape. God’s own country indeed.

A coconut seller on the road to Munar, Kerala

Local nuns stop to pray at a roadside christian shrine in Munar, Kerala

Decorated cows in meadow approaching Munar tea estates, Kerala

Local women picking tea in the plantations, Munar, Kerala

Workers of the tea plantations carry fresh picked leafs to the road where they will be collected for further processing

Transporting the freshly picked tea leafs form the plantation to the factory, Munar, Kerala

A decorated Kerala truck loaded with timber, Munar, Kerala

I don't have too many pictures of myself. When I do finally pose for a one it really does feel a little strange, but hey, if I don't do that I will never have any picture at all :-)

40 kilometers towards north of Bangalore in the state of Karnataka, lies a region that has only recently come to the attention of the rest of the world. Today, it has risen as a rich wine producing area which was once known as Tipu Sultan’s and later, the British summer retreat. Nandi Hills is a picturesque region dotted with sloping green hillsides and miles of forestland, inhabited with incredibly beautiful wild life. Grover Vineyards and Winery in the heart of Nandi Hills is one of the most well respected and reviewed emerging wineries in India.

Founder of Grover Vineyards in 1988, Kanwal Grover (center) decided at the age of 60, when normally people think of getting retired, to transform his passion for wine into a lifetime dedication. Kapil Grover, Kanwal’s son (L), is today the owner of Grover Vineyards, and his daughter Karishma Grover (R) is the third generation to the Grover family wine making family.

Michel Rolland at Grover Vineyards near Bangalore, India. Michel Rolland is the foremost wine consultant in the world. He has a Bordeaux-based consulting practice which takes care of the most prestigious estates across 12 countries around the globe. He consults some of the greatest Bordeaux Great Growth such asChteau Angelus, Chteau Lascombes, Chteau Loville Poyferr, Chteau Belgrave. Among others, he also consults Casa Lapostolle in Chile, Robert Mondavi, Harlan Estate in California and Chteau Saint Michelle.

The beginning of May is the time of harvesting at the Grover Vineyards at Nandi Hills outside of Bangalore, Karnataka.

For more images and for licensing, please visit the archive.

When I first heard about the project from Chiki Sarkar, the editor in chief of Random House, I was a bit hesitant as I was told that the budget for the photographs was very small. She wanted photographs of the kitchen, of dishes and of people eating, something I estimated in about 6-7 days of work. Never the less, I wanted to meet Ritu and see what she is all about, and see how I feel about the project. We decided to all meet for lunch and discuss the options. Ritu came first , after all it was her own restaurant, and it was love at first sight. She is a fun and energetic soul running a few very successful restaurants in Delhi, the most famous one is of course DIVA in GK2 market. By the time Chiki had arrived I already knew I would be happy to work on the book but the concept was still not decided.

We had a great green salad, raviol (I had two portions), and penacotta with a strong espresso. Chiki and Ritu were discussing the number of images that they wanted and I suddenly thought it could actually be very simple. I suggested that we do it the ‘Italian way’. Organize a big Tuscany-style lunch for about thirty people and I would shoot the entire book in one day, starting in the kitchen in the morning with Ritu cooking, then take a few pictures of dishes and then shoot everyone eating and enjoying a winter lunch. This would enable us to get all the images that we need and also fit the budget. They loved it!

It was just before Christmas and we had to get things in motion fast to avoid the winter fog that would delay the project by a few months, so we scheduled for three weeks away. A location was found in one the farm houses outside of the city and the guests were invited for a Sunday lunch. It was wonderful.

I started with Ritu at her home kitchen very early in the morning, shooting with available window light and trying as much as possible not to interfere with her work, moving around her and getting the feel of the kitchen. From time to time I would take a ready dish to the other room and shot the plate in the sun coming from the open window. I used a few small mirrors to fill in the dark shadows but no artificial light. I wanted to keep it simple and real.

When we finally reached the location with all the food and people started coming, I switched to a longer lens (80-200/f2.8) and shot the entire lunch like this. Close up shots of the food on the table as well as the people talking and enjoying the party. by 4PM we were having desert and the I had what I wanted.

All the images form the book are available on my ARCHIVE.

Click HERE to order the book online.

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Fourchette et sac a dos – Destination Inde from Sephi Bergerson on Vimeo.

Book – Street Food Of India – Images by Sephi Bergerson

For more images of street food of India and for licensing please visit my archive HERE

A hard cover, 192 pages coffee table album with 156 images, STREET FOOD OF INDIA is a stunning visual documentation of the mind-boggling array of roadside snacks available in even the remotest corner of the country. From masala chai to vada pao, from parathas to chhole-bhature, this book will take you on a journey that no true-blue foodie can forget. The local flavor is palpable as you turn the pages, and what’s more, you can actually reproduce these mouth-watering eatables with the help of the 46 detailed, authentic recipes provided.

visit the page HERE for a small gallery of images form the book.

The German edition is now available online from Christian-Verlag and Amazon.de

For some behind the scene of making the book