A vivid, contemporary portrait of a country through its food and the ordinary, extraordinary, people who make it.

In this joyful new book, Roopa Gulati travels through India and celebrates the wonderfully varied food that makes up a nation, making pitstops at the homes of the people who cook it every day. You'll be taken to a remote kitchen in Gujarat, with shelves stacked high with pickle jars, where the air is heady with the scent of homegrown curry leaves and the nutty aroma of rotlas imbued with woody smoke from the open fire; to the old French Quarter of Pondicherry, where lunch is served on a banana leaf picked fresh from the garden; and to Delhi for a family reunion, a feast culminating in mouth-watering desserts, and a cooking lesson. Roopa's writing, full of warmth and joy, brings these people and places to life, and her recipes bring them to our kitchens.

From dals to masalas, and quick and easy suppers to feasts for a crowd, the easy- to-follow recipes are bursting with authentic flavors using ingredients found in your local supermarket. Recipes include eggplant pakoras with onion and tamarind relish, potato and paneer tikki, corn bhajis, Tandoori sea bass, home- style Punjabi chicken curry, Kashmiri lamb with saffron, cardamom and red chiles, cumin potatoes, Bengali-style butternut squash with tamarind and jaggery, channa dal with spinach, black-eyed peas in garlic tomato masala, phirni with honey, orange, and saffron syrup, and pistachio and cardamom cookies.

From the monsoon-washed backwaters of Kerala to the crowded markets of Mumbai, this celebration of regional cooking will bring the sights, sounds and flavors of India to your table.