The Welcoming World of Dishoom; Best of 2023

Howdy cookbook fans!

And welcome to your what-day-is-it-anyway issue of Stained Page News. I hope all of my US readers had a lovely Thanksgiving and didn’t give too much of your money to Jeff Bezos. I for one spent it sleeping off COVID, so this issue will be short but mighty. We’ve got book deals! We’ve got the design in London restaurant cookbook Dishoom! We’ve got a bunch of fun links for you to read INCLUDING the first few offerings for best of 2023 round-ups! What a world.

Thanks, by the way, for all the well-wishes on Cured, the upcoming book bySan Antonio chef Steve McHugh and yours truly. There is still time to pre-order a copy signed by both of us from the Twig, a locally-owned bookstore next door to Cured the restaurant!

You can learn a lot, lot more about Cured here. And now, cookbook news!

TREASURE HUNTS I know I’ve mentioned the self-published cookbook famed director and writer Nora Ephron wrote to give as presents to friends, right? A holy grail of cookbook collecting, IMO. And, apparently, Rita Wilson makes her Thanksgiving dinner out of her copy every year. Orange Praline Yams! Fine. I’ll just be over here with my police procedural-style bulletin board, threads and pins and newspaper clippings, tracking down a copy if any of you need me. [People]

The Creative Brief with Frances Abrantes Baca

Dishoom, written by British restaurateurs Shamil Thakrar and Kavi Thakrar, and chef Naved Nasir, is one of those cookbooks I read in bed (admittedly, my favorite way to savor a good cookbook). While the writing is thoroughly enjoyable, what makes this book really special is the photography by Liz Haarala and Max Hamilton (aka Haarala Hamilton). Their images capture the bustling, colorful, and welcoming world of the historic South Mumbai Irani cafés that inspired Dishoom’s namesake restaurants. The number of photographs alone is impressive—I counted a total of 324 within 400 pages—but the beauty and breadth of the images are what make reading Dishoom such an engaging, immersive experience.

“Dishoom is a journey—a day and night in Bombay through food and drink,” explains Haarala. “We were there for ten days and we got up early every day and only stopped photographing in the day for a quick recharge of batteries and to back up photos. And then back ...