CHILI MAMA

My Mum was a first class cook. Quite simply. Now she's in a nursing home and doesn't cook any more, but she definitely still enjoys good food. Her signature dish for thirty years was an Indian curry that was nothing less than perfect, whether she made it with lamb, beef or chicken.

While we lived in Tanzania in the sixties my Mum made a lot of friends, and she particularly enjoyed the company of the many Indian ladies she met. I'm pretty sure they enjoyed her company too, her outgoing spontaneous personality, her adventurous mind and her curiosity for new experiences. She was invited to learn how to cook curry the authentic way. The ladies taught her, then sent her home again to Mwandu Lane equipped with all sorts of exotic spices and perfumed Masalas.

As I gradually acquired a love for cooking myself I wanted to learn how to make her curry. "Do you have it written down in a recipe?" I asked. "Stand next to me and watch while I make it," she said. So I did. I noted down her instructions as best I could, like a true chef's apprentice. And this wasn't the only dish she taught me over the years - far from it. (My Dad actually thought I'd never get married, considering I'd never done a cookery course!!)

Homegrown chili peppers - in France

Living in Dar-es-Salaam we quickly got used to hot and spicy food. The Indian population in East Africa was substantial and influential, and curries were everywhere to be had. On Sunday mornings - before it got too hot - we played tennis at the Gymkhana Club, then always reserved a table afterwards for their immensely popular and renowned Curry Lunch Buffet. My sister was too little to fully enjoy the buffet, so she had "chips with salt and vinegar." Which is what it was - French fries that you poured vinegar on and salted. But she too grew to become a curry lover, of course. She had no other option.

My husband learnt to love Indian curry the hard way. My Mum had made it for him at the beginning of our relationship, and she watched - somewhat deviously - while he devoured a whole chili pepper and consequently ran around on fire while shouting for water. "This is our family initiation test," she said. "You passed. But only just."

Wherever we go in the world we always end up at an Indian restaurant sooner or later. We seek them out in fact. London, New York, Jakarta, Sydney, Barcelona, Perpignan, even Sunny Beach, Bulgaria! And this last one was excellent!

A former employee from Iran always used to bring me back the BEST saffron  

Gotta go now and make the Raita!

Curry, Friday night and listening to really really LOUD music! Old timers! Squeeze, Fleetwood Mac & Aretha! What could be better?