The winner plaque by Gourmand
Pedatha always found it hard to believe that her ‘plain home cooking recipes’ could feature in a cookbook and win an award too. Its been a year since “Cooking at Home with Pedatha” was awarded the Best Veg Cookbook in the World by Gourmand. On April 7th last year, we went up on the stage at Beijing and passed on Pedatha’s message to the audience, “…Pedatha sends her love and blessings to all of you, many of whom who she says are her children, grandchildren and great grand children.”
She continued to be surprised until one day we told her, “Pedatha, does a diamond know its worth? It is only the jeweller who can estimate its worth and create a befitting setting for it. Similarly, you are like a jewel and we are like the jeweller.” She beamed smilingly and clapped her hands, “I like this comparison. Now I can understand why the book is special!”
We simply miss you Pedatha, beyond words.
Jigyasa's students, Manasvi, Aditi & Gayathri dance at a felicitation event
I like analogy you drew about the diamond!
How wonderful that you have such lovely memories of Pedatha. The Gourmand Award was well-deserved. I learn something new every time I open the book
Dear Linda, Thank you so so much for saying all this. It is so heartening and encouraging.
Oh, and I meant to say — Manasvi looks beautiful
Thank you Linda. Just to share with you, Manasvi is Jigyasa’s student and Pratibha’s daughter.
The analogy is perfect. I was also thinking something like this exactly when I first visited this blog. Both of you discovered one Pedatha and documented her recipes and you made it immortal. There are so many Pedatha’s living among us, whose worth we are not aware of. Who is going to bring them out?
I think we need not go a step beyond, like you have done. Just talking with our own grandmother and grandfathers and recording their recipes /experiences should be fine.
Dear Madhuram, Kudos to your thought…you are so right on that…how many pearls of wisdom we have around us which we often don’t notice. Hope to see a lot of recipes from you related to this concept.