Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Food & Faith featured in HT Smartcast Podcast
The contradictory impulse. Where you write pretty much in solitude. And then offer it to the world through talks and conversations. I lost an MFA degree because I couldn't reconcile this contradiction but that is a tale for another day. Here are some events around the book. Click here to listen to the podcast Part 1 Click here to listen to the podcast Part 2
Food & Faith: Feature in The Hindu Metroplus
Feature about Food & Faith The Hindu Metroplus Food is an inherent part of India’s places of worship. In her new book, Shoba Narayan delves into the making of prasadams, langars and more India’s places of worship and their different foods, all in one book Krithika R DECEMBER 05, 2020 14:30 IST As a young child, tagging behind my grandmother, I would ask why her puliyogare and chakkara pongal tasted different from that made in the temple she visited. “Because it was made with devotion and blessed by the god,” she [...]
Food & Faith excerpted in Condenast Traveller
‘Hinduism, like many great religions, is about feasting and fasting, praying and eating prasadam’ Shoba Narayan's new book delves into the many ways food and belief are intertwined with our identities Shoba Narayan PUBLISHED: NOV 21, 2020 | 17:28:35 IST A preiest cooks prasad at a temple. Photo: Frank Bienewald / Alamy Stock Photo “In no other culture does faith play out in as colourful and traditional a fashion as in India. In our country’s places of worship, we find rich myths, ancient traditions, cultural touchstones and delicious food that are offered to the Gods and [...]
Food and Faith flies out to the world
Shoba Narayan approaches faith through perhaps its most primal and nourishing aspect: food. She partakes of sacred food in shrines across India and writes about the intimate yet powerful connection between food and faith.
Are wine terms pretentious?
Are wine terms pretentious? My column for Sommelier India Palate is a term that sounds pompous but really isn’t. In fact, it is the simplest way by which you can decide what wines you like. Some of it is practical or logical and some of it is just you. Being vegetarian, my taste veers towards aromatic, dry and off-dry, cool-climate wines. Low alcohol content (under 12%) is nice to have but not always possible, particularly in New World wines. After trying out several, these are my current picks. [...]
Karma yoga and the need to negotiate
Karma yoga and the need to negotiate 5 min read . Updated: 16 Jul 2009, 09:20 PM IST The Good Life | Shoba Narayan Karma yoga and the need to negotiate What’s the best negotiating strategy you can use in a job? Ability, credibility and the willingness to walk away. Not my words. Strategic HR adviser Hema Ravichandar’s. Last Sunday, I called Ravichandar, who cut her teeth as HR head at Infosys Technologies, to get tips on negotiation. During our interview, I observed that E. Sreedharan, whom I admire unabashedly, must be a master negotiator. He reads the Gita for 45 [...]
Talk on Indian Jewellery Traditions
Where I participated in a panel on jewellery traditions from some of its best known experts. Event website here.
Twenty ways to do offbeat luxury
Twenty ways to do offbeat luxury in 2010: for Mint Lounge 4 min read . Updated: 02 Jan 2010, 02:33 PM IST The Good Life | Shoba Narayan Twenty ways to do offbeat luxury in 2010 Happy New Year everyone! The recession is over, according to no less a source than the top White House economic adviser Larry Summers. Resoundingly over, report trade pundits in India. As we pick ourselves up from the debris of the last decade, it is hard not to feel optimistic about this one. It’s time—about time—for some cheer and celebration. Time to live and love; celebrate [...]
Bangalore’s underrated restaurants
Bangalore’s most underrated restaurants 4 min read . Updated: 22 Jul 2010, 07:57 PM IST Shoba Narayan | The Good Life Bangalore’s most underrated restaurants Some weeks ago, I was at a food and wine tasting, put together by Food Lovers, a Bangalore-based magazine with a self-explanatory name. I read the magazine for its restaurant reviews and foodie news. Occasionally, the magazine invites me to be part of its free tasting panels. A group of us sample food and wine and offer written opinions. Like foodies everywhere, we talk in obsessive and excruciating detail about things that might make a technocrat’s eyes [...]
Why naturalists are happier people
Being surrounded by trees, rivers and animals can add years to your life; and life to your years Welcome to my office," says Arpita Dutta. As lines go, this one is not particularly original. Except that we are sitting in an open-topped Jeep at the entrance to the Chitwan National Park, in Nepal, which, as it happens, is Dutta’s office: the place she visits every day. Dutta, 33, is an amazing woman. Born and raised in West Bengal, she has worked in forests all her life. She has done research on the Sundarbans and currently works at Taj Safaris’ newly [...]