Daleya Uddin

Ironically, I took an interest in cooking to win my hubby’s (aka family chauffeur) heart. And although, I wasn’t cooking and creating like my sister, I was always in the kitchen with them and picked up a lot of their techniques along the way. One of her best comfort food dishes was Murgir Aloo Jhol (Chicken and Potato in Curry Gravy). It was a simple and hearty dish and appeased the picky kids in the family who were not adventurous enough to love the dried fish delicacies popular in Bangladeshi home cooking.

As France slowly reduces restrictions on Covid-19 confinement, it’s good to see Parisian neighborhoods come back to life step by step. Although I jumped on the Covid cooking bandwagon early and spent most of the time testing out recipes when I was not working remotely – which I hope to post now that I have replaced my camera battery — My mom saw the social media posts about the Iftar we ordered from  Ramadan Box Paris at the beginning of Ramadan and wanted to send Jalal something similar. Things are certainly improving, but the caliber and variety of Indian restaurants is just not the same as the UK — where chicken tikka masala is akin to a national dish — or the States.

Today’s post features a pulse recipe from my sister Nadia and her son, who is our own little junior Master Chef in training! I was living in Rome and had grand visions of showcasing family recipes, taking cooking classes to learn more about authentic Italian regional cooking, and basically eating my way through Rome. ’s Historic Rome food tour and a private cooking class in Sienna (which I still need to write about) were far and away among the best experiences I had in Italy. My theory is that most Sylehtti home cooks tend not to need recipes themselves, but I hope to catalog as many as I can and I am roping in help — especially as it’s difficult to find certain ingredients in confinement.

The first is the centifolia from Grasse, the heart of France’s perfume region in the French Riviera. If you are a perfume connoisseur, I recommend taking a perfume workshop to learn how flowers and other botanicals are distilled into essential oils for perfume production. They explained that in addition to traditional French lavender and rose production in southern France, the slow flower movement is also breathing new life into local farms in the north. The representative who helped me put together my creation, explained that the slow flower movement actually started in the United States.