Celebrating the Ayurvedic Way of Eating!

Sukham Ayu, the latest cookbook by award-winning authors Jigyasa Giri and Pratibha Jain, is a celebration of ayurvedic way of eating. With easy to prepare flavourful recipes, Sukham Ayu is one of the most accessible tools to learn about self-healing food. Filled with gorgeous photographs, fresh flavours, and practical advice, the book presents the reader with delicious recipes against a backdrop of the rhythms of nature and food as medicine.

From slow-simmered curries with layered flavours to quickly sautéed dishes, these delectable recipes explore the wide world of ayurvedic cuisine beginning with a platter of sweet dishes followed by healthy soopas, an incredible range of aromatic vegetable dishes, tastefully spiced dals, home style breads and rice dishes, irresistible snacks, colourful salads and chutneys to soothing juices and thirst- quenching drinks. 

Much more than a wonderful cookbook, Sukham Ayu serves as a concise introduction to ayurveda: the book opens with a primer on the three doshas or constitutions.  Readers will learn how to identify their ayurvedic type; detect imbalances; select foods, and, most importantly, put the power to heal in their own hands. The recipes demonstrate how to vary ayurvedic meals to nurture each of the ayurvedic types.

Sukham Ayu both inspires and empowers; awakening the senses and unlocking the alluring world of ayurvedic way of eating. It is a great addition to any cookbook collection.  

A quote from Sukham Ayu:
You are what you eat, claims the popular adage. Add to this the knowledge that what you need to eat is not elaborate menus with unavailable and exotic ingredients, but simple home-cooked food using regional and seasonal availables that suit your constitution. This is the quintessence of an Ayurvedic diet in a nutshell.

Read more:

• The Pritya site (http://pritya.com/books/sukham-ayu-ayurvedic-cookbook/)
• Review in The Hindu  (http://www.hinduonnet.com/mp/2010/04/22/stories/2010042250710100.htm
• See the book on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Sukham-Ayu-Ayurvedic-Insights-Nutrition/dp/819029931X)

http://www.crossword.in/books/sukham-ayu-cooking-home-with-ayurvedic-insights-jigyasa/p-books-819029931x.html

Guest Writer - Ammini Ramachandran

About the Writer:

Ammini Ramachandran is the celebrated author of ‘Grains, Greens and Grated coconuts’. She is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, Slow Food USA, and Culinary Historians of New York. You can view her work at her site http://www.peppertrail.com/. She lives in Pleno, Texas.

Modern-day Crusades

The Shade of Swords by M.J. Akbar is a powerful guide to study about Islam being a warrior class where, ‘permission is given to fight against those who wrong you’ and is known as a ‘soldier’s religion’. Jihad is only a state of transition, from being mortal to immortal.

Akbar delves into the farce associated with religion and systematically breaks the barriers to know what lies beneath the aggressive nature of the Islamic. He then describes its role in the modern settings, with the current day politics. Akbar mentions in the beginning of the text to avoid the trap of being ‘politically correct’. His style of writing is crisp and keeps an expeditious momentum throughout the book. In today’s world, religion is a very tricky subject and Akbar has dealt with it astutely.

Jihad was first seen in the battle of Badr, where Prophet Muhammad prayed to Allah to save his believers from infidels. Hence during crisis, the only undertaking a Muslim has, is to lay his life and become a martyr, of which is glorified in the Quran. It explicitly accounts the benefits a martyr attains when he ascends to heaven. “Martyrdom is the Muslim's duty, victory is Allah's responsibility.” So, does Islam justify violence? Yes. Against those who ignore to embrace it.

The fight between Christ verses Muhammad has still not come to an end. Muslims do not believe in trinity, but the parallel religions have divided into just that many, three - Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Akbar describes the shift between the earlier crusades and the recent Osama bin Laden.

Quran does not teach to kill, but the deconstruction of texts almost always invites misinterpretations. So when it’s say, ‘Defeat is only a setback in the holy war. The jihad goes on’, it is always open to interpretations.

Read more:

• http://www.kashmirherald.com/bookreviews/shadeofswords.html
• http://www.allaahuakbar.net/jihaad/extract_from_the_shade_of_swords.htm
• http://www.mjakbar.org/

http://www.crossword.in/books/shade-swords-akbar-m-j/p-books-8174362916.html

Jahnavi Sanghvi