Chef Profile: Monica Bhide, of the Best-Selling Modern Spice
Monica Bhide
Editor’s Note: There’s still time to enter to win a copy of the just-published Zwilling J.A. Henckels Complete Book of Knife Skills, a $34.95 value. Go here to enter.
And now, today’s main attraction:
The Chef: Monica Bhide is a food and travel writer and the author of the best-selling Modern Spice: Inspired Indian Flavors for the Contemporary Kitchen
The Toolbox: “I guess my toolbox is a rather sad drawer filled with implements,” she sighs. Yes, but they look like they’re convenient as well as pretty darn cozy in there.
Monica's 'sad' tool drawer.
The Tools: “Various spatulas, rolling pins, pizza cutters, garlic peel removers, spoons of varying sizes, and some mean-looking bamboo skewers,” she reports. I also spy a well-loved potato masher, nested and matched measuring cups — such organization would get big laughs in my house — and a wooden-handled whisk, which are becoming increasingly difficult to find.
A bevy of wooden kitchen tools.
I’m wondering if the wooden tools have a particular smell to them, of curry, cardamom, and the zillions of other spices Monica used when researching and testing the recipes for Modern Spice. Wooden tools are like people: they always carry their history with them.
Her Love Tool: “I love my cheese grater because I use it at least a couple of times a day to grate ginger,” she says. “It’s perfect. I use the ginger for my food, for tea, and even use the ginger juice for cocktails.”
The Tool-Done-Gone: “I used to have an apple corer, but threw it out because I never seemed to use it. Then last week, I was testing recipes for apple dumplings and guess what I needed?”
The Strangest Tool in the Box, er, Drawer: When I was a kid, I used to have these metal rattles that were holiday-themed and they’re the same shape as the tool Monica describes as a tool to make Indian breads: “It looks like an upside-down wooden portabella, but I use it to puff up griddle breads on the stove.”
What A Psychologist Would Say About Her Toolbox: “Hopefully, that my toolbox is a lot like me: lots of substance, but maybe not much cool style, LOL.”
Her Voyeuristic Side: “I’d love to know what secrets Dorie Greenspan hides in her toolbox!”
Dorie, are you listening?
Yes, I’m listening and I’m loving what Monica is using/saying.
Here are a couple of things about my ‘tool box’ — it’s messy (as in very messy) and cluttered, and for 20 years it had a water pistol in it. My son hid his water gun in the drawer and I didn’t have the heart to take it out. When he was past water-pistol age, it was fun to open the drawer and see it tucked in there.