Nandita Godbole

One snowy December morning in 1998, in a small Midwestern college town, I worked inside a windowless archive room, organising old correspondences. Outside, snowdrifts reached my knees, and the wind sliced through the air like glass. Inside, I felt grateful to be warm, to have work. A few black-and-white photographs escaped one teetering stack, framing a faded landscape a world away. I imagined the shimmering palm trees, bright tropical blooms, and could almost taste the salty sea air. (magazine is to correct photo credits.)

Atlanta only Indonesian dessert place, a review.

Sweater weather calls for rich bowls of broth, congee, and bisque. Find your best bowl of soup in Atlanta.

Travel Feature: Buying Danish butter cookie tins at the local grocery store was one of the small joys of my early years as an immigrant in the U.S. To me, they weren’t just cookies— they transported me back to the biscuit tins of the Indian company J.B. Mangharam, which my grandfather brought home every Diwali.... (READ MORE)

There’s a plastic deli tub of “Super Juice” behind the bar at Expo, a sort of nouveau-dive situated just outside the halo of lights that illuminates Louisville’s historic Whiskey Row. Made with lemon and lime peels, the mixture is a potent, pucker-inducing blast — almost like a supercharged Lemon Lime Gatorade, sans sugar.
But once it’s blended into a cocktail like their Too Many Devils — made with pistachio-washed gin, melon, and cucumber — it mellows into a fresh wash of citrus. Nickle Morr...

In the late 1980s, Bombay (now Mumbai) had morphed into a rebellious teenager, the child of loving philanthropic parents but an incomplete adult, a poster-child of glitz, romancing glamour, confidently toying with risk. It had transitioned from its early years as a booming industrial city into a violent and treacherous megapolis. And my father was a decorated police officer serving the city we all loved.
The walls of our government-issue quarters were stained with the same colors, united in t...

Introduction to LDEI and recipe.

As the weather turns cooler, hearty daals appear more frequently at dinner tables. Yellow mung bean daal is one of the easiest to cook. A welcome and nutrient rich addition to this daal is a perennial favorite vegetable in the Indian cuisine: red pumpkin. Quartered portions of red pumpkin are frequently available in the vegetable aisle at Indian grocery stores. Its skin isn't as firm as a pie pumpkin and can be easily peeled away with a kitchen peeler. It is also sweeter in taste than pie pumpkins.

Atlanta’s Indian dining scene has come a long way since the city’s first Indian restaurant, Calcutta (1973–1984). In recent years, the options for both classic and regional Indian cuisine have expanded dramatically, reflecting the city’s growing South Asian community and adventurous dining culture. Find out which ones made the cut!!

Interview:
It is 1920s Kolhapur. Ratanlal and Shanta have been on the run for many days and finally find boarding for the night at the home of a flower vendor. Their meal at night is a simple misal-matki (stew of moth beans) cooked down with onions and spices redolent with the heat of black pepper, the nuttiness of dried coconut and the meaty aroma of dagad-phool (lichen) and bhakri (flatbread made of millets). There’s buttermilk and jaggery to wash down the spice..." Read more in the article.

Interview:

It was only when Nandita Godbole began tracing her family’s story that she realized how much she did not know about her background. “When I was growing up in India, we would visit my dad’s parents a couple times a year... There was never really any talk about [my grandmother’s] heritage,” Godbole, a food writer who has written two cookbooks, told NBC News. “I started thinking about her because I didn’t know anything about her...." Read more in article.

A quick overview of an artist residency award at the prestigious Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts (Maine). This award was an all-expense paid 10-day residency at Watershed, to explore the intersection of food and ceramic arts, and to be a peer to 15 young artists attending the residency at the same time. The reel includes snapshots of my time there. Some significant moments are captured in additional photos included here.

A quick BTS snapshot into my journey over the past 15 years to the making of my award-winning cookbook, Masaleydaar: Classic Indian Spice Blends (2023).

On July 8, Chai Pani Decatur welcomed entrepreneur, author, and chef Barkha Cardoz for a special pop-up dinner celebrating her debut cookbook, With Love & Masalas. Hosted by Chef Meherwan Irani, the evening brought together food lovers and community members for a heartfelt culinary experience. Read more here.

As UC Berkeley prepares for its annual commencement celebrations, families and friends will gather to honor their graduates’ achievements. What better way to continue the celebration than with a memorable meal? Just steps from campus, Berkeley’s vibrant dining scene offers a mix of historic landmarks and global flavors, each reflecting the city’s deep ties to diverse cultures, communities, and its spirit of innovation.