Sarina Kamini Spirits In A Spice Jar

For Sarina Kamini’s Kashmiri family, food is love, love is faith, and faith is family.

At her lowest ebb, Sarina’s deceased Ammi’s typed-up cooking notes become a recipe for healing, her progress in the kitchen marked by her movement through bitterness, grief and loneliness—the daal that is too fiery and lumpen; her play with salt that pricks and burns. In her quest to teach herself how to personalise tradition and spirituality through spice, Sarina creates space to reconsider her relationship with Hinduism and God in a way that allows room for questions. Here in conversation between The Lifestyle Journalist and the spice mistress Sarina Kamini.

What inspires you to pursue cooking professionally?

Well, I am not a professional cook! I am a professional writer, and had worked as a food-writer and a food critic for several years before transforming into an author. As chance would have it, writing my memoir- Spirits In A Spice Jar, has opened up a world of cooking to me. While I am not a chef, I do run spice courses, teaching everyone from children to grown men and women the secrets to spice – their personalities and peccadilloes. The sweet and cheeky characteristics of each spice that make them so fun to use and so compelling to cook with. I am the Spice Mistress! The joy I find in not only pursuing my love for spice but also being able to share that with others is incomparable. Passing on my love for Kashmiri cooking and for the spices themselves feels as natural to me as breathing.

What ingredient do you feel is underappreciated?