Don't know me now, then you'll never know me later

[sovay]

Returned from the optometrist's, I have nocturnal eyes and mirrorshades. When spatch informed me that Zohran Mamdani is Mira Nair's kid, I remarked that it was a little like discovering that Madhur Jaffrey the author of cookbooks and children's books is the actor who introduced Ismail Merchant to James Ivory. I feel I really should have seen this video coming.

Comments

[sovay]

So am I to take it from your post that Madhur Jaffrey WAS the one who introduced Ismail Merchant to James Ivory?

Yes! And she acted for them and wrote legendary cookbooks and one of the touchstone books of retellings of my elementary school reading and is still around! She's an icon. And also just really cool.

[asakiyume]

I only know her from the cookbooks! Her Shah Jahani lamb is what I cook if I need to do something meaty for a feast.

[sovay]

I only know her from the cookbooks! Her Shah Jahani lamb is what I cook if I need to do something meaty for a feast.

A worthy choice! The book of retellings is Seasons of Splendour (1985), handily reprinted a few years ago by the NYRB. It was how I first encountered her, then the cookbooks, then the acting.

Seasons of Splendour

[asakiyume]

This looks beautiful!

[sovay]

This looks beautiful!

The same library had Kiri Te Kanawa's Land of the Long White Cloud (1989), so I got to know her as a storyteller, too, before I heard her as an opera singer.

[asakiyume]

Smiling because people have so much to share. "Oh yeah, I sing opera, but let me also tell you some of the stories of my homeland." "Oh, sure, I'm an actress, but I also love to cook, and let me, too, share some stories..."