A vegetarian's version of chicken legs

FOODIE

Veena Gidwani, despite being the head honcho of a PR company, finds time to cook a perfect meal.

A column like this seems made for someone like Veena Gidwani. As commander-in-chief of the PR division of the Rs 1,100 crore Madison Communications group, she is noted. As an earnest chef and general food enthusiast, she is perhaps less known. But when the cook book she has authored is out, that'll change.

I feel compelled to arrive 10 minutes early for our tryst. She has that efficient pitch to her voice. Her home is equally efficiently run, and spotless.

She is also fastidious about her diet, preferring to cook to feed "" others, that is. Five almonds, a bowl of fruit and dalia is her daily breakfast. Only on weekends does she permit herself indulgence in traditional Sindhi fare "" koki, seyal dabalroti and dal pakwan, all, we note, tilting heavily toward carbohydrates and fats. How her parents and grandparents consumed that and Sindhi mutton, and still kept cardiac ailments at bay is something she struggles to reconcile herself with.

Despite being a vegetarian by choice, inspired originally by her reading of Theosophy, Gidwani is happy to serve up chicken, which, by the way, is cooked to tender perfection. "It's about precision cooking," she says.

It's the same exacting nature that got her to collect family data and construct an exhaustive family tree as a Diwali present to her family last year. "I have 35 first cousins, so four generations was a tall order," she laughs.

And how does she find the time to play bridge, study classical vocals and cook?

Presumably, leveraging an ever-changing media environment for 30 very varied client accounts is all-consuming.

"I find cooking completely relaxing," she says. Her friends and family are at the receiving end of her experiments with pickles, jams and jellies, recipes that are mostly hand-me-downs from family. Her family originally hailed from Karachi and post-partition horror stories are unfortunately unshakable ghosts from the past.

Gidwani however today is a committed "Bandra girl". She urges me to walk a few doors down to where the Koli women from adjoining Chimbai fishing village sell Bandra's most wanted puri-bhaji on makeshift tables to queues of hungry morning walkers. "Check out the bottles of pickles they lay out as well," she says.

After chatting about bridge, her sons and the vagaries of a rapidly growing communications industry we decide to call it a morning. But not before we make a pact to swap recipes. Kerala stew going her way, Peshawari chicken coming mine.