Plain fare from the hills

FOODIE

Art expert Alka Pande whips up a light Kumaoni dish.

Now today you'll have a taste of my tea, my Lipton Gold. Normally I like Orange Pekoe. I ubalo it, and then blend it..." It was a mild, milky tea with a pleasant aroma, and it went down quickly on a cool evening.

It contrasted wildly with our host, art historian, curator and author Alka Pande, who looked almost larger-than-life with her big voice, rapid-flow engaging talk, expressive eyes and dramatic all-black appearance.

It was a false contrast, though, for Dr Pande is a details person with a subtle eye. Her new home, a flat behind Delhi's noisy South Extension II market (not where one imagines an art lover would choose to live), looks like a lot of effort went into shaping its interiors, but the effect is deliberately low-key.

Judging by the workmanlike sounds filtering down the stairs (it's a duplex), things are still being finalised up there.

"I have an architect, but I went over every detail with him," she says, "every little thing, every light."

A bare bulb hangs loose from the ceiling where a fan should go, and Pande is apologetic: "I haven't had time to shop for sleek fans." But Pande's lasting interest and work in the field of Indian erotic art, disappointingly, hasn't spiced up the art in her home.

Tea out of the way, Pande bustles into the kitchen. Her cook and maid have kept things ground, chopped, boiled and ready. "I like [the grinding] done the indigenous way," says Pande, "not in a mixie."

Pande is a Kumaoni ("I'm from the land of Sumitranandan Pant, Gobind Ballabh Pant..."), but her community originated in Maharashtra.

Like all wars, the Maratha wars had a mixie effect, depositing groups far from their homelands, among them Pande's people. They took to their new home happily enough, and today Pande is cooking us a simple Kumaoni dish called badi aloo.

"My memories [of growing up] are of eating food on a winter afternoon in the house with the family," she says. Recently, Pande and her daughter, now in college in the UK, shared "a lovely evening in Vienna when my daughter and I were eating dumplings together "" as friends, not mother and daughter".

The badis (Kumaoni-style, not Punjabi) are homemade. Pande's description of how they are made is restful and appetising in itself. "I make them only in my home in Nainital," she says, "in the bright October sun after the rains."

The pressure cooker gives two seetis and the dish is ready. With rice, it tastes light and tangy, and has at least four different textures "" rice, curry, badis and aloo.

"At this point in my life," says Pande truthfully but rather grandly, "I am embroidering my life. I'm not saying it's a burnout, but it's a coming-of-age. I have climbed the mountain and now I want to sit."

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FAVOURITE RECIPE

BADI ALOO

1 kg black crushed urad dal
A pinch of black pepper, roughly ground
250 gm pahadi kakdis, grated and squeezed dry
2 large tomatoes, grated
2 medium potatoes boiled and cut into big cubes
1 tbsp roasted atta
1 small tsp cumin
1 medium tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp paprika (red chilli powder)
1/2 tsp crushed garlic
1/2 tsp ginger paste
1 large onion, grated
A pinch of heeng
2-3 dried red chillies
4 tbsp mustard oil
1/2 tsp haldi