Jyoti, eldest of three daughters, has always tried to fit into her New Jersey Gujarati community. Her parents are proud that she married an approved Indian man whose parents own a traditional Tandoori restaurant, Taste of Ginger. When she helps restore its sagging reputation, she brings her mother's love of cooking to new imaginative heights by creating fusion cuisine. The only problem is that Ashok and Jyoti are not able to have a child. After five years of experiencing rounds of fertility treatments and subsequent miscarriages, and her husband divorcing her and remarrying a younger woman, Jyoti feels like a failure. Her old college roommate and best friend Karishma, who lived in Florence Italy, has invited her for a visit many times, but at rock bottom, she accepts her invitation.
In the Tuscany countryside she begins to heal from her unhappiness. She finds that the immigrant community of Indian aunties that hounded her in America for befriending bad girl, Karishma, have no influence on her here. She starts to enjoy a casual life of cooking Italian food blended with traditional Indian recipes for her new community of friends. She also does a drunken tik tok video where she shares her struggles as she cooks Indian comfort food and it goes viral. Karishma encourages her to do a follow-up, but her mother calls and begs her to take it down, as it is embarrassing the family and her sisters agree. Torn between her emerging self-respect and the pull of the Gujarati community, she takes it down but also does more videos where she talks and cooks. One of her new friends asks her if she would like to make a tasting meal for a customer's wine pairing. If she successfully creates this meal, he promises that they will also fund eight more. Since Ashok has given her the opportunity to buy the family restaurant, she agrees to make the meal so that she can purchase Taste of Ginger and go back to being a chef. She has been creating new recipes in her head, ways to combine Italian and Indian dishes, but she doesn't have the confidence that this food will be accepted by native Italians. Will she be able to trust herself or succumb to the pressure of tradition?
While writing a good mother-daughter conflict, Shah also brings up other points about life as an outsider. Her characters bemoan the limited visibility of Indian authors in the publishing industry. Jyoti starts dating an Italian man and runs into cultural stereotyping. There is plenty for book clubs to discuss here-and it ends with many of the mouthwatering recipes mentioned in the novel...what's not to love!
Reviewed by Donna Ballard
Publication date - September 3, 2024
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