News
EAST LAKE — They sat around the bar area of Surinder Dhaliwal's kitchen on a recent Friday evening and watched as she gracefully moved around the room.
From the refrigerator, to the stove, to the kitchen sink and back to the stove where she kept stirring the sizzling garlic or ginger, Dhaliwal never stopped talking. Her magenta scarf flowed with her every move. The strands of her hair, perfectly clipped in a bob, never swung out of place for long.
Dhaliwal was in her element. She was in the kitchen of her spacious townhome teaching others about Indian cuisine
For the past year and a half, Dhaliwal, 60, has been teaching how to cook authentic Indian food from her home.
"It's such a satisfaction when they enjoy your food, they learn something and it just makes you feel you are doing something worthwhile," Dhaliwal said of the 2 1/2-hour cooking classes that end with the participants sitting around her dining room table and enjoying the feast they have watched come to life.
"It's intercultural too. The class is not just food. You make new friends."
On this Friday evening, the meal consisted of dahi bhalla (lentil dumplings in yogurt sauce), beef rogan josh (beef curry in fragrant garlic red sauce), aloo palak sabzi (potato spinach), saffron basmati pilaf, and gajjur halva (a carrot dessert).
The beef curry was tender and had just enough kick to remind one that it was Indian. If the dicing of the carrots had not been witnessed for the gajjur halva, one would have thought it was the filling of a sweet potato pie.
Dhaliwal instructed the students on how to store leftovers and how to adjust the level of spices in the food, and gave her blessings on the use of the microwave to shorten some of the cooking time.
She interspersed history lessons about India and the country's food in between sauteing onions and ducking into her refrigerator for another item. While much of the cooking is instructional, the students did get a chance to stick their noses in a pot or two to catch the aroma of sizzling spices.
"We pick up stuff here that we can't get anywhere else," said Ken Deffenbach of North Redington Beach, who attended the class with his wife, Mary Ann. "Little tips on how to do the cooking. Surinder is a very gracious, warm and friendly person and she really knows how to instruct you in the techniques of her cooking.
"Also, (Dhaliwal) provides a lot of cultural information that is not available anywhere else."
Dr. Pamela Patranella of St. Petersburg attended class for the first time.
"It was wonderful," Patranella said. "The food was delicious. She's amazing, a very good teacher, and moves very well. It couldn't have been better."
• • •
Dhaliwal, born in Punjab, India, migrated with her family to England where she was raised. Her father often would get spices from their homeland and spend hours cooking up Indian cuisine.
"My mother had no patience for it, but he would make all the desserts, cook all the meats," Dhaliwal said with a laugh. "Around my house, there was always too much food, especially Indian food."
Dhaliwal came to Pinellas County four years ago from Rochester, N.Y. Her husband, Jagdish, retired from the building industry and the two moved south to be near his two older brothers. Dhaliwal took an early retirement from the Rochester City School District where she taught elementary school for 33 years.
In Rochester, Dhaliwal would cook for friends on the weekends, showcasing many of the recipes that her father taught her as child.
"A lot of my friends loved Indian food and they wanted lessons," Dhaliwal said. "They brought their friends and it just expanded."
Dhaliwal became active in the East Lake community by volunteering at the East Lake Community Library where she teaches English to non-English speaking immigrants. At the nearby Cypress Woods Elementary School, she tutors reading and math. But something was still missing.
"The first year, it was so lonely, so different from Rochester that I needed to do something," said Dhaliwal, who has three adult children. "I really needed something to keep me busy so I started classes . . . about a year and a half ago. It's slow but steady."
• • •
Dhaliwal was surprised by the reaction to Indian food when she arrived in the area. Having lived in the North and in Europe, she said, there were many places to eat "good Indian food."
"The first thing they say is, 'It's so hot, it's so spicy,' and to me that is very negative," Dhaliwal said. "Indian food is not hot, it's not spicy. It's the way you present it. You've got the spices in front of you. You choose the quantity."
Dhaliwal said she can cook any style of cuisine and loves making desserts. When the students leave her home after an evening of lessons, she wants them to enjoy cooking Indian food as much as she does.
"When they go home, I want them to be able to say, 'Yes I can make it and I feel comfortable, and it's not as complicated as it seems,' " Dhaliwal said. "I want them to say, 'If I enjoy eating it, I can enjoy making it.' "
Demorris A. Lee can be reached at dalee@sptimes.com or (727) 445-4174
Loading...
