IT was a weekend full of cooking Goan food, as research for my book. Aunty Savia, an aunt from Goa spent the weekend with me, taking me through the nuances of Xacuti, Sorpotel and Fish Caldeen.

Now Aunty Savia, is an expert cook you know the kind that always seem to make delicious food… even if they are just a simple snack… Anyways, not only does she make and sell her own masalas, but for many years, she used to run a pickling factory, the products of which got me through many a tasteless hostel meal.

So you can imagine my surprise when she whipped out cookbook to refer to. Yellowed, frayed and battered, it was a copy of The Goan Cookbook by Joyce Fernandes.

"I always refer to this book when I cook," she said, as her finger rifled through fragile pages, inundated with scribbles in a variety of inks and smudges, looking for the exact quantity of onion required in a fish curry.

It got me to thinking about the books that influence my cooking. I have a collection of cookbooks going on a 1000, and one of my favourite weekend activities to indulge in is armchair cooking.

What that means is that I sit around for hours on end, leafing through a pile of cookbooks, drooling over pictures, reading recipes like others would chapters in a book and thinking of all the things I will cook.

Now, I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, (perhaps because behavior like this smacks of "four annas less" to quote Aunty Savia) but I rarely end up cooking anything after I am done even though planning menus is the excuse I hide behind.

But a little armchair cooking can give rainy days a makeover, especially when accompanied by a big mug of some hot and spicy soup… I digress however, on seeing Aunty Savia's battered cookbook, I was reminded of a few cookbooks that adorn my bedside shelf so I can have them on hand whenever I want them... invaluable gems that I find I return to time and again, for guidance, for inspiration or just for comfort.

Like Aunty Savia, I have an equally important -albeit much less battered - copy of another community cookbook.