"On the Threshold of Kitchen" is my infallible fallback when I need to cook the traditional Gujarati food I grew up eating. A 4-volume compendium, this set of books came with me as my 'dowry', when I married.

It quickly became my fallback when I longed for traditional Gujarati recipes. Every time I use it, I thank the fates that made it mine every time I recreate a dish I grew up eating, but never learnt to cook.

The "Rasoda ni rani banje" or May you be the queen of your kitchen inscribed in it by my mother as a blessing makes it even more special. But long before mom gave me On The Threshold of Kitchen, she gave me another book that actually got me hooked to cookbooks.

It was the first cookbook I ever owned. Called Memories with Food at Gipsy House it was written by Felicity and Roald Dahl and mum got it for me knowing I was an avid reader of Dahl's children's and guessing I might like it.

I did. It was perfectly Dahlicous! Set in Gipsy House, the Dahl family home in England, the book allows me a glimpse of Roald Dahl's life via recipes from his kitchen, juxtaposed against life in an upper middle class home in the UK.

It is a beautiful blend of anecdotes from Roald Dahl's life and recipes from his kitchen. It has an honesty of the narrative like his books and is enriched with illustrations by Quentin Blake.

This book set many precedents for me. Like Felicity Dahl, I always take real pictures of real food when I style for a food story -(no cheating or fake food for me! And it set the style of how I would entertain for the rest of my life. Dahl loved food.

His table was a celebration of fuss free good food enjoyed with good friends and it all spills out of the pages of this book, in a delicious chaotic jumble. Like Dahl, I came to love eating with friends and talking about food, cooking and eating.

In the photograph: The book cover of Memories with Food at Gipsy House.