Abhilasha Sethia and Vidhi Beri have teamed up to gift young parents a cookbook that lessens the everyday hassle of cooking something new and nutritious for their young ones. While Sethia is a recipe author, chef and grandmother, Beri is a child nutrition specialist and a mother. And melding their passion, expertise in their respective fields and love for the little ones in their families, their new cookbook A Superfood A Day: Cookbook for Growing Children fills the big void of a homegrown book for two to 10-year-olds. Central to the book is superfood and it not only provides recipes that are easy to make, nutritious and new but also gives the right guidance with a meal plan. With around 70 recipes, and QR codes for video tutorials, A Superfood A Day is a must-have diet manual for all young parents. A tete-a-tete with Abhilasha and Vidhi before they launch their book on September 17.
A Superfood A Day by Abhilasha Sethia and Vidhi Beri Published by BEE Books Price: Rs 999
What is it that got you two together for A Superfood A Day?
Abhilasha: We have been family friends for long, meeting socially. What led to the book was my grandson who was born at the peak of the pandemic in Singapore. While watching my children take care of their kid there, I realised that the style of parenting has changed so much. When I came back to Calcutta and was contemplating on doing something special for my grandson’s birthday, I decided to tap into my passion. I knew that I was most passionate about cooking. And since I have written a cookbook earlier, I thought why not give him a cookbook which he can cherish for much longer. I wanted it to be something meaningful and beneficial for other kids as well. And while doing my research, Vidhi’s name came into my mind. She is a child nutritionist and a lactation consultant as well. She readily agreed to co-author it and that’s how A Superfood A Day happened.
Vidhi: I was very excited because I knew about the challenges that she was talking about. Raising a kid during Covid was a real struggle and I was appreciative of the idea of this beautiful gift that she wanted to give. The idea was to reinvent simple and traditional recipes and take a novel approach towards them. It was all about bringing nutrition, cooking fast and practical dishes in the book with Abhilasha’s expertise in food.
Since you both have already written books, tell us about them in brief.
Abhilasha: The first book I wrote was Healthy Cooking for Patients with Kidney Ailments, a need-based book. For eight years I went through a journey and I realised that there was no book dedicated to kidney patients, especially for vegetarians. Food plays a crucial role in kidney patients and I really wanted to give something back to people who were struggling like me.
Vidhi: My book was Decoding Motherhood that came out around three years ago. It was a guide for maternity, feeding, post-natal, exercise and baby care.
There are over 70 recipes in A Superfood A Day. Tell us about the process of shortlisting the recipes.
Abhilasha: When I was discussing the book with my children, my son came up with the idea of QR codes that would lead to videos of the recipes. These codes are a new-age tool for helping young and busy parents. So, a lot of recipes have a QR code. We realised that there’s a lot of need for tiffin and snacks and we kept the theme ‘A Superfood a Day’ with every recipe having one superfood.
Vidhi: The main thing was to come up with a theme. Parents want meal plans and something that is latest, easy and has newness in them too. So, we put everything there and identified 10 different types of superfoods and structured everything around it. We have also put food as medicine, informing how to get iron, calcium, and vitamins every day from the food. Another interesting aspect of the book is that it also has nuske or natural remedies for normal cough and cold or for digestion. There are vegan options as well.
Abhilasha: Meal plans are of great help and hence we have structured the superfood in the meal plan itself so that it’s easy for parents to follow. There are also basic recipes like making chena at home, which we generally think is a rocket science, though it’s not. There are also recipes for making stock and even white sauce.
Out of the many recipes in the book can you pinpoint a few that you have taken from the regular kitchen and given a twist?
Abhilasha: There are quite a few, one would be Dates Laddu. We wanted to make laddu interesting for kids. So we innovated with date balls that look like a chocolate ball but are laddos with dates, pistachio, no sugar, no chocolate, coconut and yet it’s yummy. I also believe in a lot of seasonal and local food, instead of getting exotic unnecessarily. So we have sattu drink and laddu that can be used throughout the year. We have even used sattu powder in dhoklas and vegetable appams. So, in small ways, we have tried to be mindful and innovative.
Vishi: There are also a lot of wraps and sandwiches using a lot of jowar flour as it is the year of millets.
We hope A Superfood A Day is not the end but the beginning of something new and exciting.
Abhilasha: Yes, definitely, we are going to keep adding videos to the pool. We have created a page on social media and added a few recipes and we will keep adding more. And yes, may be we can plan for a second book in the future as a lot can be done. Most, importantly, it’s not just about the book but a lot more. We will be sharing a lot of things and building a community.