"I do coconut curries, Aab Gosht, Yakhni, Kerala ishtews, raitas in white colour. All kinds of salads in green. I use the freshness of the veggies to bring out the green, perhaps add some soda to maintain the freshness. You should see how the Chinese greens, the brocolli, runner beans and spinach come out in my salads! I bring out recipes like Fish Moilee, the Hyderabadi Chicken Risala, Gujarati and Rajasthani kadhis, egg mousse, squash and pumpkin in yellow.

Then there is the ubiquitous red-orange food in Indian cuisine, you know the equivalent of certain Italian foods, like our Rojan Josh, the Tandoori Chicken, the Bengali fish, mutton and chicken curries, the Prawn Malai Curry.

I think the Thais understand red, white and green curries, but we don't have their artistic distinctions within the same meal. I also do food in dark chocolate, like chocolate pudding, ice-creams, chocolate sauce with liqueur, flambed gulab jamun, brownies, coffee (not Nescafe!). And I love the colour of caviar, chicken aspic with sherry, wine jelly, my very special preparation of dark brown roast chicken without stuffing. And gooseberries with sauce."

Does food feature in any of her paintings? "No," replied Anjolie. "But I once invited a family for dinner and forgot to cook for them! They were so disappointed. So, to make up, I did a painting of the dinner that I should have cooked for them. Of course, they adored the painting.

It is put up in their home, you should go and see it some time. I think they appreciated the painting more than they would have the dinner! But apart from that, I have never considered painting food. No, not even fruit. Though, I agree, food would make a pretty picture. In fact, let me do some water colours of the food I have cooked for you and of my kitchen. You may like them...

Nor has Anjolie ever put down her recipes for a book. "One is in the pipeline," she revealed. "It will be a cookery book of secret family recipes and will have contributions from my French aunt, American grandmother, my cousins from Goa, the Punjabi daughters-in-law, my husband's family in Kerala, my own treasured Bengali recipes, the ones I have picked up on my travels to Thailand, the US, France, Spain, Italy, Hong Kong, China, the fusion food I learned to make do with during all the years I stayed in poor Russia when my husband was posted there by the Indian Navy. I can easily do some 150 esoteric and unconventional dishes. I do not have the recipes for them. I do them out of my head! Just like that. It should be fun to put them together."

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