UNLIKE a rolling stone that gathers no moss, Sheldon Austin, director of the United States Information Service, collects recipes and gleans knowledge of food from wherever he is posted in the American foreign service. Other diplomats might come away with paintings, artefacts and other memories of the cities they have served in, Sheldon picks up cookery books.

Is he a foodie? Yes! And a wonderful multi-cuisine cook, as well. His repertoire runs into all kinds of exotic recipes he mastered in Morocco, Algeria, France, Brazil, Belgium, Sierra Leone, the US of A, naturally, and now India. While he is cooking a Sunday lunch for UpperCrust at his luxurious flat at Mayfair Gardens on Malabar Hill, Bombay, I browse through his cookery books.

They are on Spanish, Italian, South-West American, Greek, Thai and French cooking. Besides, he has several books on pastas, breads, spices and pies, the Times of London�s cookery book and also the New York Times�. Plus Cordon Bleu�s titles on desserts and Camelia Panjabi�s 50 Great Indian Curries.

In the kitchen, Sheldon is juggling around three pots simmering on an American cooking range. �Hmmn... this tastes just right, it�s almost done, a tad more of cumin maybe...� he talks to himself. I watch him stir the contents of one pot that is casting a wicked aroma around his modest kitchen. He withdraws the wooden spatula, licks it, and tosses it into a sink. There is a pleased, satisfied look on his face. Lunch is ready.

The menu,� he announces cheerfully, �is Moroccan carrot and orange salad, Moroccan-style chicken with vegetables and Tex-Mex refried beans.� To go with the lunch, he selects a bottle of Bourgogne Hautes Cotes De Nuits red wine from a well-stacked rack in a corner and says, �For this cook-in, I did the shopping at Crawford Market. I love markets. That�s where I see what the people of the city eat, that�s where I learn what�s available.�

The lunch is Moroccan, he explains, because it is the cuisine that impressed him most. Likewise, he is intrigued by Indian food. Especially the amazing mix and balance of spices. �I am an experimental cook. I take ideas, use innovation and creativity, and produce a recipe that works. But by controlling the use of spices, which I learnt here, I can now bring a zing to everything I cook.�

His first attempt at cooking was when he was nine, Sheldon says. �To be a good cook you must love to eat food, and a variety of food. My mother did not have time to cook everything I liked, so I went to a public library and read how to do so. Then one day I announced at home, �Today, I�m doin� the cookin.� And I cooked a hamburger! Nothing unusual, but I cooked it with passion. Later, an aunt predicted, �This guy�s gonna become a cook!��

But Sheldon didn�t. He did consider the Cordon Bleu course of cooking, but decided instead to take up languages and join the foreign services and become a diplomat. �My karma was not to be a cook, but I learnt to use cooking to bring people together,� Sheldon explains. Today, his inspiration for cooking comes from the several countries he has worked in.

But my love for food does not stop at cooking,� he says hastily, �I love eating, too.� And he eats whenever his body tells him its hungry! �...Anything at anytime,� he says, �my breakfast could be another man�s lunch!� His drinking habits are pretty sober, however. He prefers wines, dark rum and vodka, and is into mixing and matching foods and spirits. �But if there�s anything that can be drunk, I�ll drink it,� Sheldon adds daringly.