Rashmi Uday Singh can cook... �but without recipes. If I open a cookery book, I feel claustrophobic after Step No. 3 of the recipe and then want to do my own thing. I don�t like the tyranny of a recipe. Sure, cooking is an art and science. But I already have the cooking fundas, the basics, I learnt from my Mum. I think that cooking like everything else, requires a lot of common sense. Of course, genius cooking requires talent and experience as well.�

THE food and wine industry has got nobody like Rashmi Uday Singh. A more enterprising, go-getting and informative gourmet with a healthy and curious interest in food, India has yet to see. She attributes her basic interest in food to her Punjabi genes. Long before she became a restaurant critic, a food writer, a television anchor for a health show, a promoter of unusual cuisines, and a seller of exotic titbits and foods, Rashmi was the daughter of a food-loving couple that came from Pakistan. �Mum was an excellent saatvik khana cook, she exposed me to conservative Arya Samaji food, and she even authored two books in Hindi on the subject. Dad was the pucca brown sahib, his tastes were more potato and meat ball curry and stew. I learnt the basics of cooking by helping my Mum at home when she took cooking classes,� she explains today.

She went on to study journalism in Bombay with the Times of India in 1975. But her parents wanted her to return to Delhi, which is where she was from, to get married to some fat and rich Punjabi gentleman! �I didn�t want to marry a fat and rich Punju,� Rashmi says, �so I evolved a scheme to put off marriage. I joined the Indian Administrative Services!� And she went on to become an officer with the Income Tax Department, the kind that went on raids and to whom all CEOs and MDs of the corporate world sucked up.

There was marriage, then, and a mother-in-law in Bombay who edited a magazine called Bombay for which Rashmi did restaurant reviews and other stories on food. When Bombay closed down, Rashmi continued writing on food, but this time for Vinod Mehta�s Sunday Observer, Rauf Ahmed�s Saturday Times and Behram Contractor�s the Afternoon Despatch & Courier. And she wrote about the first Chinese restaurants in Bombay and the small Goan eateries that she would discover by �hanging on to Busybee�, India�s leading restaurant reviewer. She also covered food bazaars and small shops selling home-made pickles and farsans. �I had a ball right until the time I quit working for the government in 1990,� she says, �then I started a food column for the Times, and went over to Independent as their food critic. And when that shut down, I was handed over as dowry to Bombay Times.�

She explains her fascination with food: �This thing about food, while it is interesting and exciting, is not all about eating. I find the restaurants themselves equally interesting and exciting, I find that they are a combination of history and people, and this is reflected in my writing. My food columns are not the I, me and my palate kind, but I am more interested in bringing out the entire restaurant experience. I love meeting people, the chefs, waiters, I enjoy going to new places, new restaurants, pubs and night spots and meeting strange cuckoos, I find all this very rejuvenating.�

Can Rashmi Uday Singh cook? �I love to cook,� she replies, �but without recipes. If I open a cookery book, I feel claustrophobic after Step No. 3 of the recipe and then want to do my own thing. I don�t like the tyranny of a recipe. Sure, cooking is an art and science. But I already have the cooking fundas, the basics, I learnt from my Mum, and I have done scores of short courses at the catering college. I think that cooking like everything else, requires a lot of common sense. Of course, genius cooking requires talent and experience as well.� At home, she has a jolly, fat cook whom she supervises over all the meals. She shops for all the ingredients and produce herself. And she has all kinds of closely guarded suppliers who deliver the choicest fish, meats and veggies to her door.

She�s very much into healthy eating and cooking because 52 episodes of the Health Today television show she did for India Today has made her that conscious.

Her cooking repertoire includes Indian definitely, and Chinese with a passion. �It�s so simplle,� Rashmi says, �all you require is a high flame! I do stir-fry dishes, dim sums, all very simple when you have Nelson Wang�s China Garden recipes. I am experimenting with Thai food at the moment. I also do excellent dips and pickles, lots of European food, I am quite hot in bakes and desserts. Then I try out all the recipes I introduce at my Good Food Academy to see whether they really work or not. The idea behind the academy is to give people the access to great chefs of the city. Likewise with my Good Food Gallerie at Crossroads in Bombay. I stock it with all kinds of exotics foods that you cannot get in Bombay. I do lots of things with food apart from just stuffing my face!�

And after compiling four restaurants guides, three on Bombay and one on Pune, and another book on celebrity cooks in India, Rashmi Uday Singh is still happy exploring new cities and charting out restaurant guides for foodies of India. �There is no good listing, no date base, for restaurants in India,� she says, �and I enjoy the process of going into unchartered territories, meeting restaurateurs and chefs, taking down notes on small scraps of paper, and putting them together in the form of a book!� And she insists on paying her way everywhere. �I once paid a bill of Rs. 17,000 at the Zodiac Grill for a review I did. Of course I didn�t get reimbursed. I feel awkward to write my restaurant reviews if I have not paid the bill! I didn�t sell my soul for crores of rupees when I was in the Income Tax, why should I sell it now for a meal of Rs, 800?�