India, Oct. 20 -- It's only on page 185, roughly halfway through Cooking for my firefly, that Malvika Singh gets down to the business of recipes. Until then, the cookbook memoir traverses dinner parties and buffets, cocktails and special occasions, high-ranking officials and custodians of culture.

Describing herself as a "professional dilettante", Cooking is the second of Singh's trilogy of memoirs. The first, Saris of Memory memorialized her life one sari at a time. This one is told through food, or to be more precise through entertaining.

"I was brought up to believe that life and good living, at work and after work, was about engaging with people, participating actively in conversation, sharing ideas over a meal of appetizing, wholes...