Tarla Dalal - Profile
Tarla is called the queen of Indian cookery and rightfully so. Starting her career as
home based cooking classes, she soon moved on to international cooking
demonstration..With over 20 cookbooks (with many bestsellers among them), and her brand
name spices and food mixes Tarla has now become the definitive word of Indian cookery
Ms. Tarla Dalal is India’s best - selling cookery author since over 2 decades. She
has written a total of 30 titles, several of which have been translated in various
languages like Hindi, Gujrati, Marathi, Bengali and even Dutch and Russian! The total
sales of her cookbooks exceed 1 million copies. Her first book ‘The Pleasures of
Vegetarian cooking’, which was published in 1974, was an instant success with Indian
housewives. The book, which is considered a classic in cookery books, has sold a record
125,000 copies.
Her cookery show "Cook it Up with Tarla Dalal" is viewed to approx. 40
different countries across the world.
Born in Pune, Ms. Dalal moved to Mumbai after her marriage. Her experiments in the
kitchen began soon after she discovered her husband was an avid food lover. He encouraged
her to try cooking different kinds of cuisines at home.
Soon she was teaching these recipes to 6 young girls; which was the beginning of her
cooking career. Very soon the classes were thriving with a huge waiting list of students,
who wanted to enroll. It was during this period that she began compile her own recipes and
also modified recipes from other cuisine’s to suit the Indian palate. The Khaleej
Times, Dubai quoted that "she has streamlined the eating habits in
India".Ms.Dalal still conducts numerous cooking demonstrations both in India &
abroad.
An interesting fact is that Ms. Tarla Dalal’s books are sold not only in various
book shops and speciality shops in India and abroad but also they have done brisk business
in the most unusual places like video libraries, toy shops, boutiques and supermarkets.
According to IndiaToday, India’s leading news analysis magazine, Ms. Dalal has sold
the maximum number of books in any field as compared to any other Indian author and at a
conservative estimate, her recipes have been tried and are trusted in over 20 million
Indian homes.
Ms. Tarla Dalal writes a large number of cookery columns for various publications,
newspapers and magazines like Indian Express, Dainik Jagaran, Manorama, Mid-Day, Femina,
Afternoon, Loksatta, Lokprabha, The Telegraph (Calcutta), Malayala Manorama, Abhiyan,
Stree etc. have carried her cookery columns. The electronic media including various TV
stations/channels has extensively covered her recipes. She has participated in numerous
cookery programmes on TV, Radio and now as mentioned earlier hosts her own cookery show "Cook
it Up with Tarla Dalal" on Sony Entertainment Television.
