Neeta Saluja and her "Six Spices"
By Heidi M. Pascual
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"I stayed home for many years when the children were growing up because we decided that one of us will stay home," Neeta said in
a recent interview. "It was not easy, though. But they were good kids and it was fun seeing them growing up."
It was her role as a stay-at-home mom and wife that honed Neeta's expertise in Indian cooking. "Kewal is very much interested in
food, so he encouraged me, and I started trying different things," Neeta recalled and went back further. "Honestly, in my youth I've
never liked cooking. I didn't care for food that much. To me, food was just to fill the stomach; it wasn't a big thing. But my mom made
sure that every summer or at least on weekends, we did some cooking. So that was our basic training. She made sure we'd know
how to cook."
Neeta's mom majored in music, specifically the Indian tabla and vocals, but her profession never interfered with her priority:
satisfying the appetite of her husband -- a medical doctor — and her children. She apparently trained her daughters to know the
basics of Indian cooking, a big part of their culture, despite being Australian citizens for a long time. "That started in India when I was
12 or 13 years old," Neeta reflected with a big grin. "That summer after eighth grade, my mom said, 'You are cooking the evening
meals in the summer vacation.' My sister and I were both assigned to do evening meals. We didn't know how to do it, but my mom
said she'll show us how. In those days, we didn't have a gas stove or electricity, so we cooked using charcoal and firewood. We didn't
know how to light a fire, and it was a big mess. But I admire my parents because they ate whatever messy food we cooked. And they
just encouraged us to keep on doing that."/In many ways, the saying "mother knows best" worked well for Neeta, who gradually fell in
love with the art of Indian cooking.
The feeling grew more and more as she focused on her own family, now settled in Wisconsin when Kewal accepted a teaching job
at UW-Madison.
"Kewal was traveling a lot to the U.S. because there was not too much interaction in the university in Australia," Neeta recalled. "We
came to Madison in 1981, first on sabbatical, and we loved this place even in winter, so we said we will move for five years, and we
just stayed on; we never went back. So it's been 21 years now."
Neeta and Kewal came with two little kids, a three-year old daughter and a one-year old son.
"When my kids were a little older, in their third or fourth grade, I wanted to do something outside the home," Neeta said. "At UW they
offer a lot of mini-courses and there's a lot of cooking classes, so I said, 'Oh, that would be a fun thing to do.' I started teaching Indian
cooking there and I started to be out a little bit, meet people, and share my culture."
After three or four years, she decided to teach at Whole Foods instead. "The facilities weren't all that great at UW, and to me, it was
more burden than having fun, so I stopped it," Neeta admitted. "Then in '93 we went on sabbatical to India and when we came back,
Whole Foods along University Avenue had just opened and they had a kitchen and held cooking classes. It became the major place
where I offered cooking classes since then." /Neeta held classes once or twice a month all through the year except summer months
(July-August), for students coming from difference backgrounds. And as far as her "lesson plan" goes, she said, "I usually plan my
class in a way that it makes a complete meal, so there is one main dish, something to go with it, either rice, fish or some kind of
Indian bread. Then a salad or a yogurt spices. It's always Indian cooking."
Since the kids are grown up, in the last few years, Neeta has also been teaching at Orange Tree Imports and at Willy St. Coop, three
times a week at nights. During the day, she provides interpreter services to local hospitals to keep her busy.
The idea of a cookbook started when Neeta's daughter went to college and on her second year moved to an apartment. "She
wanted to cook some food for herself so she called me, 'Mom, how can I make this fish?' She's vegetarian, so she always asked for
my help -- and every time I tell her, she'd say, "Only these spices?" And then one day it struck meÂ… we don't use so many spices; we
just use basic spices, and that's it. At that time, I was taking one of these community computer classes, just to know a little bit more
about computers. At the end of the class, I learned PowerPoint. By then I had many recipes already, so I said, 'Maybe I should put all
my recipes in PowerPoint.'" Then her students began urging her to put her recipe collection into a book. Neeta did, and the rest is
history.
Her book is different for other cook books in that it features key techniques in Indian cooking and uses those key techniques with
only six spices to create numerous recipes. Neeta's dream is now a reality. "It's a legacy that I offer my children," she said. "Even
when I'm gone, they will remember their mom and how I loved to cook for them." Neeta dedicated her book to her mom -- her mentor.
Today, Neeta's daughter is in her third-year at UW-Medical School while her son just graduated from UW-Madison with a political
science degree and is going to Harvard Medical School. That's a great accomplishment for a mother who decided to stay home and
cook great dishes for her family.
Now, Neeta is sharing her home cooking with the rest of the world.
June 29, 2007 was a most exciting day for Neeta Saluja. Her first book,
"Six Spices: A Simple Concept of Indian Cooking," just came out of the
press. Her face showed it all: a look of pride, satisfaction, happiness, and
achievement. Let's take a journey back in time and get a glimpse of how
Neeta became the Indian culinary expert that she is today.
When Neeta married Kewal Saluja, she committed herself to take care
of him and their future children, whether or not there was a career opening
up for her. While the couple originally came from India, both were
migrants when they met in Australia where Kewal worked as a professor
in computer engineering and Neeta worked as a librarian.