Indian Food Is Easy: Vibrant, Comforting Recipes for Every Day of the Week, by Vijaya Selvajaru

Published by Appetite for Random House, Oct 2025

My first time doing the food styling for a cookbook! With 100 recipes to prepare, style and photograph, this was a huge project, and a great opportunity to develop a strong visual vocabulary that pulled everything together for a consistent look and feel across very diverse chapters that included everything from drinks to snacks to condiments and desserts. Tanya Pilgrim worked her usual magic, assembling a stunning array of props that elevated every single dish, and photographing each recipe with that signature style of hers that makes everything look so vibrant and inviting. I had lots of styling adventures on this project, from crisscrossing the city searching for specialty ingredients to using just about every cooking appliance ever invented, building perfect cheese pulls and perfecter cake slices, going through (possibly) 100 pounds of cilantro and even more green chilis (wash your hands, don’t touch your eyes), I used every trick in my repertoire and learned quite a few new ones along the way. The book has lots of great recipes, and I know I have a few favourites that are on repeat here like the Paneer Butter Masala, Pan-Roasted Lamb Chops, and Cheesy Chili Parathas to name a few. The book is out now, hope you get a chance to check it out!