He reminisces about the smell of cherry blossoms when he thinks of his childhood in Baramulla, Kashmir. The chef extraordinaire Parvinder Bali dreamt of becoming a neuro surgeon and even dabbled in engineering but chanced upon hospitality thanks to a room mate in college, and was completely awed by the art of cooking. Cooking should probably be thankful for that as Chef Bali went on from the Oberoi Center of Learning and Development to the Oberoi Group of Hotels and carved a decorated career for himself. He was the youngest pastry chef, and was sent to Australia to train with the best chefs, he then joined ITC, opened an Indian restaurant in Taipei and has been associated with culinary schools like Mausi Sebess in Argentina, Cordon Bleu in London, Culinary Institute of America New York.
Chef Bali recalls, “My dad was in Army and we visited Kashmir every year in summer. I would wander into the orchards. We used to eat a sour cherry called Loocha with black salt and roasted cumin powder. There were varieties of plums too. The ones that look green from outside, but blood red when you bite them, fresh prunes growing in my backyard and pears too. I was fascinated by the local fish vendor who sold Rainbow Trout fish.”
The chef who spent a day with Jamie Oliver, 10 days with Gordon Ramsay in London and time with Thomas Keller at French Laundry in Napa Valley is a pastry man at heart and can spend days in baking heaven, but the Kashmiri loves his Tabakmaas, marsawangan korma, a good lamb yakhni, Rawangan tsaman and moinja jhaaq.
Cooking with Chef Thomas Keller at French Laundry was something special and he also loved working with executive chefs around the world at some of the most premiere colleges in the US and Culinary Institute of America.
“I think food and music are definitely two things that unite people around the world,” says the master chef who has also travelled across Spain teaching Indian cooking. “I am learning Spanish from Instituto Cervantes, which is a unit of Embassy of Spain in New Delhi. I travel to Spanish-speaking countries, teaching Indian food to Spanish speaking people in Spanish. I teach a bit of Indian curries and breads. The best thing is half the population just gazes at me speaking Spanish — I have had many senoritas actually climb up the stage and kiss me in front of everyone, I must admit, cooking also has been fun,” quips the chef.
About his Australian sojourn, “We had this hotel in Melbourne called Windsor where I was sent. I got an opportunity to work in Park Hyatt, Sofitel, Grand Hyaat and even stand-alone restaurants such as Ceconis in Crown Plaza and Wolfgang Puck by the Yarra river,” adds the chef who was in the city for the Culinary Kashmir Festival.
His life has been a mirage of baked wonders that were memorable, “I made the wedding cakes for Shweta Bachchan and Priyanka Wadhera. I once made a cake for Ritu Beri too. I have cooked for many Bollywood stars and a few know me by name. I once cooked venison roganjosh for Marco Pierre White (the famed British chef who was once the youngest chef to be awarded three Michelin stars) and he kept abusing and saying it was terrible and kept eating and asked for more in the end!” he says.
For newbie cooks, Chef Bali advices, “Start with basics, choose ingredients well, have passion, perseverance and punctuality. Food is about bonding with ingredients — If you talk to them, they will always tell you a story.”
His kitchen has his fave cooking appliances, a few pots and pans, spatulas, tongs and dusters and great music to make the cooking a pleasure, and when he is making Kashmiri cuisine, he says one should follow the, “KISS principle. Keep it simple and straight. Most cooking is stewing on dum. The sealed pots lock flavours and nutrition. A chef is like a conductor in an orchestra, his job is only to make the right choice of combinations to create magic,” smiles the man who has a rich musical repertoire to his name too, and plays the flute and keyboards!
“Working in hotels, 16 hours a day, one needs to unwind and one day I heard Pandit Hari Prasad Chaurasia play at our hotel in 1995. It mesmerised me, and I actually walked upto him and asked him that I wanted to learn how to play the flute. I had four to five sessions with him. I have been like his Eklavya student as I have rehearsed with his music playing in background.” Working with world renowned MOF pastry chefs like Stephane Treand, Stephane Glacier, Jean Francoise Arnaud, Sebastian Chevalier, Martin Lippo and Fredrick Morceau, aside, he has also authored three books, which are prescribed text books for catering colleges in India, Kenya, Nepal and Malaysia. His ingredients might do all the talking, but his fingers can make music too. Now, that’s something extraordinary don’t you think?
The Culinary Kashmir Festival is on at Le Jardin, the Oberoi till March 20.
