I first read about it in LA Times Food section. Since we cook Indian food a lot, one of our favorite recipes is "Konju Pappas" - shrimp in a coconut milk broth from Kerala. When this book appeared, I bought it as a gift for my wife. She has cooked a number of recipes from this. All of them have turned out to be wonderful. Kerala is somewhat similar to Bengal in the orchestration of flavors in its recipes, so we find this book very useful. While the book does not have as many pictures as the standard cookbook, the recipes are very clearly laid out and easy to follow in a North American kitchen. I would recommend this book highly for people looking to explore the vegetarian cuisine of South India.

Though we love Indian food, we rarely cooked it at home before we bought this book. Too time consuming. Since we've had this book, we've made almost every recipe in the book and several have become favorites, easy to make even on a busy weeknight (nightly favorites include chole, green beans thoren, fish aviyal made with salmon). The recipes are easy to follow and come with accurate predictions of the amount of time needed. The outcome is delicious. We've even learned to make successful puri (after having tried disasterously before), dosa, good paneer, and other things we hadn't dared try before this cookbook convinced us that Indian cooking was completely manageable.

Previous reviewers have covered most of the bases - the book is beautifully designed, has lovely pictures; the recipes call for easily obtainable ingredients, are carefully explained and straightforward to execute; the results are incredibly delicious! With most cookbooks, we eventually settle into a few favorite recipes. With this one, almost every time we try a new recipe, it is added to our list of favorites - stir-fried shrimp... spinach pachadi... cilantro & mint chutney... spicy tomato chutney... etc. etc. We've given this book to all our cooking friends, & they love it, too. Kudos & thanks to Maya Kaimal MacMillan & her father!

A huge disappointment!! If you are a Madrasi/looking for authentic or serious Madrasi - tasting dishes, forget it!! This will be O.K for somebody wanting to imitate Madrasi/south indian cooking or for a brand new beginner. Most of the recipes call for couple of basic spices (eg. chilli pd.,turmeric pd.,ginger-garlic)...That's it! But, the names given to these recipes are madrasi-sounding definitely.Any way what kind of cookbook author would call a curry leaf- neem leaf!! I am pretty sure it was not a printing error.

As a tamil Sri-Lankan-American, I was looking for a cookbook that would give me dishes that were more spicier than what you would find in most north indian styled restaurants. This book turned out great. The recipes are very easy to follow and the curries turn out well even if you aren't exact about what you're adding. Some recipes take a long time but worth it.

For anyone who already owns an Indian cookbook - and the place to start is Madhur Jaffey's encyclopedic Indian Cooking - this is a rich source of authentic South Indian recipes. I have tried most of them, and have yet to be disappointed. Be warned though, these recipes produce hotter dishes than most Indian cookbooks, and assume a basic familiarity with Indian cooking techniques. South Indian cooking is associated with vegetarian dishes, but this is Tamil cooking, and there are as many meat dishes as vegetarian, including beef, lamb, pork, chicken and duck. As for seafood, there are wonderful crab, lobster, shrimp and fish recipes. This is an excellent source of recipes for an underappreciated region of Indian cooking.

I had this author recommended to me by a friend who knew of my interest in other cultures, so I found this book in a local library and started reading. I find it to be amazing, especially for a journal of her travel experiences. She uses language which gives the book almost a flavor of fiction (I find that many nonfiction authors use very simple and often dry language, making such books harder to read). Occasionally she seems to have the perspective of a stereotypical European, but in general she manages to have a neutral viewpoint and tries to explain Indian customs from the point of view of Indians, as well as her reactions and those of her five year old daughter.

As far as I'm concerned, one of the best parts of this book is the way that it describes various parts of India in amazing detail, as well as giving some background on the area. Unlike many tourists, Murphy is not content merely to wander around seeing usual sites; instead, she tries to get to out-of-the-way places, and to experience life as much like an Indian as she can (while acknowledging that this can never be fully accomplished). This is perhaps one of the best "outsider" descriptions that I have read, as she really makes and effort to understand her new surroundings.

i have been to the south of india before, as a tourist and as a photographer. this book was really disapointed me because of the blatant explotation of the people in the book, india already has an identity, by dressing these people up and setting up the shots as she has, she is renforceing the sterotypical western preconceptions of this nation,forcing an identity on the country which is not its self representation.

I have a large collection of India photographic books. It was a good idea to focus on color. The colors of India are magnificent and Barbara Lloyd has captured them nicely. I was disappointed that there was no mention of what equipment, technique or even what film was used.

A lovely feast for the eyes in a small-ish paperback book. There is very little text or explanation, but if you would like to revel in the rich hues of south India, you will probably enjoy this book. This is a photographic work rather than a travel guide. The book is divided into sections by color. I wish there had been more descriptions of the images.