Geeta Maini definitely had love on her mind when she started working on her first cookbook.

After all, when it's titled, An Affair with Indian Cooking -- The Khaana Sutra of Indian Cuisine, you know the author isn't thinking of a cauliflower. She chose its name, a play on words for the well-known Indian manual of lovemaking, The Kama Sutra, because she is passionate about food. "As my passion grew for food, it was almost like I was having an affair with food," she reflects. She also points out that khaana means food in Hindi.

Well-executed food photography acts as stimulants for recipes that are a blend of her native Punjabi cooking and other areas of India. "The recipes are all family recipes from northern India as they were cooked in Kenya (where she was raised). We picked up ideas from others who had migrated from India and assimilated them," she says.

Food wasn't always a priority in her life. When her parents moved from India to the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya, food was prepared by her extended family of aunts and her mother, Pushpa Bhasin, because four families lived together. "Food was a woman's domain and it was always ready, so I didn't really bother. But when you reach puberty, your family wants you to learn things."

So, when Geeta went to high school in Nairobi and stayed with an aunt and uncle, her food interests developed. "I was trying to copy my mom's and aunt's dishes. Every Sunday, I'd putter around in the kitchen." Then she met Vipan Maini, and by the time she was 18, she was engaged and then married by 20. She had only a vague idea of how to cook when she moved with her husband, a Burlington dentist, in 1976. "I shed so many tears over our first meals. I wanted to duplicate how my mother cooked, but it wasn't like it at all. But not once did Vipan put me down about it," she recalls.

Her cookbook has been in her thoughts for nearly 10 years as she tested and compiled recipes. And her family helped, too. Youngest daughter Tara is her sous chef, and her other two daughters, Natasha, Sandhya, and son Arjun, have helped with words.

Geeta wants people to know that Indian food is not all curry. "When we first came here our new Canadian friends would say, 'Oh yeah, we know Indian cooking. You just add some curry powder.' Then we'd invite them for dinner for a real Indian meal and they'd say, 'Oh, that's Indian food.' And then I'd send them home with the recipes." She says Indian food is really popular in Canada now.

Geeta served The Talk her Indian recipe for tea in her Burlington home, a tea with a blend of spices she plans to market. If you like fennel, you'll enjoy it. She also hopes to sell her own condiments. And, she'd love to have a TV cooking show.

Her first catering event was a Christmas party last year for a Burlington company that presented her cooking lesson followed by her Indian dinner. She'll provide complete Indian dinners or a fusion of Indian and North American dishes with a week's notice.

An Affair with Indian Cooking (Vakils, Feffer & Simons Pvt. Ltd.) is $40 and available at A Different Drummer Books and Indigo in Burlington, and at The Cookbook Store in Toronto.

Geeta's book launch is noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 4, at Le Chef Complet, 447 Brant St., Burlington.

Her cooking classes start next month. For information about them or her catering services, go to www.khaanasutra.com or call 905-334-4011.

sbourret@thespec.com

905-526-3305