MUMBAI: Tarla Dalal, passed away on November 6, 2013 following a cardiac arrest at her residence in South Mumbai. She was seventy seven years old.

At a time when cooking as a profession was ‘looked down upon’, a mandatory task performed by women, Tarla made it fetching and zappy!

From an ordinary housewife who took cooking classes at home in 1966, Tarla went on to become one of the most sort after names which is remembered with Indian food.

She specialized in vegetarian cuisine, she penned over hundred cookery books, which have sold more than three million copies. Her name is synonymous with enticing and ambrosial recipes, scrumptious as well as savory cooking, that titillated the imaginations and taste buds of an entire nation. Her love for cooking first took the shape of a book titled ‘The Pleasures of Vegetarian Cooking’ and was published way back in 1974.

She was conferred the Padma Shri in 2007 and she ended up becoming a connoisseur of healthy and fine dining on internet. Tarla took the simple and humble Gujarati food to global platform and turned cooking from a tedious everyday job in to fine art.

Tarla Dalal understood the need of the busy urban crowd, fretful moms, pregnant mothers, young housewives, bachelors, kids and health freaks. She had recipes for all of them.

Dalal was a widow and is survived by three children.

“We would like to thank all of you for your support and affection through the years of Mrs Tarla Dalal’s career. She is no more with us as she expired in the early hours of this morning. We thank her for all the happiness that her talent has given to us and our families,” was posted on her Facebook wall.

She leaves behind a legacy of over twenty thousand recipes that she has created.

May her soul rest in peace.