Oh, Madhur Jaffrey! She is my all time favourite cookery writer. For my seventh birthday my mum gave me her book Seasons of Splendour (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seasons-Splendour-Tales-Myths-Legends/dp/0140346996?tag=organifortran-21), which is all myths and stories she got told in her childhood (mostly from Hindu mythology) together with scenes from her family life as a child and all the cooking and eating they did and how she because so convinced of the importance of food. Her World Vegetarian is my go-to book for everything (the index is amazing)--I don't have World of the East, but this makes me want to get it.