Cooking up a story

A former journalist and promoter of lifestyle brand Shades of India, David Housego is a true bon vivant

As I enter David Housego’s house, I am greeted by his eight-month-old daughter Meher, who happily decides that the beads I am wearing are now her plaything. As he welcomes me in, Housego is busy tending to little Meher as she battles a cold and fever. Housego, a one-time journalist with the Financial Times and the Economist, now owns and runs (with wife Mandeep) Shades of India, which makes high-end upholstery and linen and now also has a clothing line. Their house reflects their passion for textiles. Mandeep says, “We keep changing the upholstery in the house.”

When it comes to food, Housego is the man in charge. He says, “I start thinking at the beginning of the week what we are going to eat the next seven days. If you have to eat, you might as well eat well.” Housego’s interest in food was piqued when he was an FT correspondent in Paris in the early 1980s. Paris, then, was a city that lived for food. “Good food,” says Housego, “was ever-present.” A close friend who was passionate about cooking taught him not just how to cook, but also the joy of it. “I learnt from him the pleasure of cooking food.”

That pleasure has meant that the Housego table boasts of world cuisine. French, Italian, Indian, Asian and Persian are part of everyday fare. Says Mandeep, laughingly, “Our daughter is being weaned on haute cuisine.” Indeed, little Meher has the most exotic food — though it’s still mashed up into the unattractive goo that babies are forced to eat.

Housego’s journey starts with sourcing the ingredients. “I do all the shopping myself,” he says. “The basis of good cooking is the ingredients that go into a dish.” He goes shopping once or twice a week and says that what they eat is often dictated by what is available. “A lot of ingredients for French, Italian and South-east Asian cuisine aren’t easily available here, so one has to improvise.” For instance, he says, in Europe you get an array of tomatoes, each with a distinct flavour, which are simply not available here. Another thing that he misses in India is good cheese. INA market and the French Farm run by Roger Langbour are two of his favourite places to shop.

I tell Mandeep, as she lays the table beautifully, that she must be the luckiest wife in the world, with her husband putting such great food on the table every day. She laughs and ribs her husband good-naturedly, saying, “Sometimes, I tell him let’s have just kadhi-chawal.” Housego smiles at his wife’s comment and brings out the three dishes that he has painstakingly made for us. The main dish, chicken with mascarpone, rosemary and paneer is, of course, superb.