Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A Confession: I'm biased when I write my review of this book.

Why? Because I already loved the story of Pedro and Tita's passionate and unrequited romance even before reading the book. I grew up on the story. It has been my favourite story since I can remember.

How so? Allow me to tell you of the days when Indian teleseries had class. Yes, back in the early '90s, when I was a kid, they showed all sorts of good stories on the tele. A serial called Margarita was one of them, that my Mum used to watch and I thoroughly enjoyed. The story of Pedro and Tita was brought to life by two very talented actors of the time, Milind Soman (who, by the way, is Chocolate personified!) and Rajeshwari Sachdev. The epic Kalpana Iyer added the necessary spice while portraying Mami .

So powerful was the acting of these three actors, that nearly two decades later, the story is still alive in my memory and I would have remembered it perfectly, scene to scene,had I not accidentally discovered that it was based on a book! And that, too, on the book I had been avoiding to buy primarily because of all the negative reviews it had on Goodreads. (I'm sure they must have mentioned it in the credits of the series but I must have forgotten!) So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that I no longer needed to piece together random scenes from the serial to savour again the romance of Pedro and Tita, my Pedro and Tita, my friends from the good old days!

Do I need to say that I love this story? I adore it! I grew up on it! It's a long lost childhood friend and it's beautiful to me.

Why then do I say that I am biased? Because of all the negative reviews I read here. Apparently, the translation is pathetic, the language is childish, the story is abrupt, the entire plot is pointless and reading this is a waste of time.

Now, I could argue with one or two of them reviewers and say I disagree but how could I argue with them all? Maybe, just maybe, it is possible that because I have always liked the story, I liked it even more. Maybe, for once, I read with a blindfold to all the faults of this book. Or maybe, I picked up the perfect translation?

I don't want to plead my case here and with all due respect to everyone here, I stand by my verdict: I loved the book! I adore Tita and am in love with Pedro. I have a soft corner for Dr Brown. And nothing, no amount of insult or injury, would change my opinion on this book.

I loved the blend of recipes with the story, each giving its own flavour to moods and feelings of Tita, the language for me flowed like water, and the story for me was my favourite flavour of bittersweet chocolate with hazelnut chunks in it!

Do I recommend it? It's a story blended in recipes and encapsulated in magical realism. Hell, yeah I do, if you believe that my taste in books is like Tita' s for food!

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