Modern Spice author Monica Bhide, at right. Her rice pudding and mango parfait, one of the recipes in the new book, is pictured at left.

Just a few years after her decision to leave her job as an engineer and consultant for a life of full-time cooking and writing, it seems like Northern Virginia resident Monica Bhide made the right choice. Bhide, who has published two Indian food cookbooks and has a third, Modern Spice, due out next month, told DCist the story of her career makeover through infectious laughter this week.

“It’s not something I ever jumped out of my bed at six in the morning for and said, ‘I’m going to talk about leadership consulting today!’ she says wryly, parroting herself. “It wasn’t like that. Now, you can keep me up until four o’clock in the morning if you want. And I’m just so happy. I have to admit … it doesn’t feel like work.”

A private cooking teacher and a regular contributor to The Washington Post, The New York Times and Food & Wine, among others, that enthusiasm and pure joy radiates whether she’s recalling childhood memories of summers in Delhi or triumphantly recanting how she tricked her son into learning Hindi by teaching him how to shell peas. Bhide lives in Vienna with her husband, Sameer, and children: Jai, 9 and Arjun, 2. She gave DCist a glimpse of her passion, along with a crash course in some of the classic Indian flavors, while walking around the Aditi Spice Depot in Vienna and chatting over chai at the market’s neighboring cafe this week.

Wow. How can someone get started cooking Indian food when confronted with the myriad spices in a store like this?

You can really do a lot with just a couple of spices. The most popular spices, the ones you really should have in your pantry are: turmeric, which is what gives Indian food its classic color; black mustard seed, which has really amazing flavor and you can use it with pretty much any vegetable; cumin, one of the most popular spices in Indian cooking, and the red chilies. You can buy the whole dried ones, or you can get the ground. There’s just one more thing you need, and that’s the coriander seed. With that, you’ve got a great pantry going.

If you just want to buy one thing, you buy panch puran. It’s basically a mix of five spices. It’s very heavily used in the eastern part of India. Literally all you need is this. Just add this to the oil, add some potatoes, or whatever vegetable you want, and you’re done. Once you get an idea what to do with some of these, you can start playing with the others. The brand I always recommend is Shan. Most of these things you can actually find at Giant now, and also at Whole Foods.