Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Today's podcast is nominally an interview

about a cookbook. But it takes a surprising turn into a lesson on the benefits of trying new things,

especially as you get older. It's with Asma Khan, a big-time British chef. If you watch that

Netflix show, Chef's Table, you might recognize her.

She's got a new cookbook out called Monsoon, and it's in part about learning how to cook.

And I don't just mean how to cook the recipes in the book, but how to get a feel for the food,

how to start making your own decisions about layering spices on the fly.

In this interview, NPR's Asma Khalid asks her about how she changed careers in her 40s,

from getting a PhD to starting a restaurant.

And Khan talks about how your 40s are precisely the right time to do something like that.

That's after the break.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

I often think of spring is the season of rebirth and renewal.

But for the chef Asma Khan, growing up in India, it was always late summer that replenished the cracked earth and drove down the oppressive heat because late summer was monsoon season.

When the rains came, it was as if the earth was blessing you.

For me, my father would always tell me that it is about hope and believing that all

difficult periods will end. Asma Khan left India and moved to England with her husband in the

early 1990s. And it was only then that she learned to cook. And it was only after she'd gotten a PhD

in constitutional law that at the age of 45, she opened Darjeeling Express.

That's a London restaurant that has made her into something of a celebrity chef and an authority on Indian food.

...