COCONUT with everything.

That’s how my youngest daughter happily sums up our culinary tour of Kerala, south India.

Our first lesson takes place in the kitchen of a colonial bungalow overlooking the Arabian Sea. Wearing a blue sari and apron, our cookery teacher, Faiza Moosa, stands next to 16 dishes of pungent spices, from fiery chillies to local cloves.

A fan redistributes the breathless heat. Sandalwood incense burns and a lizard crawls up the wall. We’re a long way from the sanitised industrial kitchens and cookery courses of Europe. “These coconuts come from our garden,” adds Faiza, Kerala’s premier cookery teacher. “They’re in most of our dishes.”

We are at Ayesha Mazil, our first gastronomic stop, in the town of Tellicherry. A colonial-style guesthouse with four-poster beds, it is also home to Faiza, 50, and her husband.

I’m with my two young daughters, Anya, 13, and Ella, 11, learning basic Indian cookery in three different venues ‹ without paying a fortune, and enjoying sunshine, too.

Before we start our lesson, we go to the market near the Moosas’ home, to buy our ingredients and discover endless varieties of exotic local fruit and vegetables: from banana blossom (like maize) and long green drumsticks to karela, with its gnarled skin.

Then Faiza’s husband, who likes to be called “Moosa”, whisks us down a crowded alley to the fish market ‹ for kingfish, stingray, shark and pomfret. “Fishing boats come in three times a day,” explains Moosa.

Back at the guesthouse, Faiza stands amid ready-prepared ingredients (there are nine staff in her home). Keralan cuisine is subtle, different from anything else in India, and combines alchemical combinations of spices with influences of Portuguese, Syrian Christian, Jewish and Arab cuisine ‹ introduced by traders over the centuries. Faiza teaches the Moppilah (Muslim) cuisine of her Arab forefathers.

We make Chemmeen Varattiyathu (tamarind prawns) ‹ marinading the crustaceans in coconut oil, orange chilli powder and turmeric. We squeeze tamarinds and sizzle onions, green chillies and mustard seeds for sauce.

Meanwhile, Faiza speedily produces a chicken dish with aniseed, ginger and garlic. A cinch. Afterwards, we whisk jaggery (unrefined sugar), coconut milk and eggs, steaming them in a copper “vanduchembu” for Moppilah crème caramel. Our lesson (producing one meal) takes nearly three hours.

The next day, after breakfast, it’s time to leave. Driving to Sultan’s Battery, we see our ingredients growing ‹ from turmeric plants to cardamom shrubs. Kerala is a lush land with abundant rainfall and paddy fields, spice plantations, coconuts and fresh waters.

We reach Tranquil, a guesthouse on a coffee plantation surrounded by rubber, fruit and spices. We sleep in a treehouse but cook on terra firma. Our hosts are former planters Victor and Jini Dey, newcomers at cookery courses but old hands at cooking.

Our classroom is a backroom with a corrugated ceiling and freestanding gas stoves. Here they teach old family recipes ‹ a mouth-watering fusion of styles. Servants wander in and out, giving us lime sodas.

Our lesson is with chef Sashi, Jini and her daughter, Neesha ‹ with Neesha translating the chef’s Malayalam. We cook Naadan chicken curry ‹ a Masala fish dish and spinach with onion flowers.

Various kitchen hands and dogs join us at different times. At lunch afterwards at a communal table, we eat our produce as monkeys play nearby.

Then we go by train to near Kanam.

Our final destination, Serenity, is a 1920s bungalow-style boutique hotel in Vazhoor, famed as much for great food as its pet elephant, Lakshmi.

On a hilltop with views over the Western Ghats, Serenity has colonial furniture and artefacts and an ayurvedic spa. The cookery demo room is equally elegant ‹ a dining room with gas rings atop its antique table. Our teacher is Rineesh, a fresh-faced young man wearing a tall chef ‘s hat, chef ‘s whites and an apron. It’s all very Swiss, like one of the hotel’s owners.

Before he’s finished teaching us to make local specialities of cashew nut paste and curried fish, we have an electrical blackout (not that uncommon in India) ‹ but somehow he talks and cooks through the dark. Afterwards we devour lemon and lentil soup, curry and stuffed bananas.

But our food odyssey doesn’t end here. Even flying home we eat delicious vegetable curry with warm nan bread. And when we get back, we manage to make our own delicious Indian feast.

There might not be any coconuts in our London garden but at least the children have learned to cook.

DETAILS KERALA

THE TOUR

Scott Dunn has eight nights from £1,957pp full board staying at Ayesha Manzil, Tranquil Plantation and Serenity, including cookery courses, return flights with Kingfisher Airlines and private transfers.

NOT heard of Lili TarkowReinisch yet?

Well, you soon will. She’s one of London’s hottest new songwriters.

Her lyrics are being promoted across the Atlantic to Grammy-award winning singers like Carrie Underwood, and to American Idol.

Not bad going, considering Lili is also a full-time psychotherapist, wife, mother of two, Aikido black belt and marathon runner.

And the sole decorator of her Ralph Lauren-meets-Louis-Vuitton-andAndrew-Martin-style apartment.

The entrance hall to her west London home sets the dramatic tone.

A Senegalese burial outfit hangs on the wall and the corridor is flanked with wooden African fertility symbols in museum display cabinets.

There’s an Art Deco ebony console table and, on the floor, zebra skin.

Even the nearby loo has walls of black oak planks that were used underwater as sea defences to stop enemy submarines during the War.

Lili greets me in Chanel, jeans and bling. Her hair is waist-length and her eyelashes almost as long. “Never underestimate the superficial,” she laughs.

Originally from St Louis, she came to England 15 years ago. “I came here to do a Masters in Economics at LSE.

My knowledge of the Maastricht Treaty made me the darling of every party!”

Afterwards, she returned to her private psychotherapy practice.

The apartment in which she now lives with her hedge-fund husband, Mark, and their children is stylish.

“Home” wasn’t always thus.

“When I was 12, my father left us in such penury that my mother had to apply for a special permit for me to work,” she recalls.

“Our neighbourhood was disparagingly dubbed ‘Indian Ghettos’.

“We got food stamps – which the Government give you when you’re really poor.

Our motto at home was, ‘If it ain’t broke, it will be soon’.”

Her “escape” came with a scholarship to Washington University, and she hasn’t stopped working since.

It was with a desire to put all this behind her that she tackled her décor.

The couple bought the flat five years ago: Mark liked it because it didn’t need any refurbishment.

Lili, however, had other ideas – for changing every room!

It took three years to get planning permission to knock down walls.

“For a year we lived with builders to save money.”

The experience was worse for Mark.

“I dusted him every morning before work.

He was initially resistant to the changes, so every time he travelled, I’d take a wall down!

Once, he went to his beloved steam room but it was already in the skip.”

The new look is bold, masculine, aesthetically harmonious and somewhat disturbing.

There are white walls and bleached lime oak floorboards.

“But everything has a dark side.

The flat’s full of creatures that have been captured.

Analyse that,” she says, surveying the sitting room with its reindeer rugs over sofas, old zebra skins and antler candelabra.

“That’s not just a picture of a rodeo,” she says, pointing to a wall-sized photograph.

“It’s a prison rodeo.

A sculpture, Missing Boy 3, by the Korean artist Ki June Park is purposely unsettling.

And Tim Shaw’s ‘Man on Fire’ bronze should make you cry.”

It’s also an oasis of brown, silver and monochrome.

“When the man came to design the fish tank in the TV room, he thought I was joking when I said, ‘Only black and white fish – anything with colour becomes a fish finger’.”

Underlying this order is a sense of hedonism. “There’s a bar you can dance on, and every room’s set up for a party.

A sound system follows you around the flat – anything by Shwayze, Wrapt-Up productions or Lo-Star.”

And there’s a wine fridge in most rooms.

“Yeah, pure class,” she laughs.

The sitting room is where everything happens, from seeing patients to recording music and writing songs (“with Jerry Meehan who tours with Robbie Williams, Ellie Golding who’s always in the papers, And Leo Whiteley, who signs stars for Notting Hill Music.”)

There are tribal artefacts, a yee-hah! Remington cowboy sculpture and vintage Louis Vuitton.

But also a grand piano, lead-lined acoustic floorboards and ceiling. Ceiling-height black oak cupboards conceal the kind of technical gear that warms her “trailer-park heart”. Like much of the furniture, she designed these cupboards.

“If I can’t afford something, I get it copied or hit Lots Road.”

This stylish thrift extends to the children’s rooms, despite their Ralph Lauren sleigh beds.

“There’s not a single thing they couldn’t take to their first flats.”

(The kids are aged eight and 11.)

And what of the master bedroom, an Asian enclave with Tang horses?

“Our heavenly Vi- Spring mattress is the star turn alongside my closet of car-to-bar vertiginous heels and Ruhlmanninspired tallboy.

The photographs of vintage cars are all Portobello Road finds.”

She pauses.

“Much of what’s here only costs a fiver.

But the cheap stuff’s beautifully lit, so looks expensive.”

It’s also a home bursting with love, laughter and style.

Now all she needs is a Grammy in the loo.

HOW TO GET THE LOOK

Lighting: All Square (020 7727 0606, www.allsquaregrp.co.uk) .

Handmade beds: Vi-Spring (01752 366311, www.vispring.co.uk).

Audio: BOSE sound system (0800 1074999, www.bose.co.uk); integrated lighting and music from Lutron Homeworks (020 7702 0657, or visit www.lutron.com); and Redhorn Audio Visual (020 7486 8604/8605, www.redhornav.com).

Kitchen: Gaggenau appliances (0870 840 2003); units by Clive Christian (020 7349 9200, london@clive.com).

Antiques and artifacts: Ralph Lauren (020 7535 4600) for sleigh beds. Henry Gregory Antiques (Portobello Road, 020 7792 9221) for vintage Louis Vuitton. Sebastiano Barbagallo (020 7792 3320) for African art.

Display items: from Striking Displays, Brighton (01273 423623) for Perspex display cases.

Aquarium: designed and supplied by Aquatic Design Centre (020 7636 6388).

ONE woman has thrown away the wheelchair to which she was confined for two years. She suffered from ME (chronic fatigue) for 15 years and now, confounding medical orthodoxy, is symptom-free. Another patient says he endured asthma intermittently for 30 years – and is now cured. Improbably, both say their transformation is down to yoga. They are not alone, because many major health benefits are now being claimed for the discipline.

The number of people practising in Britain has tripled in the past decade and now the first NHS yoga facility in a primary healthcare centre has opened in London’s Kentish Town. “It specialises in yoga for diabetes, back pain and breathing difficulties,” says its founder, biochemist Dr Robin Monro, also founder of the Yoga Biomedical Trust, which runs clinical trials into yoga and offers lessons.

A recent study showed that yoga can significantly lower levels of triglycerides – the fats in your blood which if elevated can lead to heart disease. Another concluded that yoga can increase brain gammaaminobutyric levels, which when lowered are associated with depression, anxiety, epilepsy and even Alzheimer’s. It’s also known to lower blood pressure, cholesterol levels and improve memory, sleep, energy, gastrointestinal function and tolerance to pain. In some instances, chronic pain can be eliminated.

Jo Manuel is a practitioner who helps sufferers of illnesses from muscular dystrophy to Parkinson’s. In 2004, she founded the Special Yoga Centre and launched Yoga for the Special Child, a unique service in Britain for disabled children. For a small, charitable facility in Kensal Rise, it punches way above its weight – Jo’s techniques have been adopted by all New York’s special-needs schools.

It was to the SYC that Samantha Cameron took her and David’s late son, Ivan, who suffered from cerebral palsy and epilepsy. “Sam said yoga helped her son relax and find more peace in his body,” says Jo.

Last month SYC held a charity art auction and raised a whopping £100,000 – with artists from Marc Quinn to Sam Taylor-Wood personally donating works – to fund its work. Television presenter Gaby Roslin said: “I’ve watched Jo working with autistic children. I’m astounded by what she achieves with kids who can’t normally even make eye contact or sit still.”

The centre teaches several forms of yoga, from ashtanga to kundalini, in general classes and has 40 instructors. There are special classes for adults with everything from ME to MS and sessions for pre-natal teenagers. Jo’s speciality, a hathabased practice, is the one she uses to treat 350 special-needs children a week.

Jo believes yoga has a positive effect on even the most serious illnesses. Fiona Agombar, a former high-flying executive and author of Beat Fatigue Through Yoga, is one of the centre’s teachers.

“I had ME for 15 years, I was in hospital for months with appalling fatigue and muscular pain, and in a wheelchair for two years. The medical view is that after five years with ME, you don’t get better,” she says. “With yoga, I’ve become symptom-free. Last year I went trekking in Nepal.”

So can yoga cure any illness? “MS, for example, isn’t going to be stopped by it,” says Jo. “But it can slow the degeneration and help sufferers manage the pain. I also see Down’s children meeting their developmental milestones earlier than those who don’t do yoga.”

Dr Monro believes more investigation is necessary if yoga is to be accepted as a part of everyday healthcare. For Jo, however, success is measured in smaller steps, such as when the mother of one disabled girl who attends SYC told her recently that thanks to Jo’s yoga classes her daughter had slept properly for the first time in nine years.

Special Yoga Centre, The Tay Building, 2A Wrentham Avenue, NW10 (020 8968 1900, www.specialyoga.org.uk). Pamper Evening 26 June, 5pm-10pm, £5 entry fee, treatments from reflexology to Indian head massage. For donations visit www.justgiving.com/syc/donate

Ever since the tornado ripped through Kensal rise, north-west London, two years ago – damaging 150 homes and rendering 50 (including ours) uninhabitable – the area has become well known.

For more than a year, the streets most affected looked like building sites. Yet since disaster struck, the rise and rise of Kensal rise has continued unabated.

Whether it was due to some creative local energy being stirred up by the cyclone, the final “coming” of a formerly up-and-coming area, or prohibitive rents in nearby Notting Hill prompting the relocation of hip shops, much has happened since the storm. The biggest changes have been in Chamberlayne road, now dubbed by vogue magazine as “one of London’s coolest streets”.

For starters, Sally Wilton opened Pinkham Lighthouse, London’s first not-for-profit arthouse digital cinema and community venue, in an edwardian theatre. And Miro Davda opened Miro’s Grocery, London’s first seasonal, locally sourced, organic grocer.

Still on the foodie front, The Diner, with outposts in Shoreditch and Soho, has just arrived, offering well-priced classic American fare (burgers and shakes). And worth the detour for the décor is Paradise by Way of Kensal rise, with live music, poetry readings and ambitious food.

Indeed, Chamberlayne road is now considered the new Portobello, encapsulating the real flavour of the area.

Among other shops there is Howie & Bell for vintage clothes, lampshades and chairs, and Niche, which offers fashionable, shabby-chic French and english stock.

My family and I moved there five years ago from Holland Park, wanting more space for less money. Our house was badly damaged by the 2006 tornado but after a rebuild we have moved back into an area we love. We got 2,100sq ft of victoriana with a 100ft garden for the price of a threebedroom leasehold in the royal Borough.

“Despite the recession, there’s a huge demand and a shortage of property here now,” says Alan Isaacs, director of estate agent Queen’s Park Partnership. “Prices £ 460,000: three- bedroom NW10. Through Marsh & have dropped by about 20 per cent compared with 30 to 35 per cent in many parts of London,” he adds.

The leading Tricycle fringe theatre is close, Queen’s Park is nearby and the swish Notting Hill Harbour Club is but a quick jog away. Plus there are good transport links and a regular farmers’ market.

It has more than its fair share of cool residents. Jade Jagger has a pad in a groovy former telephone exchange, while the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens resides in gated splendour.

Nearby, emma Thompson has a victorian house, so, too, does vogue editor Alexandra Shulman, while Lily Allen lives just moments away.

Many of the area’s former inhabitants, Irish immigrants and Afro-Caribbeans, have moved away as Notting Hillbillies colonised the area, but Kensal rise remains authentic and ethnically mixed. It has a vibe: it is creative, energetic, bookish and home to writers, artists and media folk.

Delicatessens and BBC employees notwithstanding, the area still retains its appealing edginess and alternative flavour.

Alternative? Well, you can probably find more yoga here than in India. Indeed, little beats the Mother Nature Clinic with its world-class massage by Krenoula evripidou.

The Notting Hillified Gorgeous hair salon has relocated from Westbourne Grove and there’s a brocante-cum-tea shop opening soon in “one of the coolest streets in London”.

Factfile

Council tax: London Borough of Brent. Band D, £ 1,343.

Schools: Kensal Rise Primary.

Public transport: Tube stations are Kensal Green Queen’s Park, both on the Bakerloo line. Silverlink rail services from Kensal Rise station to Euston take 15 minutes and go to Richmond and Stratford.

Restaurants: The Diner (020 8968 9033); Paradise by Way of Kensal Rise (020 8969 0098). Delicatessens include Miro’s Grocery (020 8968 2298) and L’Angolo

(020 8969 5757).

Market: a farmers’ market is held every Sunday in Salusbury Road.