'My Mother's Spice Cupboard' is the true story of Elana's Sephardi Jewish family's migration from Baghdad to Bombay (now Mumbai) to Sydney.

Unlike most other Australian Jews, her parents were born and grew up in Bombay, and her grandparents were from Iraq, Burma and India. Her father's family immigrated to Sydney; her mother's to Los Angeles; both in the 1960s. They married in Sydney and raised their family there, alongside the father's many brothers and sisters and members of their former Bombay community.

Despite being Jewish, Elana's upbringing was greatly influenced by the food, language and culture of India, and to a lesser extent, Iraq. 'My Mother's Spice Cupboard' is the story of what happened to a community which no longer exists, how its members built new lives in a different country, and what it was like to grow up as one of their children.

It's also about how much things have changed over four generations in one family: Elana's grandparents' arranged marriage produced nine children; both her parents grew up within the confines of Bombay's insular Baghdadi Jewish community; she grew up as a first generation Australian in Sydney; and her children's lives are underpinned by the differing Jewish traditions of her family and her husband's family.

The themes underlying the story are those of family and community versus individuality; choice versus obligation; and tradition versus modernity. And underlying the entire narrative is the importance of food and cooking, which goes beyond the mere provision of sustenance to express warmth, love and hospitality.