Originally published in the October 2015 issue of Robb Report Collection as “India Ink”

Vikas Khanna, an Indian chef based in New York City, changed the recipe for a book launch last spring when he introduced what may be the most lavish cookbook the world has ever seen at the Cannes Film Festival. Utsav: A Culinary Epic of Indian Festivals is a 1,200-page, 35-pound, gold-embellished homage to Indian culture and cooking, with a first printing that comprises a mere 12 copies. The large-format tomes, hand-inke…