Style:  Clean and fresh flavours using the freshest produce, cooked with love
Cuisines:  Indian and South Indian fare
Qualifications:  Accredited Food Safety Supervisor

I'm a passionate home cook, storyteller and mother of two. 
I love to use fresh produce, sticking to traditional recipes but also experimenting with flavours and trying new combinations and methods of cooking. While on a daily basis I cook traditional indian and south indian fare, my family also loves to try other cuisines. I love to bake and being a mother of 2 means I am creative with my food; constantly coming up with different versions of food that's healthy, wholesome and tasty.There is a treasure trove of recipes in our family... add to all that we travelled a lot and so I got a chance to observe and learn from the houses we visited and the regional street foods we tried. 

Food for me is synonymous with care, love and nourishment. Basically it's all about TLC. Growing up in my home mum would tell us that always make enough food so that there is a little extra left. So incase you had an unexpected guest.. there was always food enough for 1 or 2 more people. Cooking to me was always a creative outlet, a way to relax and especially because I love feeding people. It was something I did for fun. The content and satisfaction on a person's face after enjoying a meal is a priceless sight to behold! Nurturing and nourishing are two very important aspects of what I consider important in life. Food not only nourishes the body, but also the mind. When we are hungry we can't think straight and our emotions are muddled up. The minute the stomach is full... its easy to tame the mind. To me cooking is an act that sustains life, it nourishes the energies of all those around. So when we cook and feed those around us, we are nourishing and performing an act of love and sharing our joy and happiness and our positive energies with those people!

The earliest memories of my life revolve around food! Whether its role playing & cooking in the garden, doing my own food show, chopping up leaves and plants from my mum's garden or sitting with her and watching (mesmerised) the Chinese cooking show on TV - YAN CAN COOK.

There was also the next door neighbour's home where I spent a lot of time playing and observing and smelling; yes... their kitchen was always wafting with amazing flavourful aromas that were very different to the ones in my own home. 
I think my love for all things traditional started from my neighbour’s home. Theirs was a home very different to mine and my favourite thing to do was to sit and observe “Amma” go about performing her daily chores in the kitchen. My own home had a modern & educated mother, who had a modern kitchen which did not fascinate me as much as the house next door; observing how the curd was churned using a hand held wooden churner, blobs of butter scooped out and then the process culminating with the making of glorious fragrant n golden ghee! Or how vegetables were cut using a traditional knife which had a wooden plank attached as a seat to it. The process of making ‘atta’ or the dough for ‘chapaties’ the final drizzle of the peanut oil on the dough and then rolling out big chapaties which were again smeared with just a few drops of oil while they cooked on the iron tawa! I can still remember the smells of that kitchen!

Amma was a fabulous cook and wold make everything from scratch. Sabudana (sago poadums) papads, which were so fascinating for a kid of 5 or 6 to see; gluggy liquid being poured onto a clean cotton saree… smeared in the shape of tiny disks…which would then be sun-dried until they were dry and crisp, ready to be fried and eaten as a snack! Oh the fun of it all, also those semi dry disks would be so yummy… but mind you…. Sneaking too many of them could give one a tummy ache!
It took getting married into a family that was not so much into food, to understand... that not only was I a foodie... but my entire family and most of the people in my life were too! So, growing up it was common in my home to discuss about lunch post breakfast, and discuss about dinner post lunch!

As I grew and travelled around the world, I also realised... That the dining table was the single most beautiful place in the whole wide world, because no matter where you are the "table of food" is a place for people to come together - even if they are strangers, and don't understand each others culture and language. Food and the respect and value for it goes beyond boundaries. A table of food is the celebration of life, no matter the occasion and/or location. It matters not what race we come from, which part of the world or what culture and upbringing. If there is one thing that is common to each and every people and culture in this world, something that binds us all together, it is the love for FOOD.