Having lived as a busy career woman and an even busier mom I have discovered ways to make dinners and entertain friends and family where time is at a premium. I have learned to create recipes with whatever is in the refrigerator or my pantry or on sale at the supermarket.  Having worked as a process engineer in manufacturing facilities, I look at cooking with an eye to simplify and expedite tasks to make the best use of time. I enjoy throwing parties and I love food, but most of all, I love to cook for people I love.

After getting married, I moved to Germany and lived there for 10 months and visited both eastern and western Europe.  I traveled to India, Thailand , Singapore and Turkey before ending up in Ohio where I worked as chemical engineer for a decade before  having triplets. Currently, my family and I live in São Paulo, Brazil.

I was born in India and moved to New York City when I was six and a half.  I grew up in an extended family where everyone loved cooking and the kitchen was the heart of our household. I was recruited as sous-chef and made to cut vegetables, skin chicken and stir pots from the age of seven.

I was a latchkey kid and my parents always left some cash so that my brother and I could buy food for snacks before they got home.  One day, after watching a Nestle Toll House cookie commercial where the chocolate stretches between the two halves of a cookie, I got ambitious and used the snack money to make my very first batch of cookies at the age of nine and that began my love affair with food.

My self-confidence grew with my repertoire and I was asked to be in charge of dinners on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights thereafter.  I grew up watching TV cooking shows and reading newspapers, food magazines and cookbooks for recipe ideas and techniques on how to buy fish, meat, fruits and vegetables, and how to cook French, Italian, and American foods.

Later, I watched PBS cooking channels and picked up tips on how to make Chinese food. When I was 12, my Japanese best friend taught me how to make sushi.  In college, I was exposed to the Caribbean and Latino community and learned how make recipes from those regions. I made it a point to explore different ethnic restaurants on a weekly basis while attending the City College of New York located in Manhattan.

My parents took me to Europe when I was 19 and I ate my way through six different countries.  I realized that there was so much more to discover in the world of food while traveling through Europe as the breads and cheeses and ways to prepare metas, seafood and vegetables were so different and varied. I had my first taste of french onion soup, beef bourguignon and escargot while in France.  I ate spatzel and schnitzel while in Germany. I ate fondue in Switzerland. I had amazing breads and cheeses while in Holland. In Belgium, I ate frites with mayonnaise. In England, I had fish and chips for the very first time.

I was lucky to grow up in New York City where so many ethnicities existed and the food was very authentic and true to the taste of it’s country of origin. I was given cookbooks as gifts and purchased others to learn about baking and cooking techniques and cuisines.  Additionally, many of my friends are foodies like me and are really good cooks that are willing to share their recipes.

Cooking has become a way for me not only to decompress and exercise my creativity, but to show how much I care about my family and friends.  

Long story short, when I’m in the kitchen, I’m a world traveler with a passion for good food.