ABOUT ME
You bring the curiosity. I’ll bring the spice.🌶️✨
About Me
If you ask me what food means to me, I’ll tell you this:
Food is connection.
Food is belonging.
Food is the love language that needs no translation.
Food is the memory of the grandmother who fed us with her eyes, the aunties who made sure our plates were full,
and the cousins who yelled “one more dosa!” even when we couldn’t breathe anymore.
And most of all — food is the joy of sitting together, laughing, sharing, talking, eating, being.
The table where we sat down to eat each day, for me, has always been sacred, a kind of temple.
Not the quiet kind — but the lively, noisy, happy, fragrant kind, where no one leaves hungry and everyone leaves loved.
Where My Story Begins....
I grew up between sea- salted flavors of Mangalore and the gentle, soulful, temple-lit food of Tamil Nadu, the two worlds
that shaped my taste buds ,
long before I knew what the word “flavor profile” meant.
From Mangalore, I inherited:
wild love for seafood
fiery bold chicken dishes
Sunday meals that tasted like the ocean had come home to visit
From Tamil Nadu, I learned:
the spirituality behind food that eating can be a form of meditation
the magic of ghee melting over hot idlis
that a bowl of rasam can fix both colds and broken hearts
the poetry of temple prasadam — simple, humble, unforgettable
My childhood was a tapestry of everything delicious — idli-sambar mornings, coconut-scented curries,
piping hot rasam, coastal fish fries, and theindescribable magic of temple prasadam.
My heart is basically: 50% wild sea winds, 50% soft Tamil soul food, 100% hungry.
🥄
A Culinary Identity Crisis
Picture this:
When I moved to the U.S., I would wander through malls and think: “Okay but… where is the idli-sambar stall?
Why is there McDonald's EVERYWHERE — but no dosa joint?
How are people surviving??”
I wasn’t being judgmental.
I was being concerned. Deeply. Emotionally. Spiritually.
Because somewhere inside me, a voice whispered: “They don’t know what they’re missing.”
And that’s when something in me clicked.
🌏
A Bridge Between Cultures
I realized I wanted to be the link — the window, the doorway, the friend who gently nudges your taste buds awake and says: “Here… try this.
This is home for me. Come, let me share it with you.”
No gatekeeping.
No “this is too spicy for you.”
Just warm, inviting, joyful sharing — the way I grew up experiencing food.
Because in the culture I come from, food is never eaten alone.
Food is community.
Food is love passed hand to hand.
And if someone here in the U.S. has only tasted butter chicken… Well. Let’s just say their taste buds deserve a promotion. 😉
🍳
My Cooking Journey Didn’t Begin in Childhood — It Began in America
I wasn’t one of those kids cooking in the kitchen at five.
I wasn’t rolling chapatis or mastering biryani as a teenager.
My cooking journey didn’t start early…
it started suddenly.
When I moved to the U.S. in my 30s, I carried a lifetime of flavors in my memory —
but zero idea how to recreate them.
I missed idli-sambar.
I missed coastal curries.
I missed rasam that felt like emotional first-aid.
And honestly? I missed home — the taste, the feeling, the memory of it.
So one day — out of longing, homesickness, and pure stubborn hope —
I stepped into my kitchen and tried.
The first attempts?
Messy. Loud. Funny. Sometimes tragic.
But slowly… magically… beautifully…
they started tasting like something.
Then, they started tasting like home.
And that’s when I realized:
Cooking is not a skill you’re born with.
Cooking is a calling that arrives the moment you truly need it
Once that spark lit inside me, there was no turning back.
My kitchen became my compass, my canvas, my therapy, my joy.
AGE 20
The Explorer
Years
Tasting, observing, forming a
food identity
Wandering through spice markets, tasting everything, not knowing I was quietly building the palette that would one day become my voice.
AGE 30
America Changed
Everything
The real cooking journey began out
of longing & necessity
Grocery aisles, longing, homesickness… and the stubborn hope that pushed me to recreate the flavors I missed.
This is where I found my courage.
TODAY
Stirred
By Spice
Teaching, storytelling, fusion,
photography, all of it
Teaching, creating, storytelling —
I finally found my flavor, my voice, and my purpose.
And now I get to share it with you.
📸
Photography That Makes You Hungry
Somewhere along the way, I found joy in photography — especially food photography.
No classes. No fancy setup.
Just intuition, light, and love.
I’m a self-taught photographer who works entirely on instinct and emotion.
I capture the steam rising off hot rice, the way sunlight hits turmeric and makes it glow,
the shine of ghee on a spoon,
the chaos of spices scattered on the counter.
Friends would tell me:
“Your food pictures make me hungry.”
“I can smell the spices through the screen.”
Honestly? That’s the goal.
Photography became my way of letting you taste a dish before you ever cook it.
A picture should feed you even before the food does.
🍛
Food, for me, is connection.
Food is memory.
Food is belonging.
Food is laughter and conversation.
Food is the feeling of sitting together — a moment that feels like prayer.
This blog is my attempt to bring that emotion, that table, that culture… to you.
If you’re Indian and homesick…
If you are someone who is curious about South Indian flavors…
If you love soulful, playful, emotional cooking…
Welcome home.
🔥
My Cooking Is… Me
Emotional. Playful. Curious. A little adventurous. A little nostalgic. A lot grateful.
No beef, no pork, no eggs (allergy!), but everything else cooked with heart.
Cooking, for me, is an art — a sensory dance of color, sound, texture, smell, and memory.
Recipes are not just instructions. They are stories. And every story has a heartbeat.
Food is my love-language. Spice is my compass.
🌶️
What You’ll Find Here
✔ South-Indian classics
✔ Coastal Mangalorean favorites
✔ Temple-style comfort food
✔ Fusion recipes from my playful experiments
✔ Easy, approachable cooking for busy days
✔ Beautifully photographed recipes
✔ Stories woven through every dish
🫶
Why I’m Glad You’re Here
Because food is my love language.
Because teaching is my joy.
Because sharing culture is my purpose.
Because connection lives at the heart of every recipe.
So wherever you are in the world, I want your kitchen — to feel the joy, comfort, curiosity, warmth, and beauty of Indian home cooking.
I want to help you taste India not just through dishes, but through the stories, the laughter, the nostalgia, and the soul behind them.
If you’re curious, hungry, excited, or simply love good food…
You’re already family.
You bring your curiosity. And let me bring the spice. 🌶️✨
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