A Note to My Kiddos — Mya and Devin

(and Everyone Else Reading Along)

This site began as a way of talking to you—about food, yes, but also about who I’ve been while making it.

You grew up eating dishes shaped by many places: Gujarati cities and villages, California kitchens, grocery stores filled with ingredients my parents never imagined having access to. The food on this site lives in that in-between space—rooted in Indian flavors, influenced by where we live, and shaped by the realities of a busy, modern American life.

Before I ever went to culinary school, I was an electrical engineer. I loved the logic of it—the systems, the precision, the satisfaction of solving a problem step by step. Cooking relied on the same instincts, just with more salt, more spice, and more people gathered around the table. Eventually, I followed that curiosity all the way to culinary school, and then into teaching, recipe development, pop-ups, and the ongoing work of figuring out what comes next.

Motherhood has been the throughline. When you were little, cooking was how I stayed tethered to myself during sleepless nights and endless days. Now, as you build lives of your own and the house grows quieter, cooking has become a way of taking stock—of where I’ve been, what I carry forward, and what I want to pass on.

These recipes are not meant to be precious or prescriptive. They’re meant to be cooked, adjusted, argued with, and eventually made your own. They reflect how I cook now: with fewer time constraints, deeper perspective, and an appreciation for food as both nourishment and narrative.

This site is for anyone who cooks at the crossroads of cultures, who feeds people they love, who understands that a recipe is rarely just a recipe. But if I’m honest, it’s also for you—so you’ll always know the flavors that shaped our table, and the thinking behind them.

With love,
Mumma