I don't remember being taught how to cook - I soaked it up from my environment.

Growing up in an Indian home in the 80s, cooking - and eating - at home was simply normal.

On weekdays, meals were very simple, whatever my mum could rustle up in between keeping us kids busy her long to do lists.

But on weekends there would be shopping at the farmers' market, grinding of spices, and animated conversation at the dinner table.

This is where I honed my cooking intuition. 

What are my cooking credentials, then?

Ermm... none.

I am a home cook just like you.

But I have been fascinated by food and by cooking for as long as I can remember and have over 2 decades of experience working with people 1:1 as a nutritionist and have inside understanding about how cooking can be overwhelming and intimidating.

That is where I come in. Glad you are here.

Someone asked me recently what was one thing I remember about my childhood.

I told her it was food.

Not just the food I ate but the way in which food was used to communicate, to serve the community, to show hospitality; in the way visitors were greeted as honoured guests; no one was ever turned away and no one was ever too busy to talk because they were having their meal.

Everyone was welcome and in fact, you had to be careful not to arrive near mealtimes as you would then find yourself sitting down with the family to eat weather you liked it or not.

Even going into a shop or visiting someone at their place of employment was an opportunity to stop for coffee and to chat for a while.

Food helps us to find a common language. Food is one of the ways we acknowledge our humanity, our appetites, our need for nourishment.

It may seem trivial to some people, but when I am telling a story, the part about what we ate really does matter.

God created this physical world, and He designed the ways we experience it with our bodies. These are gifts, not to be dismissed.

God saw all that he had made, and it was good. – Genesis 1:31

Besides entertainment shows and high-class restaurants, it often gets little credit as a creative form. But cooking artfully is not reserved purely for professional chefs or bakers. Fine china, plastic plates, old newspapers, and banana leaves are all canvases for the commoner’s food.

​In his book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, Michael Pollan asks, “For is there any practice less selfish, any labor less alienated, any time less wasted, than preparing something delicious and nourishing for people you love?”

Strangled by the speed of industry and culture, cooking has lost much of its role in the world. But no matter their background, every person can point to the kitchen as a place where they received deep love.

​I grew up watching my great grand mother, grandmother , mother and aunts cooking. Cooking was an event - an offering.

 Much of what I have learnt about cooking is from watching these woman. I watched how they used their hands to chop, cut, mix. To kneed, to roll. I watched them lay their hands over the pan to check the temperature and their senses to perfect each dish.

​I have started Everyday Commonplace in hopes of making everyday, accessible recipes that inspire more people to gather in the home’s common place: the kitchen. Food provides us with a medium for creativity,  relationship building, and cultural exploration. I hope to impart that relationship with food to others via recipes, menu ideas, guides to eating sustainably, and hopefully much more!

​I am a firm believer that cooking should be loose, fun, and experimental. I have no formal professional chef training, but a deep love for food and a continuous desire to hone my skills and knowledge—knowledge of techniques, dishes, history, nutrition, herbalism and the list goes on. I hope I can empower home cooks to take joy in the creative side of cooking, as nothing I make is intended to be a rigid recipe, but rather a blueprint to be built upon.