Women are highly underrepresented in the food and hospitality industry. In India there are few women chefs at the top of the hospitality industry ladder. This stems not just from lack of opportunity but also social factors – families do not encourage girls to take up a career in food and hospitality. Many home chefs also complain of not getting encouragement from their spouse or family.
In order to offer women an opportunity to showcase their cooking skills and start their own food business, we came up with the idea of the Food Festival of Women Chefs. The idea of the festival is to offer a platform for women who cook at home and want to start their own food business as well as women who are already professional chefs or in the food business.
We discussed this concept with Asif Kadri of Active Media who organizes the annual Ahmedabad Food Festival. He was interested. Thus, we decided to plan the event for 7th and 8th March 2020, which is universally celebrated as Woman’s Day. Sports Club of Gujarat agreed to be the venue partner. State Bank of India was willing to sponsor the event.
The announcement of the event on social media got a heart-warming response. Many women food entrepreneurs, including home chefs and home bakers, came forward to book booths for the festival. Some women who were not yet food entrepreneurs at the time of event too decided to showcase their skills and explore the possibility of turning their passion into a profession. Each one was asked to list their specialties, based on which the menu for each booth was decided – to the extent possible, we wanted that each exhibitor should have a distinctive dish or different cuisine from the others. Women were also encouraged to specialize in a cuisine that was their forte. This helped in two ways – reducing rivalry between booths and, at the same time, offering a vast variety of cuisine to those who attended the festival.
Together with the food exhibition, we also organized talks and workshops.
Dipika Chauhan (Dy Commissioner, Food and Drug Control Authority, Gujarat) addressed the
women entrepreneurs, informing them about food safety regulations, licensing and FSSAI registration requirements for those entering the food business.
Yashodhara Pande, Lecturer, Institute of Hotel Management, Aditi Chand, Academic Counselor, International Institute of Hotel Management, Chef Vrinda Menon, Sous Chef, The Fern – An Ecotel Hotel, Ahmedabad, and Smruti
Purohit, Store Manager with an international chain, spoke on stage about careers in food and hospitality. Jaya Sharma, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Hotel Management, Bhagyashree Dabi, Research Scholar – Tourism and Hospitality and Shikha Patel, owner of Luxury Mithai, talked about food entrepreneurship for women. Pranav Joshi, owner of Food Designer, spoke about the key points that women should keep in mind before opening a café or restaurant.
The festival also featured workshops by professionals like
• Microgreens Masterclass by Preeti Kapassi.
• Party Food Without Cooking by Riddhi Patel, Corden Bleu trained
chef and owner of Le Artisan Boulangerie with Kamini Patel, Founder of Kitchen Therapy and host of her own show on India Food Network (IFN Veg)
• Cold Desserts Masterclass by Alka Khanna Bhandari and Kaninika
Mehta, baking professionals
The exhibitors:
1. Pinky Soni and Rupal Soni, sisters-in-law, run a home enterprise called DJ Samosa. DJ is an acronym for Devrani and Jethani, the local terms for elder and younger sister in law. Their specialty is the Navtad Samosa typical of the walled city of Ahmedabad. They also made Thepla, Pav Bhaji, coffee and chai at the stall and Chai.
2. Jayanti Santosh Kumar is a political science graduate who was born into a Palakkad Iyer family. She grew up in Odisha and moved to Gujarat after marriage about two decades ago. She has co-founded ”Just Monkeying” Children’s Library and is also a Partner in 22/7 Enterprise. She has ventured into offering traditional and unique south Indian cuisine using a blend of modern technologies and traditional recipes under the brand Sambhar.co.in. Moving beyond the masala dosas, Sambhar.co.in offers exotic south Indian dishes some of which is hard to come by in South India itself as Idiyappams, Stews, Kozhakattai, Sevai, Appam and more Initially being offered for the B2B markets, she ventured out to the B2C markets with the delivery service provider Iwingzy.
3. Sonal Mahurkar hails from the family that owns the Phaltan Fort in Maharashtra. She has had many opportunities to try royal cuisines of the Marathas and the Rajputs. Though she studied public administration and is a qualified interior designer, cooking is her passion and newly started profession. Her firm Sonal’s Delicacies specializes in Maratha style veg and non veg dishes, and she is also a home baker. Her clientele includes many corporate houses and prominent families. At the Food Festival, she offered specialties from Kolhapur like missal and chicken rassa. You can read her recipes on https://www.feamag.com/author/sonal/
4. Harsha Lalwani is a home baker and freelance tour manager – she has traveled more than 13 countries as a tour manager. She conducts workshops on baking and classes for children. She provides desserts on order and is especially known for her brownies. Her Instagram handle is live love bake.
5. Kinjal Gohil is Harsha Lalwani’s partner in the enterprise called live love bake. She is a prolific food blogger (handle hungrygang_ahm) and her love for desserts led to her joining her friend Harsha in the business of making desserts like fudge brownies and cheesecake.
6. Jyoti Kadecha lived in Wadi Halfa near the Sudanese border with Egypt. She has grown up making and eating Middle Eastern Cuisine which has been her family’s staple food for more than three decades now. Her enterprise, The Nile Valley Kitchen, brings you the original recipes from the banks of River Nile as it flows through Egypt and Sudan. Her Menu consists of Ful Medames, Falafels, Baba Ganoush, Home Made Feta Cheese and much more prepared with authentic Ingredients from the Arab World.
7. Sujata Dehury quit her active career in journalist for motherhood and she is pursuing her passion for the food of her home state Odisha. She took advantage of the social media, created pages, took an active part in discussions in various groups, presented papers on Odia food at seminars, wrote detailed food articles, put up successful Odia food popups while in Delhi, and hosted guests over a good conversation around food. She manages a page ‘Revivalsutra’ on Instagram and a group called ‘Easy Gourmet’ on Facebook. At the Food Festival of Women Chefs she presented many Odia dishes like ghanta and mangsha jhol.
8. Antara Boruah is an IIT Bombay-qualified geologist. She left her career with multinationals to pursue her passion for cooking and food photography. Antara’s clientele for food and beverage styling and photography have included tea brands, FMCG companies, restaurants and hotels. She promotes the cuisine of her home state, Assam through her blog Choukascribbled.
In Ahmedabad,she has organised Assamese food popups and festivals at Novotel, Tilla cafe and Just Food Inn. Recently she has judged a popular cooking reality show organised by a TV channel in North-East India. Her firm Victusbuzz in partnership with Pankaj Upadhyay handles Digital Marketing and Branding of many restaurants.
She partnered Sujata for a booth called Meals for the East where she offered many specialties from Assam. Read her Assamese recipes on https://www.feamag.com/author/antara-boruah/ .
9. Bhavana Srivastava is a Preschool owner and a cancer survivor who has started a community called “Cancer Connect” to support cancer survivors and fighters. Proud of her roots in Varanasi which she describes as the World’s Oldest Living city she offered the city’s famous tamatar chat and sattu sharbat at the Food Festival of Women Chefs. Her stall called Cafe Cancer Connect was an initiative to support the cause of motivating cancer survivors and their families to cope with their lives.
10. Alka Khanna Bhandari is a home baker from six years. She is an instructor for the professional baking course of Ahmedabad Management Association since two years. Under the brand Crumbs- A little bliss in every bite, she offered Punjabi meat masala and pav, eggless fresh mango cheesecake cups/ blueberry cheesecake cups and mango cheese cake cups, and soft butterscotch caramel brownie with caramel sauce.
11. Dolly Smita is an educator who follows her passion for food especially pickles. She sold many veg and non-veg pickles, as also mocktails.
12. Santosh Vyas is an HR professional with 8 years of experience in human resource development. She participated in Rasoi Ni Maharani, a show on Colors Gujarati September 2019 but due to job pressures, she could not proceed to the next round despite being selected among the top nine from 285 contestants. She has now quit her job to pursue her passion for cooking. She served Spinach Gravy – Live Khichu, Flavoured Pani Puri and a Minty Lemon Mocktail.
13. Pushti Chokshi is studying for her bachelor’s degree in Foods and Nutrition at M, S, University, Vadodara. Her Café, JB Kitchen combines her passion for cooking with her knowledge of nutrition sciences. Her experiments in the kitchen have led to the creation of recipes for Bean Tacos, Vegetable Cones, Whole Wheat Stuffed Tortilla ,Oats Wrap ,Pumpkin Burger etc that are healthy options to what is usually available. She says she wants people to know that healthy food can also be tasty.Her aim: To start her own chain of health cafes with serving healthy and innovative dishes which would be nutritionally packed with macro and micro nutrients for the clients. Her featured recipe https://www.feamag.com/a-healthy-snack-recipe/
14. Preeti Kapasi is today pioneering new trends in the vegan food industry through her brand The Vedic Kitchen. She is a vegan enabler and helps people transition to a plant-based diet. Today she is a subject matter and industry expert for vegan food and conducts workshops and demos, caters to personal and corporate food needs, offers consultancy to hotels and restaurants that want to introduce vegan dishes on their menu, sensitizes restaurateurs to the special dietary needs of vegan diners and develops vegan alternatives for dairy and meat food options. Read her article https://www.feamag.com/will-it-be-v-for-vegan-restaurants/
15. Dr. Vidhi Patel practices at Zydus Hospital but loves cooking different delicacies at home. She used to cater food before entering the medical profession. At the Food Festival of Woman Chefs she presented Jamnagar Ghughara with various dips and garnishes.
16. Raveena Gohil is a young woman entrepreneur in the food industry. She has her own manufacturing facility for masala and whole wheat cake mixes. Her blog – https://www.pickledemotions.com . Her recipe – https://www.feamag.com/author/raveena/
17. Dhara Mehta is a psychologist by qualification and a Special Educator by profession, but she is also a home chef who takes orders for various dishes and desserts. She is known for her dips, accompaniments and cakes.
18. Purvanjali Agarwal is an entrepreneur who wears many hats. She is a passionate home chef. Together, Dhara Mehta and Purvanjali Agarwal put together an extensive selection at the festival including Kalamante Olive dip toastades, banana cake with nutella drizzle, pesto lettuce cheese toastades, oreo pops, almond florentine, British Jam Tarts with fresh fruits, Marwari gglab jamun rabari parfait, baked dal pakwan tacos and matka kanji vada.
19. Kavita V Purohit owns a cafe where she serves Tawa Icecream and fast food. Her booth sold twisters and ice-cream.
20. Sonal Kellogg is a long term media professional, a senior journalist and a food writer who has been writing about food for around 24 years in various places including Indian Express, The Asian Age and other online platforms. She has a keen interest in cooking and has worked in various hotels in India and also in Kenya. She loves cooking and experimenting with different cuisines, different kinds of food, techniques and flavors. She loves to both cook and bake and her Christmas cakes are a huge success every year in the festive season. Her cooking philosophy is keeping it simple but tasty ensuring that the flavors don’t get overpowered by excess use of spices. Sonal is also the founder of Sabfree Foundation, an NGO which works to end Child Sexual Abuse and to empower women by breaking stereotypes.
Her menu included Easter eggs, chicken biryani and cupcakes. She labelled her stall FOOD PERIOD to raise awareness against the taboos regarding menstruating girls and women.
21. Moumita Bannerjee owns a shop in Chankheda selling Bengali products. Her stall called Kolkata Taste sold a variety of dishes typical of Kolkata like fish cutlet, veg chop, Bengali samosa or singhara, chicken kasha, biryanis, rolls and Mughlai parathas.
22. Farzana Kadri is a geologist by education. She has worked extensively with the underprivileged and primary producers of Gujarat. She has worked with bonded laborers tribal community, fisherfolk, salt pan workers, agriculture laborers and small and medium farmers of rural and coastal Gujarat. She firmly believes that progress in society can be achieved through livelihood enhancement and regeneration of resources. She has helped these primary producers to create a direct market linkage with urban and rural consumers she has also planted almost 1000 heacters of mangroves with the help of corporates and Government of Gujarat , along the 1600 Km long coastline of Gujarat, which apparently is the longest in India. At present, she is managing Divan’s Bungalow, her family’s ancestral mansion that is now a heritage hotel in Ahmedabad. At her booth, she offered the heritage dishes from her heritage hotel like masoor pulao ghost wala and sevaiyan.
23. Riddhi Patel is a passionate baker who has studied at Le Cordon Bleu in London. Her stall sold a variety of desserts and baked goods from her bakery café called Le Artisan Boulangerie,
24. Shaily Ashish Gupta is a passionate home chef. At the food festival, she promoted dishes typical of Mathura.
25. Anita Joshi of Vatsalya is an organic product enthusiast. At her stall, she displayed a wide variety of organic products.
26. Deepa Jha of Dee’s Bakecraft is a pastry chef who also teaches bakery and develops recipes of vegetarian bakery products.
27. Sargam Manjawala, owner of Flour Power and Fluiditea Kombucha, is well-known for her egg-free and vegan bakery products.
28. Purvi Jhaveri is a food consultant and owner of Purvi’s Creative Foodlab. She has participated in many cooking competitions. She started her pursuit of following her love for cooking with cooking classes and then taking orders for undhiyu, lilva ni kachori, mohanthal and other Gujarati dishes. Now, she is known for her experimental dishes.
29. Mridu Parikh is a hobby cook specializing in fusion food. At her booth, she offered various items like coconut thandai, strawberry and pineapple salsa, pizza rolls, loaded nachos with guacamole, amritsari bhige kulche with chole, stuffed buns, etc.
30. Pratiksha Upadhyay studied economics and is a director of “Maruti Engimech Projects Pvt. Ltd.” Her love for cooking led to her joining a diploma course at the Florence Academy of World Cuisines and is now working on her own project of developing a professional kitchen studio with advanced, tech-friendly as well as traditional kitchen tools where she will conduct culinary workshops and courses for kids and women. Her plans also include having food and nutrition experts on board and to deliver food parcels keeping in mind the dietary requirements of clients. Her enterprises include “Treat UR self” and NUTRILICIOUS.
31. Vishakha Dave is Microbiologist by qualifications who left her career after motherhood. At home, she started making traditional sweets and winter specialties as she did not trust some of the commercial products in the market. She promotes healthy baking, free from emulsions, essence, or preservatives. She takes orders through her enterprise, Bakersstreets.
32. Urvi Gajjar specialises in fusion food. At the Food Festival of Women Chefs, the visitors enjoyed Smoky Roasty Pizza, Mexican Veggie Bites and Fruit Punch at her booth.
33. Hiral Kayasth of Organic Planet Hiral Kayasth is a student who is passionate about Organic Products for a healthy lifestyle. Her store sells a variety of Organic Grains, Pulses, Spices, Cold-Pressed Organic oils, Organic Jaggery, Sugar, salts, Pure Honey, Cow Ghee.etc.
34. Pratiksha Shah ‘s stall called DESI CHASKA offered regional food like BHUNGALA BATAKa, BHAKHARI PIZZa and VARIYALI SARABAT
35. Niriha Sharma is an alumni of IHM Ahmedabad and Le Cordon Bleu, London. She loves painting and baking. Her range showcased at her booth called Firangi Rotiyan included paan-flavored cake, honey cake, orange bundt cake, chocolate cranberry cake, madelines , financiers, almond biscotti and coffee biscotti.
36. Kamala is a center run by SEWA that facilitates the production, craft resource centre, training and workshops for food products besides serving traditional food in café-like settings. At this stall, women from rural areas of North Gujarat prepared traditional food.
The Culinary Heritage Awards were given to women who have contributed to:
1. Empowerment of women farmers, women food entrepreneurs and cooks,
2. Culinary Heritage Tourism in Gujarat.
3. Recipe expertise and quality control in the food industry.
4. Promotion of traditional cuisine through literature,
journalism or social media.
5. Taking Gujarat’s cuisines to different states or shores.
