My life with food does not begin with a sated babe at her mother’s breast; it begins with starvation and abandonment in the streets of India. At two weeks old, through the good works of Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity, I was taken in, given sanctuary, and kept alive.
Be it good luck or divine intervention, I was adopted at three months of age, at which point my adoptive parents healed my malnourished and broken body. My new reality and food source became the foothills of Appalachia and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the United States of America.
Life at the family cabin was bucolic and serene. There was no TV and only a few fuzzy radio stations, but there was an Easy Bake Oven, children’s books with recipes and records filled with songs and stories of food. I don’t think my mother realized it at the time, but she was an integral part of my budding interest in food and the culinary arts. Under her tender tutelage, I learned the joy of home-grown food. Summers were filled with plump cherry tomatoes eaten vine to mouth. There were lettuces, asparagus, sunflowers, and a whole ridge bejeweled with ambrosial strawberries.
My brother and I were taught to dig for worms and fish in the family pond for Sunfish and Bass. My mother showed us how to clean and cook the fish in a cast-iron pan with butter and sage. She took us to peach orchards and taught us to forage on the mountain for wild persimmon, berries, and walnuts. She grew, hung, and air-dried mint, sage, and comfrey from wooden rafters in the kitchen, sparking my lifelong interest in herbalism. There was canning, bread baking, and stock making, too. The magic and wonder of these early years are impactful. To this day, I’m chasing the clean, unadulterated high of those moments and seek to impart this pastoral enchantment to others.
My father’s Northern Italian heritage and our trips abroad played a big role in further shaping my understanding of foodways, cooking styles, and hospitality. There was tortellini en brod,o, buttery panettone, and herby polenta around the family table; fresh baguette with salted sweet-cream butter in Paris, elegant soft-boiled eggs in the Netherlands, hearth cooking in a castle in Italy, open air markets, isles of cheese, terrines of meat, pungent herbs, raised glasses of wine, stuffed flowers, sweet treats and humble lentils turned haute cuisine. These experiences were artisan moments as moving and inspiring to me as any gallery of art.
All this being said, it might seem logical that I would have gone directly into the field of culinary arts, but I didn’t. I followed my passion for natural history, and went on to study zoology in college and then herbalism and botany from noted clinical herbalists.
In my 20’s, I opened my first business, a holistic aquarium design and maintenance company. I specialized in saltwater reef tanks and for many years serviced clientele in Washington D.C. I was happy and good at my job but never felt it was my calling. Inevitably life changes and hard times come knocking. In this case it was a national recession. When Aquariums became a non-essential commodity, it was my cue to adapt and recalibrate my trajectory.
Almost immediately, friends and family came forward with ideas. Their advice? Cook professionally. Over the years, I had taken every opportunity to combine my herbal knowledge in botanical beauty and flavor with cooking, baking, and hosting naturally idyllic gatherings. My friends and family had taken note of my passion in a way that I myself had not. I had never given it a thought – me, the naturalist, aquarium lady; a chef?
Something clicked. It was exciting, fresh, and new. I spent the next few years apprenticing and working the line under talented chefs. Then, I started my second business as a personal chef and caterer, and later went on to become a private estate chef. The naturalist, aquarium lady had finally become a chef. In fact, cheffing brought me new ways to champion environmental issues. By supporting positive agricultural practices, local community and foodways, I provide my clients a superior product and experience.
My life in food is a story of contrasts. Influences come from both rural and urban communities where I have lived and worked. The cultural heritage of my family’s cuisine is a unique mix of Indian, Scottish, Italian, and American. I have enjoyed everything from “fast” food to Michelin star cookery. I have cooked for the needy and I have cooked for billionaires. I have been inspired to innovate and pushed to burnout. These contrasts give my culinary style a depth of range and perspective that made clients bestow on me the moniker “Kitchen Fairy.” My approach is both polished and playful. It is a refined, botanical-forward blend of heirloom and innovative concepts delivered with intention, morality, and grace.
Through the journey of life and the amalgamation of experiences, I have stuck to the magic that originally enchanted me. Now my passion is paying forward the whimsy and culinary gifts I was so blessed to receive. Please join me for stories, recipes, and musings on all things nourishing and edible.
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