About
My name is Shivani Khanna. I’m a food enthusiast, culinary instructor, recipe researcher & curator. I’ve been cooking, reading and talking about cooking for more years than I can remember. My passion is reading about innovative recipes from all parts of the world, different cuisines and origins of famous dishes through my large collection of cook books. The turning of a printed page of a cookbook is a pleasure unlike any other for me, admiring the beautiful portraits of food and trying to understand the emotions and expertise linked with the recipe while curled up in a cozy nook, is time well spent for me.
Yet I must admit, I’m highly influenced by the digital world of food pictures, food blogs, their writings and their breath-taking food pictures. It’s a more inclusive and collaborative world through blogging and you can reach a wider audience from your home instantly.
My food journey started with my parents.
My father was fond of eating well, trying out new dishes and sharing his love of food with family and friends by entertaining often. My mother had to step up and become ingenuous in her cooking skills. In those days there were only local grocers who sold local ingredients and only seasonal vegetables and fruits were available.
My mother compiled the culinary knowledge she acquired from her mother and aunts and added her own original recipes to the mix. Baking a cake was an unusual event in our households in India in those days. She proudly made a multi layered cake for me and my brother’s combined birthday all the way back in 1969. I’m happy to say I’ve acquired this trait of hers and make use of it to this day, to come up with traditional and innovative dishes in my own kitchen.
My baking career started in my university days.
My father believed just academic learning was not enough, so I joined a short-term evening bakery course. That was the foundation on which I based my home baking business. I have made handmade liquor filled chocolates for commercial sale, taken orders for supply of cakes and desserts to caterers – individual households, given baking and culinary demonstrations for children and ladies through my culinary life.
I come from a small town in India
and grew up in a time of fresh, home-cooked meals, using only local/seasonal produce. The famous Indian hospitality was very evident in my house with guests over regularly for meals. After my marriage into a large extended family of accomplished cooks, cooking became an essential part of my life. The meals served to our guests are legendary for their balance of delicious flavours, colour, and texture. Most of the recipes are handed down through the generations. The food I cook has been greatly influenced by my mother’s and my mother-in-law’s cooking.
My food mission.
We have already lost most of the simple local recipes from the generations before us, as today we are influenced by sights and smells of food from far and wide. Yet some recipes have been passed on in families and I want to document them before they are lost with the passing of the older generation. Old recipes bring about a nostalgia which is what I want people to remember, children remembering their mothers cooking, a husband his wife’s and so on.
In my food journey across generations, I hope to bring the extended family closer. I want my husband, my mother, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law who rules my kitchen, sisters/brothers-in-law, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, cousins and friends, AND their extended families to contribute their favourite family recipes. This collection of family recipes will be the ‘Culinary Legacy’ I want to leave behind.
In my journey to collect family recipes
I’ve connected with people who shared a certain passion about the particular recipe, how they came about it and how it became a part of the family menu. Many have tweaked the original recipe to suit the demands of the time, availability of ingredients and the taste buds of the family members. Most recipes are remembered in approximation.
The onus lies with me to reconstruct the recipe, giving exact amount of ingredients. So, I get to cook a large variety of food, from far and near, different regions of India, as well as all parts of the globe. Some recipes may have been modified to the ingredients available to me, but I’ve tried to be as true as I can be to the original recipe.
Thank you for stopping by my blog. Feel free to leave comments/questions on the blog. If you would like to contribute a family recipe, please write to me at culinarylegacy292@gmail.com.
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