Where It Started
My uncles taught me to cook on Sundays in Kenya. Family days out — everyone gathered, the uncles running the food. One-pot chicken, kichdi, kadi, shak, fresh rotis straight off the fire. That's where it started. Not in a kitchen, but outdoors, watching them work and wanting in.
At home, it was my mother. She cooked Indian and Gujarati food every day — jeera chicken, stuffed chicken thighs, dosas. The kind of cooking that didn't come from a recipe book. It came from years of doing it.
My Grandmother's Kitchen
When I was twenty, I moved to Ghana to live with my grandmother.
That's where my real cooking began.
Ghana didn't have the restaurant scene it has now — and the food scene there today is impressive. But back then, if I wanted to eat the food I was used to, I had to make it myself. So I cooked. Every day. Learning by doing, getting it wrong, trying again.
My grandmother was vegetarian. She made Gujarati food that was extraordinary — idli, dosa, poori, uttapam with coconut chutney for breakfast. A green garlic chutney I've never tasted anywhere else. I'll be sharing that recipe on this site.
But here's what I still can't explain. My grandmother made chicken curry and mutton kheema that were flawless. The salt, the spice, the balance — perfect every time. She never tasted a single bite. She was vegetarian her entire life. I watched her do it hundreds of times and I still don't understand how she got it right.
Five years in Ghana taught me a lot. I can make a mean jollof rice.
The Travels
I've eaten my way through a lot of places. Some I lived in, some I visited, all of them changed how I cook.
The hawker stalls in Singapore were some of the best food experiences I've ever had — cheap, fresh, and better than most restaurants. In downtown Bur Dubai, I found Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanese, and Iranian food at unbelievable value — the most authentic Middle Eastern cooking I've come across. Turkey had a food culture and BBQ tradition that I connected with immediately.
In Bali, I watched a chain of twenty villagers sitting in a hut, making marinated pork and chicken sate together. That image stayed with me — cooking as something a whole community does, not just one person at a stove. Ethiopia's injera and curries were unlike anything else. Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand — every trip added dishes I had to learn to make.
I'd come home and try to recreate what I'd eaten. That's how my kitchen turned into what it is now.
BBQ & Marinades
If there's one thing I'd cook every day, it's BBQ. Indian tandoor marinades are my foundation — chicken lamb mishkaki, peri peri chicken. The combination of East African and Indian grilling is where I feel most at home.
Turkey's BBQ culture reinforced what I already knew: the best grilled food starts hours before the fire. It starts with the marinade.
You'll find more BBQ and grilling recipes here than anything else, because that's what I keep coming back to.
How I Cook
Cooking slows me down. In a life that moves fast, standing at a grill or over a wok is the one place I'm not rushing.
My approach is simple: great ingredients, straightforward technique, and the patience to get it wrong a few times before getting it right. No shortcuts that ruin the dish. No complicated methods when simple ones work. Producing something from scratch that tastes right — that's what keeps me cooking.
I'm not a professional chef. I don't run a restaurant. I'm a home cook who's spent years eating across the world and bringing it back to my kitchen.
Every recipe on this site has been through trial and error. If it didn't work reliably, it didn't make the cut.
Who I Cook For
I cook for my wife Sejal and my daughter Niya.
Niya's current verdict on Chilli Chicken: "It's spicy but I like it anyway." High praise from someone who thinks ketchup is a spice.
If a recipe works in a house with a five-year-old who negotiates every meal, it'll work for you.
What's Coming
There's more to come. A lot more. Indian street food, East African dishes, my grandmother's green garlic chutney, Southeast Asian favourites, and whatever I eat next that I can't stop thinking about.